
Revolt against 'rich parasites' at Burning Man Festival - icomefromreddit
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/04/revolution-against-rich-parasites-at-utopian-burning-man-festiva/
======
codecamper
$390 + $80 vehicle pass + fees.

Get real, they are ALL jet-setters & rich kids.

It's the red hats vs the blue hats.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0684186/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0684186/)
The haves vs the have mores.

Yes I'm a little bit down on the whole burning man thing.

You want peace & love? Have a solar panel installation party. Plant trees
party. Pick up sea trash party.

Not a check out my dreads, tattoo & flashy bicycle party.

~~~
namlem
Oh yeah, because being able to afford $470 is a sign of decadent wealth.

~~~
oh_sigh
And getting there, and preparing everything, and taking time off of whatever
work you have to do. It certainly isn't decadent wealth but it's probably more
money than a lot of people can responsibly spend, especially if you aren't
within, say, 500 miles of black rock

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11thEarlOfMar
Any sufficiently large group will eventually develop sub-groups. Those sub-
groups may become sufficiently polarized to generate conflict among them.

Reading about this Burning Man dilemma, I'm reminded of the People's Front of
Judea battling the Campaign for a Free Galilee to the death over _who first
conceived of the plot to kidnap Pontius Pilate 's wife_ [0].

Human beings will fight over anything.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Life_of_Brian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Life_of_Brian)

~~~
WalterSear
This is more complex.

~~~
bcook
More complex than what, exactly?

~~~
WalterSear
Than the parent's depiction of this situation as simplya case of fraternal
squabbling.

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noonespecial
I've always had the notion that a festival that you arrived at and departed
completely naked, carrying nothing just as you do in the world would be
awesome. Burning man became more about what you could shlep into the desert to
show off than anything.

And as a poor kid growing up, nothing pissed me off in quite the unique and
wonderful way as "show and tell" at school.

~~~
c22
> I've always had the notion that a festival that you arrived at and departed
> completely naked, carrying nothing just as you do in the world would be
> awesome.

Some people do this at Burning Man, but it's a good thing they're in the
minority. The alternative would not be "awesome" but a horrifying week of
crises as naked people died en masse in the dust.

~~~
noonespecial
Eyyahh. Not really suggesting you show up to _Burning Man_ naked. This is a
bad idea.

I was thinking perhaps of a hypothetical festival where you show up naked but
the festival itself provides everything to everyone equally. Walk in the door
and there's 53' trailers full of goodwill-like clothing, tons of raw food
ingredients for the cooking, hand tools and wood for building etc. In short,
everyone arrives in a new "world" as equals and makes of it what they can.
Bonus points for _not_ allowing real names or talk of who you were on the
"outside".

Oh crap. I'm kind of describing prison. So umm... like jail but not so sucky.

~~~
quantumhobbit
>like jail but not so sucky

Maybe that's the whole point. It is the intentions of the participants that
define the experience. After all monestaries are just like prison with spartan
conditions and rigid routines, but completely different in how the
participants experience it. Voluntary vs. Involuntary. Searching for an
experience vs. Counting down the days. Etc.

------
mullen
Let me see if I can explain all of this, as someone who has been 9 times since
2004.

There is a huge debate if rich people and their rich people only camps are a
good addition to Burning Man. The rule is, your camp can not be closed and if
you camp on the main street, Esplanade, you are definitely not a closed camp.
Meaning, that anyone can walk in and hangout and you can make new friends or
share alcohol and all that. You are suppose to have regular event that welcome
outsiders. Esplanade spots are coveted locations and some camps spend years at
semi-coveted locations off the Esplanade trying to prove to the Burning Man
Org they good enough to be a Esplanade camp.

The problems with rich people camps like White Ocean (The camp that was
vandalized) is they tend to be closed, they pay others to cook for them, they
did not shop for their food, the camps are full of large RV's, they flew in,
they did not build anything and they don't welcome outsiders into their camp.
White Ocean pays people to do all their dirty work, include constructing their
camp art. Some of the rich people camps are also for profit camps, which is
completely against the rules (Not saying White Ocean is).

What makes it worse is there are plenty of stories of people walking by a rich
camp while they are having a party and walking in and then bouncers tossing
them out. That runs against every thing that Burning Man is and stands for.
You can't not have private parties with bouncers and you should not even have
bouncers for your camp. There are also a number of stories of people who
signed up for work at Burning Man then not getting paid. Which not only is
working at Burning Man illegal, so is not paying people who do.

On the flip side of the coin, a lot of the large art projects and major sound
camps are sponsored by rich folks since the art project and sound camps can
have budgets that are upwards to a million dollars. Ya, no joke. The ugly
truth of Burning Man is that it needs rich people but it does not want its
culture.

Let me just add, celebrities going to Burning Man is a non-issue. No one gives
a fuck who you are off the Playa. No one does. Plus, all of the celebrities
wear masks, so you don't even know they are there. You could be standing next
to Katy Parry in the coffee line in Center Camp and not even know it. The only
issue I see is that someone like Paris Hilton did nothing to get there. She
got her assistant to buy a ticket off Stubhub and then flew in on a private
jet or helicopter. She did not setup her camp, buy her food or sit in line.
She just showed up and she won't add anything to Burning Man.

Edited: $390 + $80 is still cheap considering you are there for 7 - 9 days and
you can't see what you see at Burning Man when you are not at Burning Man.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
> art project and sound camps can have budgets that are upwards to a million
> dollars. Ya, no joke. The ugly truth of Burning Man is that it needs rich
> people but it does not want its culture

Super flashy art installations and professional quality music acts aren't
integral to the burning man core ethos, while radical self-sufficiency is. One
might even contend that large-budget things condition people to act as
consumers of culture, which is certainly anti-burning-man.

------
pbae
Seems like a microcosm of the gentrification controversy. I'd like to see BM
fork, just to see a social experiment play out, as it might be instructive for
other issues that are not so conducive to experimentation.

Have a BM2 where the original ethos is more strictly enforced, and see if all
the rich people now find BM1 too phony and want to move to BM2 where they can
get a more "authentic" experience, then proceed to ruin that with their money
for the "artistic class". Or maybe everyone just prefers nicer things.
Honestly curious.

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norswap
For once, I find myself agreeing with the write-up. They really were parasites
(without the quotes) and the others really were hooligans. None of them seemed
to understand the spirit of the event.

About jet-setters at least, there is little that can be done. Fork the event?

~~~
curun1r
I think the solution is to lock the event early in the week and close the
airstrip. That would mean if you want to be there for the weekend, you have to
drive there (from Reno, at least) and stay at least 5 days in the desert.
Those that want comfort and convenience need to get the message that Burning
Man isn't for them and yet Burning Man should still be inclusive to everyone
who's willing to embrace the principles behind it.

But I'm also extremely sympathetic to the vandals if the stories of bouncers
are true. My favorite part of the years that I went was wandering into random
camps and starting conversations with strangers. I met a lot of amazing people
and still call some of them friends. There was something about Burning Man
that allowed people to discard social conventions which keep people separated
that was truly magical. If this aspect of the festival has been lost, or is
being lost, I can see a lot of people being justifiably angry at the people
responsible for that change.

~~~
mullen
I have worked at the Airport a few years and I am starting to see that what
the problem is, is the Airport. Originally, it was so that people who owned
airplanes could fly their planes there. Which for many years worked out really
well. The Airport is self sufficient, a team of Volunteer's operate it and
they smooth out all the necessary BS with BLM and FAA.

However, the Airport is the way that the people who don't contribute anything
to Burning Man get into Burning Man. They need to go back to non-commerical
flight only.

------
Overtonwindow
I went to Burning Man in 2012 and had a blast, but there was definitely an air
of "us and them". The poor nerds in a 99' camper bus versus the wealthy in
their camps, with air conditioning, food, drugs, and women. I'm sad that the
vandalism occurred, but happy the conversation has started. These people are
parasites, and they're trying to recreate Burning Man in their own image of
wealth and decadence. It's time for a change and I really hope the organizers
listen.

~~~
Bud
It's only the wealthy that have women or drugs or food at Burning Man?
Whatever. Pretty sure everyone has drugs, for starters, and "women", leaving
aside you considering them a commodity, don't exactly seem scarce either.

~~~
toomuchtodo
OP is most likely referring to camps flying in models, in which case women are
quite literally being treated as a commodity.

------
aikah
Any festival that becomes an institution will be invaded by wealthy parasites
more concerned about tweeting and posting photos on Instagram than being
there. Burning Man has become a place where you need to show off, just like
Coachella, yeah remember when Coachella was "underground" and was a reaction
against commercial festivals and ticketmaster ? lol ...

------
smb06
I have never been to burning man but heard about it from friends who have been
going for years. They say that people who are used to having closed boundaries
around them, for example the Paris Hiltons of the world, have impacted on the
bohemian nature of the event.

~~~
jondubois
Well the rich need that extra protection. This incident reinforces that fact.
If anything, this shows that the wealthy should build fences with barbed wire
on top.

Or maybe increase the BM entry fee so that fewer of these hooligans can afford
to come.

~~~
acconrad
Or you could be rich and just, you know, camp out like everyone else. I think
part of the problem is that they want to "rough it" like the traditional
Burning Man culture without actually having to rough it, and keeping people
out, which is anathema to the people who go there for the inclusion and unity.

~~~
xkcd-sucks
Oh, but banning paid private event staff is uninclusive towards people with
limited outdoors experience!

------
Lidador
"The Burning Man Festival" has reached "The People's Front of Judea" phase.
Funny stuff, or why we need a World War for people to get real.

------
bigiain
_Jumps_ Hey - look down there! Check out the sharks! Cool!

------
jondubois
I don't understand why this is a problem.

Wealthy people should just build an electric fence around their section,
install security cameras and hire guards to patrol the perimeter. Problem
solved.

~~~
mullen
No, that is the problem. Esplanade camps are suppose to be open to everyone,
not just camp members. If you don't like that, then you don't camp on
Esplanade, you camp farther back.

------
3327
Here are some facts:

-Is whiteocean a plug and play elitist camp - yes absolutely. -are they inclusive? No they are not. -Is burning man's mantra radical inclusion? - Yes.

The jist is burning man has a mantra to radical inclusion and even if white
ocean is a plug and play camp or elitist they have to be included. So by logic
the act is wrong and I say this as someone who despises them.

