Info about Burning Man
August 8, 2023 6:08 PM Subscribe
The question on the green earlier today is prompting mine: what are some good videos/articles/etc about Burning Man? I'm likely never going myself but find it fascinating.
It's complex, partially in-part because the event is what you choose to make out of it, because the event changes year after year, and because there's so much lore that it's hard to fit things down to a Google friendly article while remaining accurate.
What era would you like to know about? It's vastly different now than the early years or the middle years.
If you want to know about the scene that led into it, the book Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society and the documentary Desolation Center give a decent view. They're good if you want to learn about the weird music and art scenes in California in the era that birthed Burning Man. Also search for Survival Research Labs or most Re/Search books from that era.
What would probably be of most interest to you is this archive of an alternative newspaper published at Burning Man. It dates to what many old school burners consider to be the prime years of the event and was largely written during the Burns from 95-07. In other words, as the level of chaos was dropping (people driving around drunk and/or high firing guns from vehicles was a thing as was high speed land yacht racing through camping areas until there was a fatal accident) and some level of organization kicked in and a lot of the concepts that people think of as Burning Man became semi-formalized.
You might also find writing such as this interesting, particularly the Jiffy/Stiffy Lube protests, as the organization struggled to define just how outside of mainstream was acceptable. And compare those videos to the typical Mayan Warrior videos you see these days.
For more modern stuff, I haven't watched any specific videos on it, but search for "renegade burn 2020/2021" on YouTube and you'll see examples of what some of the true believers did in the absence of official Burning Mans during the pandemic, which to me is more interesting than the typical "I had a life changing experience at Burning Man while camping in a luxury camp with paid staff" videos that dominate YouTube.
I found this Econ Talk podcast episode/interview with the Burning Man CEO from a few years ago pretty fascinating
Keep in mind that anything that treats the concept of a "gift economy" as a serious thing is full of it. The gift part is correct, and can be wonderful - there's all kinds of things on offer for free there, from bars to restaurants to art to world class music without spending a penny beyond the entrance fee. But it's not an economy - it's increasingly wealthy people choosing to spend their money on strangers in a shared community. And that's still something nice and special in this world, but without the influx of many millions of dollars from the real economy, it couldn't exist. The ability to see a 40 foot amazing sculpture or eat fresh lobster in the midst of a desolate desert where nothing can live (during the summer) is something but it's not an economy.
One of my favorite things to do used to be to bike around the outer rings of the free camping areas and meet the locals who'd come out. Think of the map as a clock that runs from 2:00 to 10:00 with concentric circles that spread out from the center. The close-in rings are the coveted and convenient to everything else spaces and to camp there, you have to be part of an organized group (which often comes with dues of hundreds to thousands of dollars). The further out parts, anyone can pull up and camp in.
Anyway, the far flung areas used to have locals, who didn't have the budget for big art projects (which can run into millions of dollars) but would do their own little cool art and gifts for people and embodied a lot of the ethos of west coast desert artists. IIRC, they either got free tickets or it was something like $50. Now the "cheap" tier of tickets are $575 (and still sell out instantly) and those people have been squeezed out and those areas often have $200,000 RVs in them.
But I digress.
Lastly, if the Big Burn sounds like a little much for you based on the cost and the fact that the environment is actively trying to kill you, there's a lot of regional events (both official and unofficial) that often embody the prime years ethos better than the current event does. Or if you want to kick it truly old-school, if you search around you can find an unofficial event held on the same site with a lot of the madness of the early days.
posted by Candleman at 10:42 PM on August 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
What era would you like to know about? It's vastly different now than the early years or the middle years.
If you want to know about the scene that led into it, the book Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society and the documentary Desolation Center give a decent view. They're good if you want to learn about the weird music and art scenes in California in the era that birthed Burning Man. Also search for Survival Research Labs or most Re/Search books from that era.
What would probably be of most interest to you is this archive of an alternative newspaper published at Burning Man. It dates to what many old school burners consider to be the prime years of the event and was largely written during the Burns from 95-07. In other words, as the level of chaos was dropping (people driving around drunk and/or high firing guns from vehicles was a thing as was high speed land yacht racing through camping areas until there was a fatal accident) and some level of organization kicked in and a lot of the concepts that people think of as Burning Man became semi-formalized.
You might also find writing such as this interesting, particularly the Jiffy/Stiffy Lube protests, as the organization struggled to define just how outside of mainstream was acceptable. And compare those videos to the typical Mayan Warrior videos you see these days.
For more modern stuff, I haven't watched any specific videos on it, but search for "renegade burn 2020/2021" on YouTube and you'll see examples of what some of the true believers did in the absence of official Burning Mans during the pandemic, which to me is more interesting than the typical "I had a life changing experience at Burning Man while camping in a luxury camp with paid staff" videos that dominate YouTube.
I found this Econ Talk podcast episode/interview with the Burning Man CEO from a few years ago pretty fascinating
Keep in mind that anything that treats the concept of a "gift economy" as a serious thing is full of it. The gift part is correct, and can be wonderful - there's all kinds of things on offer for free there, from bars to restaurants to art to world class music without spending a penny beyond the entrance fee. But it's not an economy - it's increasingly wealthy people choosing to spend their money on strangers in a shared community. And that's still something nice and special in this world, but without the influx of many millions of dollars from the real economy, it couldn't exist. The ability to see a 40 foot amazing sculpture or eat fresh lobster in the midst of a desolate desert where nothing can live (during the summer) is something but it's not an economy.
One of my favorite things to do used to be to bike around the outer rings of the free camping areas and meet the locals who'd come out. Think of the map as a clock that runs from 2:00 to 10:00 with concentric circles that spread out from the center. The close-in rings are the coveted and convenient to everything else spaces and to camp there, you have to be part of an organized group (which often comes with dues of hundreds to thousands of dollars). The further out parts, anyone can pull up and camp in.
Anyway, the far flung areas used to have locals, who didn't have the budget for big art projects (which can run into millions of dollars) but would do their own little cool art and gifts for people and embodied a lot of the ethos of west coast desert artists. IIRC, they either got free tickets or it was something like $50. Now the "cheap" tier of tickets are $575 (and still sell out instantly) and those people have been squeezed out and those areas often have $200,000 RVs in them.
But I digress.
Lastly, if the Big Burn sounds like a little much for you based on the cost and the fact that the environment is actively trying to kill you, there's a lot of regional events (both official and unofficial) that often embody the prime years ethos better than the current event does. Or if you want to kick it truly old-school, if you search around you can find an unofficial event held on the same site with a lot of the madness of the early days.
posted by Candleman at 10:42 PM on August 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
There have been a lot of documentaries about Burning Man. Spark is pretty good, and gives you some sense of how the sausage is made. Every year there are a number of drone flyovers, and you can find these on Youtube.
posted by adamrice at 8:42 AM on August 9, 2023
posted by adamrice at 8:42 AM on August 9, 2023
... what are some good videos/articles/etc about Burning Man? I'm likely never going ...
No videos/articles/etc would do it justice. Just go. Seriously. It will blow your mind.
--10-time Burner
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:12 PM on August 11, 2023
No videos/articles/etc would do it justice. Just go. Seriously. It will blow your mind.
--10-time Burner
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:12 PM on August 11, 2023
(BTW, if you have / believe you have some kinds of special snowflake issues that would prevent you from going, you'd be surprised how many opportunities for accommodation there are. MeFi mail me if you would like some links as points-of-departure for further exploration. BTW, I was 60 in 2022 when I went for my 10th time.)
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:16 PM on August 11, 2023
posted by ZenMasterThis at 6:16 PM on August 11, 2023
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posted by wowenthusiast at 6:57 PM on August 8, 2023