A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man
October 7, 2016 10:04 AM   Subscribe

 
Fire. Fire ruined burning man.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:12 AM on October 7, 2016 [4 favorites]


But those three other years were choice.
posted by yhbc at 10:12 AM on October 7, 2016 [3 favorites]


There's an inherent fuck you built into Burning Man. It's what makes people come back each year for more, thinking they'll get it right next time. But it's usually ruined before you get in the gate. Playing in ruins is pretty fun though.
posted by Catblack at 10:25 AM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


Don't know what ruined Burning Man. But I have a hunch as to what ruined Zozobra. Burning Man ruined Zozobra. That douchebag!!

Oh wait, maybe Zozobra ruined Zozobra.
posted by strelitzia at 10:48 AM on October 7, 2016 [6 favorites]


Yay! I didn't ruin Burning Man!
posted by aubilenon at 11:02 AM on October 7, 2016 [7 favorites]


Man ruined burning man.
posted by Splunge at 11:16 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


...Woman inherits the Earth.
posted by The Tensor at 11:26 AM on October 7, 2016 [14 favorites]


I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it was the people who aren't cool enough.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 11:47 AM on October 7, 2016 [6 favorites]


"The Third Thing That Ruined Burning Man" would be a great title for a short story co-authored by Ray Carver and R.U. Sirius.
posted by octobersurprise at 12:07 PM on October 7, 2016 [8 favorites]


Maybe the real ruin was the man we burned on the way.
posted by GenjiandProust at 12:10 PM on October 7, 2016 [17 favorites]


A link caught my eye around the time of the burn and from clicking around the folks that stand up the fully qualified Black Rock Airport are having loads of fun.

But folks do seem to take it way to seriously but the ones that do are taking most things way too too. (a relation that was seriously into it but stopped, but no details :-)

gotta get to it soon...
posted by sammyo at 12:25 PM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


(oh they gift airplane rides, shh but get in line early next year!)
posted by sammyo at 12:26 PM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


What about the time Billy Joel forgot to start the fire?
posted by He Is Only The Imposter at 12:30 PM on October 7, 2016 [8 favorites]


I seriously can't tell if this is satire of how some attendees would be upset that "squares" that "just don't get it, man" ruined Burning Man OR an actual call-out of legit grievances the Burning Man organization (since this is from their official .org, right?) has against people not cool enough to be in their secret club. His accusations keep getting more and more "get off my lawn" to be believed as the list goes on.
posted by Hey Dean Yeager! at 12:33 PM on October 7, 2016


His accusations keep getting more and more "get off my lawn" to be believed as the list goes on.

It's the former. You may find this previously enlightening.
posted by sparklemotion at 12:41 PM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


Lord Summerisle thinks you are all posers and arrivistes.
posted by praemunire at 1:12 PM on October 7, 2016 [11 favorites]


It's absolutely satire. People have been complaining that Burning Man is ruined and not cool anymore since before I started going, which was so long ago now that people frequently mistake me for one of the old-timers who was part of it back when it was still anarchic and awesome and vital, though I'm actually just one of the johnny-come-lately newbies who ruined the whole thing. But we loved it, you know, so we showed up again the next year and the next and worked our asses off trying to do the thing ourselves, and maybe to one-up it when we could - and somehow, even though Burning Man had totally stopped being cool by then, we fooled the next batch of newbies with all our imitation awesome anarchic art-prankster-experimental-city stuff, and they thought it was the real thing! So now they're showing up with truckloads of tools and equipment, working their asses off in the desert, trying to one-up the things we did, and goddamn if they aren't putting up a really good simulation of awesome creative anarchy in the process. So it's become a self-perpetuating cycle of ignorance, where by incredible effort and amazing feats of self-organizing volunteer labor, people keep making Burning Man bigger and broader and more complicated every year, each generation fooling the next into thinking the whole thing is still cool, just long enough to get 'em hooked.

But of course it all sucks now, everybody knows that. Don't go, you'll hate it.
posted by crotchety old git at 2:23 PM on October 7, 2016 [18 favorites]


I am kind of fascinated by Burning Man. One of these years that passive fascination might actually translate into action to, you know, like, fucking go. But until then I'll read great satirical journal entries like this one. Thanks for sharing!
posted by bologna on wry at 3:02 PM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


Well, at least no one's ruined Golden Hearsay yet.
posted by phooky at 3:43 PM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


Burningman: the best place that sucks.
posted by Freen at 3:49 PM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


I'd love to go.
General Zima's Winter Wonderland. Ice camels.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 3:54 PM on October 7, 2016


From the moment that I first learned about burning man I felt the same way that I did when I first heard about the gathering of the juggalos. Sounds like a place I wouldn't want to be within 50 miles of. And actually they sound very similar.
posted by Splunge at 6:10 PM on October 7, 2016 [2 favorites]


[Burning Man and The Gathering of the Juggalos] sound very similar.

They're probably about as similar as apples and oranges. Like within the context of fruits, there are some important differences, but in the broader scope of things, of all the hundreds of thousands of nouns, really there's only a couple dozen of things I can think of that are more similar to apples than oranges are.
posted by aubilenon at 6:35 PM on October 7, 2016 [5 favorites]


Gathering of the Juggalos has better music.
posted by lkc at 6:54 PM on October 7, 2016 [3 favorites]


Sounds like a place I wouldn't want to be within 50 miles of.

You should absolutely not go then. It's definitely not something for everyone. The people I've met there have been nearly universally creative, smart, funny, giving, self reliant, self aware. Just everywhere I go there I meet 5 amazing people on the way to the amazing sculpture/performance/thing I'm headed to. Often one of them is so awesome I forget about the thing I was going to in the first place & go wherever they're going instead. Not everybody can handle that. Plus, you know, living in a desert for a week with just what you brought with you.
posted by scalefree at 7:09 PM on October 7, 2016


Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
posted by fragmede at 10:25 AM on October 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm actually just one of the johnny-come-lately newbies who ruined the whole thing

Haha, I was one of those people too (in 2000 & 2001) already listening to people complaining about all the other people like me ruining things. Before I clicked I was hoping this was going to be about actual dramaz like how that one camp had the sign with the guys having sex on it and someone complained and there was a THING about it and that was a problem and etc. This was funny and I should probably go again so people like me can ruin it all over again.
posted by jessamyn at 1:56 PM on October 8, 2016 [2 favorites]


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