It’s a rich tapestry of personalities. You’ll find wealthy 1-percenters, supermodels presumably there to get some good photos for Instagram, unprepared international tourists, and of course, veteran Burners who’ve been there since the start and often lament the direction the event is taking.
As one of the newer attendees, I’ve only got the past couple of years to judge it on, and despite everything, my feelings are overwhelmingly positive.
If while you’re there, you don’t make an effort to embrace the culture of Burning Man, there’s every chance that you will hate it; it’s not easy to sleep in and eat dust daily in extreme temperatures. But if you throw yourself into it, the vibe is contagious. You’ll find yourself meeting the most creative people, having the most fascinating conversations, and going on countless surreal adventures with random strangers.
The principles of Burning Man—radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation and immediacy—are inspiring. To me, they seem to be principles the world could benefit from on a day-to-day basis. While we obviously live in a cash-based economy and not all these principles are practical back in the ‘real world’, there are many that could be.
So while there may be some who feel critical of the more mainstream crowd that the event now attracts, to me it seems there is still good to come out of it. Whether you choose to make community and creativity your focus for just one week of your life, or you take those principles into your ‘real life’ back home, you’ll be benefiting either way—and so too will the people you interact with.
