What the Burning Man ‘emergency’ reveals about the class divide

[Ptarmigan]

What the Burning Man ‘emergency’ reveals about the class divide
https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/09/05/what-the-burning-man-emergency-reveals-about-the-class-divide/

Finally, US president Joe Biden has found a crisis that actually interests him. A mass-emergency event has, perhaps for the first time in his presidency, managed to elicit a speedy response from the leader of the free world.

Was it a toxic train derailment that poisoned the water of a small blue-collar community? Er, no. Was it a raging fire that killed a still-unknown number of residents in a historical indigenous island community? Also no.

It was Burning Man – the orgiastic pilgrimage undertaken by Silicon Valley utopians, Instagram influencers and rich kids, and which has become something of an obsession among young people from the most privileged demographics in the Western world.

Burning Man has a sort of Mad Max meets OnlyFans aesthetic. It’s a festival where tech bros and conceptual artists go in search of spiritual breakthroughs in the desert, and then post videos on social media saying things like: ‘Shh! What you’re about to hear may change your life forever. Whatever you think it is, it’s more. Or it could be nothing at all.’ Cool!

Why did President Biden care about the Burning Man mud problem?

The contrast with past actual disasters could hardly be starker. Last month, weeks after a fire tore through the town of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui, destroying homes and killing scores of people, reporters asked Biden a similar question as he headed home from a day lounging on the beach. ‘No comment’, he replied.

I’m not saying that the president of the United States, especially not a man of the people such as Joseph Robinette Biden, would stoop so low as to pay attention to the middle-class professionals trapped for a few days in the mud, while ignoring working- and lower-middle-class victims of much bigger disasters. But it does raise awkward questions as to why Biden was so quick to reassure the nation over the fate of Burners – as devoted festival attendees are known – when so many questions remain unanswered about Hawaii, several weeks after the disaster.

Ten years ago, an emergency incident at a festival would not have been a political issue. The trapped attendees traipsing through thick, sticky mud to escape would have garnered some sympathy from the general public. But in these tough times, when ordinary Americans are struggling to put food on the table, there is probably not much sympathy to go around for attendees of a festival who seek ‘purposeful discomfort’, only to find precisely that on arrival.

These times being what they are, social media were abuzz with rumours about the ‘real story’ of what was happening at Burning Man. Conspiracy theories claimed that the camp was suffering an Ebola outbreak, and that government agencies were sealing the place up. Thankfully, for now, it seems like the worst that happened was a bunch of well-off kids got stuck in the mud for a few days, bravely making do with only spotty cell phone coverage. As it turns out, the Instagram influencers held up remarkably well.

[Ptarmigan]

Burning Man attendees are mostly rich, white, male Democrats: data
https://nypost.com/2023/09/07/burning-man-census-reveals-the-truth-about-attendees/

Who really goes to Burning Man?

The results of a 2022 census of Burning Man attendees revealed that most “burners” are rich, white, straight, liberal, millennial men.

Burning Man, which sold tickets from $575 to $2,750 for this year’s event, is a weeklong, large-scale campout held in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert near Reno, with a goal to create “a temporary metropolis dedicated to community, art, self-expression and self-reliance.”

The creative event was started in San Francisco in 1986 before moving to northwest Nevada, where it has continued to grow in popularity. The festival now welcomes tens of thousands of people from all around the world.

But despite pushing for and highlighting its bohemian culture, the new data offers a more accurate look at the type of person the event actually attracts.

The census showed that the typical attendee is a white, well-educated 37-year-old heterosexual American man, voting Democrat, who made over $100,000 in 2021.

Educated and White Democratic men are most likely to attend Burning Man.

The crowd has always been a white majority (around 80%), which is something the organization has actively tried to change.

After being cancelled in 2020 and 2021, the organizers formed an internal “anti-racism” group and have actively worked toward “radical inclusion, diversity and equity.”

[Drafe Hoblin]

My mom forcing me to let my sister join the Junior Marines 'club'.

My mom forcing my sister to let me join the Girls' Poker-'club'.

That's what Burning Man symbolizes to me.

Something cool and intimate enviously watered-down into meaninglessness by the non-cool.

[Old n Grumpy]

Why did President Biden care about the Burning Man mud problem?

Obviously because it doesn’t require any action on his part