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I co-founded Burning Man. The festival has lost its soul
- deleted 18d ago[deleted]
- afavour 18d agoI think this has been obvious for many years now.
- Prcmaker 18d agoIndeed. It's hard to draw a specific line, but it's been over a decade.
- aappleby 18d agoand he's been complaining ever since they stopped letting him shoot machine guns at teddy bears.
- Taniwha 18d agoBlackrock used to be pretty wild-west (I was going before Burning Man started), pretty scary stuff at times (a friend once did something silly and hurt himself badly, Clinton was doing something in Reno, the SS heard about it, thought it was nearby and MiB showed up looking hot and bothered in their suits), over time the BLM realised that they needed to police the area a bit more and things got toned down (doesn't help that BM situates itself across multiple law enforcement jurisdictions, these days there's a surfeit of police)
- sleepybrett 18d agoRaise your hand if you remember 'drive-by camp'
- whack 18d ago> ...the festival I helped invent 36 years ago. Curiously, I get this interest even though I haven’t set foot in the Black Rock Desert since 1996. Not doubting the headline conclusion, but I would have expected a better source than someone who hasn't been to Burning Man in literally 30 years. AFAICT, Burning Man was still very well regarded ~20 years ago, long after this founder stopped attending
- foolfoolz 18d agoit’s still the city. the org might be run in a lame way but any time you get too involved in something you see another layer of politics and favoritism and helping friends out that just seems wrong. most people going aren’t at that level and it’s fine. you’ll still have a good time (if you want to)
- brianshaler 18d agoI think the point GP was making was that the co-founder was basing their judgment secondhand from stories from friends and headlines. Another bit I found peculiar was the mentions of anarchism while seeming to have a rigid idea of what the event should or should not be. It's certainly far less anarchistic today—placements, permits, law enforcement—but it's not exactly anarchism to say it isn't allowed to evolve to fit the scale and culture of the participants.
- megagpt2 18d agoEvery anarchistic community ends up with rules to ensure things run smoothly. I think anarchism should be viewed as the movement towards less rules, not a movement that allows absolutely no rules. Allocating office desks so that everyone knows where their desk is is just common sense - if you're concerned about people envying the best desks, randomise it every week. You have to mark out roads if you want there to be roads. Law enforcement was probably there because law enforcement said they'd ban the whole event if law enforcement wasn't there. That's how they typically work.
- 18d ago
- nsedlet 18d agoAs the author says himself, he hasn’t attended in 30 years. I understand some of the things he’s complaining about, but I don’t think that is the dominant experience of being there.
- blackqueeriroh 18d agoAnd yet, I think it’s perfectly reasonable for the founder of something to share his opinions on why he thinks it’s no longer the thing he created. Both things can be true.
- gkoberger 18d agoBurning Man is easy to hate on. I've never been. But come on. The world kinda sucks. If a bunch of people want to go to the desert with no cell phone service and just do their thing, why do we care? If some of them need an RV to do it, and they aren't charging others, so what? That's awesome, and life would be better if more people had the ability to do their own flavors of Burning Man.
- __MatrixMan__ 18d agoRegional burns are a thing, and they're pretty awesome.
- cassonmars 18d agoThey can be, but unfortunately the org has threatened to revoke official regional burn status unless they followed all the same rules, in particular, that children be allowed. There used to be some leeway on that, and there were really wonderful regional burns that did not permit kids. They were forced to, which resulted in the "real" burn being in a small taped off area. Seems insane to me to think kids should be at burns.
- newsclues 18d agoThat’s because it’s easier to recruit kids into cults or whatever
- pstuart 18d ago> That’s because it’s easier to recruit kids into cults or whatever That's what Sunday School is for. I lived in SF at the time of the original burns on Baker Beach and heard about them but I was too lame and isolated to ever participate but followed their antics (and the Cacophony Society) from afar. The universe arranged for me to go ten years ago and I found the experience magical. There's an exhibit that shows how each wave of newcomers has destroyed burning man which I found to be a cheeky take on its evolution. The kids I saw there were doing kid friendly stuff and them being allowed there was clearly to allow their parents to come without having to leave them behind. There's plenty to hate about it but in the end it's about people coming together to have a good time, and there's nothing wrong with that.
- ProAm 18d agoEverything small becomes big, and then gets enshittificated
- chessucation 18d agoonly a matter of time until it's "burning man proudly presented by palantir"
- subw00f 18d agoDon’t some billionaires go there with their servants and bring some porta-mansions or something?
- entropy47 18d agoI don't quite agree, there's a lot of small things that don't get big / are shitty enough on their own. Agreed with the rest though.
- dansquizsoft 18d ago[flagged]
- blackqueeriroh 18d agoDid you read the article? He isn’t going. He hasn’t gone.
- HaloZero 18d agoAn aside though about the whole "lost its soul". I was looking up Marion Goodell's salary and it's pretty high. The Burning Man ORG spends a lot on salaries, especially since it relies on a mostly volunteer workforce. She and the C-suite for the Burning Man Org make like $300,000 plus. It's not a HUGE amount in San Francisco if you consider tech salaries but I parsed salaries of CEOs of arts organizations in California and she's still easily by far the most highly paid CEO in her field. They also have a CTO what makes 300k. https://burningman.org/about-us/what-we-do/financials-public-reporting/summary-financial-info/2024-form-990/ https://burningman.org/about-us/what-we-do/financials-public...
- aprilthird2021 18d agoThat's a huge amount even in San Francisco. Sometimes I'm shocked what working in big tech does to people's ideas about what a normal annual salary is. Burning Man is a once a year event. Being a c level for that is not comparable to being c level for a lot of other even non profit orgs not to even mention for profit orgs
- Barrin92 18d agoI think you can argue, as the author does, whether the nature of the event has changed but Burning man attracts about 80k people at this point. That's comparable to Wacken, the largest annual metal festival in the world. I know people involved in that one and it's definitely a year long job to organize. 300k is a lot of money but for someone overseeing an event that size, doesn't seem that extraordinary. In particular given the responsibility for the safety of people.
- prettyblocks 18d agoNo opinion on the salary, but just because it's a once per year event doesn't mean the work isn't year round.
- HaloZero 18d agoI mean she is the CEO title, but even then she's still making more than MOST of the non-profits getting city contracts in SF. She makes 400k. The revenue for Burning Man is about 40 million you can compare here too. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/nonprofit-ceo-contract-pay-18667516.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/nonprofit-ceo-co... Ex: Healthright 360 has 1600 employees and makes $145 million in revenue and it's CEO is still paid less than her. They provide healthcare and other types of care for people without insurance.
- acheron 18d ago[flagged]
- johnnyApplePRNG 18d agoYea I wouldn't be caught dead going there today. Looks pretentious.
- thataccount 18d agoI always thought the whole point of burning man was to forfeit your soul anyway?
- rodrodrod 18d agoCuriously, I found this 1995 SFGate article offering a related perspective: > Many participants tell me this is the last year the event will be bearable before it "goes commercial." https://www.sfgate.com/style/article/Communal-art-in-the-desert-3129922.php https://www.sfgate.com/style/article/Communal-art-in-the-des...
- supern0va 18d agoAnd funny enough, John Law himself has basically been saying the same thing since the late '90s. He's been shaking his fist at this particular cloud for over twenty-five years, so I'm not sure why an opinion piece like this is even noteworthy at this point. FWIW, for a lot of us, the magic is still there. Most of the city exists outside of the shiny Instagram influencers that seem to dominate the narrative. We're still there being gross and building shit for the joy of it with our friends.
- shawn_w 18d agoI always get here early, before the event officially opens, in part to get an up close view of all the art and camps going up. (I'm still not used to easy internet access at BRC, he says as he browses HN from his camp)
- DonHopkins 18d agoBuild A 300-Mile Wall Around SF During Burning Man https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO_r6ndZRZY&t=1s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO_r6ndZRZY&t=1s >A community effort to construct a 300-mile wall in one week and prevent Burning Man attendees from returning to the Bay Area. >"I'm asking for your help crowdfunding the most ambitious Burning Man project ever a wall that's built around the entire bay area during the week of Burning Man."
- exabrial 18d agoBurning man is one of the biggest environmental disasters to happen by humans for pure entertainment. Leave No Trace.
- mynameisash 18d agoWorse than rolling coal? Worse than golf courses? Worse than cruiselines?
- blackqueeriroh 18d agoHonestly, a pretty incredible article. Yeah, this is what happens. And even so, as he said himself, the newbies continue to find themselves and the proles continue to gather to connect and reconnect. I imagine many here feel convicted because they see themselves in Law’s descriptions of the well-heeled elite, and they resent Law for saying they are not transgressive instigators, anarchic fire starters, and autonomous free zone inhabitants. Y’all. Be comfortable with who you are. Most of us just want good money, an awesome time with cool computer shit to do, and friends and family who love us. It’s okay not to be a revolutionary. What’s not okay is to trick yourself into believing you are one when it couldn’t be further from the truth. Here’s to the revolutionaries - I get to live a more grounded life because of their willingness to live outside the lines.
- johnohara 18d agoI don't understand how nostalgia can be applied to Burning Man. Outside of those few who dedicate themselves to the organization and administration of the event, each burning man is a unique assemblage of thousands of people, different in every way from one year to the next. Except perhaps the location. Without the different human beings who show up each year, the event would be nothing more than a dust bowl waiting to become a mud pit. The "soul," if there is one, is the sum total of the expressions those humans bring with them at any given point in time. Change the humans and you change the expression. So exactly which "soul" does the author long for?
- c22 18d agoIt might be true technically, but I've been about a dozen times and in my memories of the place it can often be hard for me to determine which ones happened on which year.
- jesse_dot_id 18d agoI've known this for awhile, since at least 2020. Specifically when they told a documentarian he could film and then threatened litigation he release his film after he had already shot it. He had to blur literally everything at Burning Man but the guy he's following around. https://www.blurringman.org/blurring-man https://www.blurringman.org/blurring-man
- jesse_dot_id 18d agoZoinks I mangled that. Late edit: I've known this for awhile, since at least 2020. Specifically when they told a documentarian he could film and then threatened litigation if he released his film — after he had already shot it. He had to painstakingly blur literally all Burning Man footage except for the guy he's following around.
- gosub100 15d agoIt's probably a liability from the nudity. Someone says "that's me! I didn't consent to my naked body being posted on the Internet!". Even if it was incidental, but if it was allowed, it would bring about a bunch of perverts a-la "girls done wild: burning man '26".
- chollida1 18d agoAbout 15 years ago it really started to get corporate. Big money came in and created camps with air conditioning, huge RV's no bartering, etc. Dustin Moskovitz and the like started going and wouldn't dare behave the ordinary peasants, by sleeping in tents, participating in the community, bartering for things. Heck Zuckerberg took a helicopter there one year. instead they just threw money at the event so they wouldn't have to do the things that made burning man, burning man.
- hingler36 18d agoI think this is where my head goes when I think of the event: a large portion of the attendees have gone from community members to customers.
- dmkolobov 18d agoI work at a financial company and around 2019, the break room had a magazine called “Meetings” with a front-page article about how burning man and sxsw are the next big thing in corporate culture.
- adammarples 18d agoMeetings magazine from 30 Rock is real
- throwup238 18d ago> Heck Zuckerberg took a helicopter there one year. The vast majority of the people I knew who flew in weren’t rich like Zuck, they just liked flying. It’s the only way to get a wristband that allows you to come and go at will (i.e. to run logistics for a camp) and avoid exodus if you had to leave that day. 15 years ago no one gave a damn about the rich people going to burning man. They were isolated in their camps. We were much more concerned with keeping our Sparkle Ponies alive.
- mcslee 18d agoI think you've picked the wrong target here. Worth reading Dustin's personal account of his Burning Man experience: https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/radical-inclusion-vs-radical-self-reliance-at-burning-man-b6ab7a2a8321 https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/radical-inclusion-vs-radical-self... (bear in mind this was written 13 years ago, I'm not sure Dustin would agree with everything stated, but the broad strokes feel correct.) That post also explains Zuck's attendance. Zuck is not a Burner, it was a one-off visit encouraged by Dustin. Personally I think it was inconsequential in the long run but good for Zuck to have seen it. The criticism you're raising about money being thrown at the event is broadly valid, but it does not at all apply to how Dustin approached it, IMO. Dustin did precisely what you are suggesting he didn't - slept in a tent, literally cooked and served grilled cheese sandwiches. (Context: I was in the camp/village, attended 10 years 2009-2018, back once in 2025, have done a lot of playa art... and I also broadly agree with John Law's take.)
- imadierich 18d ago[dead]
- a-dub 18d agosan francisco had that cool, edgy, gonzo art scene happening in the 90s. also survival research laboratories and their famous pitching machine, the omnicircus, chicken john, laughing squid, critical mass/commute clot, santarchy/santa con (before it became the weird frat thing it is today). similar things in brooklyn in the '00s like the madagascar institute, black label bike club, idiotarod, etc. in the 2000s, there was kind of an interesting tech meets countercultural art thing where a lot of the more interesting tech people would pour their disposable income into interesting burning man art projects (nimby's ddi, jabba's sail barge) but it does seem like in recent years with the real sf affordability crisis that came with internet business actually taking off the creativity went down and the money seeking people showed up. i guess that's also true of sf (and brooklyn) more generally. it was a fun time. i was a swe intern in the mid 90s and would marvel when the engineering team would disappear to the desert for a week and come back with colored hair. my boss drove a psychedelic school bus to work sometimes. in south of market on 6th street in sf, there was a building that had furniture welded onto the exterior like it had all come to life and was trying to escape the building.
- HedonicEscal8r 18d ago> Anarchist > Name is John Law Makes sense.
- bobby_coder_55 18d ago[flagged]
- johndhi 18d agoI started going in 2002 and have friends who have gone every year since then. There has been a meme that burning man sucks now and used to be better that entire time. That doesn't mean the meme is false. It definitely has changed. There's an article in sfgate today that quotes the head of the Death Guild (Thunderdome) camp as saying something like, do people want to carry on the traditions their parents had, or invent their own? I thought that was a great question. Both are valid paths.
- TitaRusell 18d agoFestivals have changed. People want high speed internet, good food, professional security and not having to put up their own tent.
- HWR_14 18d agoThe others are pretty dependent on what you mean by good food or professional security. But who wants high speed internet at a festival?
- esseph 18d ago> But who wants high speed internet at a festival? A shocking amount of people
- ethbr1 18d ago> People want high speed internet, good food, professional security and not having to put up their own tent. That's daycare for adults, not an experience.
- sleepybrett 18d agoi went 95-2000 then got cajoled back in 2012. It sucks now. It actually sucks now.
- shawn_w 18d agoIt was better next year.
- SoftTalker 18d agoFestivals are big business now. Boomers and Gen Xers have money to spend and spend they do trying to recapture their youth. Hundreds of dollars for passes. Hundreds more spent on food and drink. Times tens or hundreds of thousands of attendees.
- gerdesj 18d agoQuite right but it would be nice if the kids would invent their own things instead of whining about how expensive doing "boomer things" is nowadays! Where are your modern alternative festis or something else? Where is the the modern counter culture? What on earth is a counter culture nowadays? Its fucking doom scrolling shite that my peers dump on you!
- dyauspitr 18d agoNothing can maintain its essence over time, things change and morph. If you want something scrappy you’re going to have to start over with something new until it too eventually ends up the same way.
- kermatt 18d agoAnything with a soul that gains popularity is doomed to value extraction.
- jimt1234 18d agoYep. Las Vegas used to have a soul. Not anymore.
- le-mark 18d agoI don’t know anything about burning man except the actor who originally played Dr. Weir on Stargate SG1 was fired (essentially) because she misled the producers about attending it. Tory Higgens did a fine job as her replacement though. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eDriBfoPzsA&t=120s&pp=2AF4kAIB&ra=m https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eDriBfoPzsA&t=120s&pp=2AF4kAIB...
- ButlerianJihad 18d agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Steen#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessica_Steen#Career From the narrative on Wikipedia, it looks more like she was fired not because she hid the truth, but because she was indeed attending Burning Man and the producers didn't like the idea: "committed to naked drugging in the desert" as opposed to misleading anyone. If she'd told the truth, it'd probably have the same result.
- moomoo11 18d agoburning man is cringe and you can downvote me if you want. it just proves my point.
- cromka 18d agoI have attended festivals for more than half of my life and they're all suspectable to the same gentrification problem as cool neighborhoods: fun/artsy people create fun environments, fun environments attract others who genuinely appreciate fun/artsy but are professionals themselves, professionals attract other professionals but shallower with more money. Or, in short, they get hugged to death. Rinse, repeat. Same thing is happening with Garbicz festival in Poland, arguably Europe's Burning Man equivalent for many.
- rightnutwingjob 18d agoYep. These sorts of evens are better when they have a predetermined end date. Closing down sale, never to be repeated. Then the organisers can regroup and start something new. Rather than the inevitable alternative of morphing in to something unintended, undesired. Better to reminisce about good old days rather than the decay.
- cromka 18d ago> unintended, undesired Problem is, the more of them I've seen, the more I am convinced they are nowadays a premeditated long game: have cool people plant the seed, then sell it 10 years later. Same thing with LGBTQ communities attracted/coerced into certain neighborhoods.
- ahartmetz 18d agoNot for the festivals that I know. They are either always profit-oriented or always not. There are or were (RIP Melt Festival) great ones of both types.
- sandeepkd 18d agoI wonder if the original organizers would have much say left if something becomes big enough and successful. It requires a very strong mindset to close something down. Makes me think about the batman movie debacle on some wanting to destroy Gotham city cause they think its beyond repair and then some other ones are hopeful to save it.
- raldi 18d ago“Burning Man is supposed to be about anarchy!” “Cool, I’m going to fly in on a private plane” “No not like that”
- monkaiju 18d agoI mean, if they relinquish their ownership of the plane and joined in with some sort of council that determined how to manage such assets I bet everyone claiming to be an anarchist would be fine with it. Anarchy as a political ideology doesn't mean no rules, it means no rulers.
- minimaxa 18d agoFunny, as it used to be painted people in tents.. https://www.trippingly.net/burning-man-musings/2019/2/1/greetings-from-burning-man https://www.trippingly.net/burning-man-musings/2019/2/1/gree...
- burnt-resistor 18d agoI rather hop a freight train than celebrate pseudo-non-consumerism consumerism with mostly techbros, yuppies, and addictive substance excessivists. Sure there are still some cool burners but it's just way too big. It's a simulacrum of its former self trying to recapture lightning in a bottle like a "blockbuster" bad trilogy franchise built around a good, scrappy film. Better to go my own way.
- bluegatty 18d agoIf he has not been there since 1996 then I don't think he has a right to be talking about it like this, honestly, it's kind of sad trash talk. Maybe he's right but he'd have to articulate it. It's a relatively authentic and vibrant thing. Maybe not as new or quite as punk, but it's 'something'.
- TZubiri 18d agoAs someone who is just now learning about burning man, it reminded me a lot of Fight Club (1999). And it turns out the author belonged to some of the clubs behind it, namely Cacophony Society/Suicide Club. There seems to be a bunch of rules to the event, like the explicit 10 rules of chaos mentioned in the article, but also more implicit rules like "a wooden man must burn". Fwiw, in the book/movie, the drift of the original spirit of the movement is a central theme, as is the loss of personal control over the evolving movement.
- dubeye 18d agoeverything ages and matures and goes through stages of experimentation and conservation. it would be much weirder if it didn't happen. if you want a young thing, go find a young thing
- blini-kot 18d agogood riddance
- ghusto 18d agoPopularity ruins things?! NO!
- wizardforhire 17d agoThe history of burning man is well documented and predates the playa… The head of the original man is still preserved by one of the original co-founders and I have personally seen it and touched it. https://presidio.gov/explore/blog/then-now-burning-man-at-baker-beach https://presidio.gov/explore/blog/then-now-burning-man-at-ba...