Category Dark Path – Complaints Department

This section is for those who want to bitch, moan, whinge, whine, complain, criticize, diss, or just generally bum people out. It’s not always roses being a Burner, sometimes the squeaky wheel gets a greasing, and sometimes you need to be able to identify mistakes in order to prevent them and grow past them

Nov 11 2024

Burning Mansplainers Savaged as “No Burners” Trends on Dating Apps

Image Credit: Brian Rea

Cate Twining-Ward just wrote a scathing and hilarious “Modern Love” op-ed in the New York Times Style section.

I used to be the type of person who enjoyed dating in New York City. A summer afternoon rendezvous perhaps, one that begins with the smell of sticky sidewalks and Aperol and ends with the cheerful patter of synchronized footsteps.

Instead, I have been subjected, time and again, to Burning Man — specifically, to men who feel the festival experience has imbued them with esoteric meaning, a purpose which they never seem able to fully articulate.

I ask this sincerely: Am I the only one in the city being lectured on dates about Burning Man?

Not to be confused with post-festival passion or the harmless “Were you at Burning Man?” inquiry. I’m talking about the drawn-out and increasingly predictable “How Burning Man changed me” speech that inevitably ends with the sentiment: “If you haven’t been, you just don’t get it.”

Cate talks about a range of dating experiences involving Burning Man enthusiasts, for example:

Not long ago, I agreed to meet a seemingly normal non-Burner stranger at an Upper West Side speakeasy. His profile was desert-free, and the frosty season provided some assurance that there would be no mention of the upcoming summer festivities.

Everything was going decently well until I noticed his feet — which were bare. Bare as in he was not wearing shoes or socks. It was February.

His explanation? After attending Burning Man, he had committed to building a new routine based on the “authentic actions” he had learned there, one aspect of which included running to work (at a hedge fund) barefoot. [Source: NYT]

The author has had quite enough of Instagram Burners putting their playa pics on dating apps:

Bleak flashbacks to the many skipped Hinge profile pictures of men standing, hips thrust, in ski goggles and without shirts fluttered in and out of view

The environmental argument is one I find especially bizarre, given the famously negative planetary impact the festival has.

Wasn’t it just last year when hundreds of protesters demanded that private jets, single-use plastics and the burning of propane gas be banned? And might we be forgetting acknowledgment of the Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, whose original territory includes Black Rock Desert, where Burning Man is held?

…I asked why he picked pictures of himself at Burning Man for his dating profile.

“I’ve always seen including one as signaling, ‘I’m up for adventures,’” he said.

Two years later, “No Burners” is a trending prompt on Hinge, a fad of which I’m highly supportive.

[Source: NYT]

Her impression of Burner culture, the year round expression of the Ten Principles that needs your donation immediately, is that it encourages “a toxic spiritual superiority”:

My software developer date described his own lavish accommodation to me in detail: a decorated campground powered by propane so that music, air conditioning and light shows could run 24 hours a day.

“I’m curious to know your thoughts on unlimited generator use in respect to principal eight,” I said, out loud this time. I knew I sounded like a jerk, but the hypocrisy was deafening.

These reflections come with no self-prescribed Kumbaya. I am all for promoting nature connectedness, artistic expression and the occasional psychedelic drug. But I can’t help but feel discouraged by this wave of first-date virtue signaling. It encourages a toxic spiritual superiority, one with no basis in reality.

[Source: NYT]

Read the full article at the New York Times.

We urgently need your gift now! Gifting is one of the Tin Principles, look it up! If you don’t give generously we won’t be able to keep up the toxic spiritual superiority for 12 months of the year so you can have 1 week of partying. After all, “the world needs Burning Man now more than ever”.

See also: Vox: Burning Man’s climate protestors have a point

Aug 27 2024

From The Playa To The Sea

The gates of Black Rock City have opened, and BMOrg are still selling tickets on their web site. You can choose to buy a $575 $653 one or a $1500 $1696 one, whichever takes your fancy.

Catch the live video stream here and the BMIR radio stream here.

Burning Man has already been marred by its first death for this year, a 39-year old woman named Kendra Fraser who was found unresponsive – police are investigating. Let’s hope this one is the last. There was a time when deaths at Burning Man were unusual enough that we could write posts recalling them all, such as 2013’s 9 Ways to Die at Burning Man. In 2018 Salon pointed out that “Black Rock City’s staff are 13 times more likely to kill themselves in the off-season than veterans returning from active combat duty.”

Is there any other festival in the United States were people die every year and it’s allowed to keep going?

Are these all accidents, or is there some element of occult sacrifice going on?

In our last post Burning Man and the Gaza War we showed statements from the official Burning Man web site that politics definitely belong on the Playa.

Well, it seems that SOME politics are allowed. Woke politics.

This is the Sigil of Moloch coat of arms of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Although Reuters acknowledges use of the symbol by Ukraine’s Nazis Far Right Nationalists, they claim that’s OK because the symbol is ancient.

Perhaps predictably, the ADL claims any connection between Ukraine and Khazaria is an Anti-Semitic Conspiracy Theory. They are probably referring to this Veterans Today article which has 100 million+ views: The Hidden History of the Incredibly Evil Khazarian Mafia. In 2014 The Times of Israel claimed Jews Are In Fact Khazars, then just days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine they updated this 8 year old story in their archives to clarify it was just some Purim humor. #YMMV. Some claim even Purim humor itself originated in Ukraine. You can read about The Khazar Origin of Ancient Kiev on JSTOR. The Khazarian use of the symbol is in the Wikipedia page for the Ukrainian Coat of Arms. The mass religious conversion even gets a mention in Encylcopedia Britannica.

What’s the problem? It’s Radical Self Expression! If people want to make giant statues of Moloch Sigils on the Playa, more power to them! After all, the Temple theme for 2024 is Togetherness: “In this time of global challenge and conflict, we are invited to find strength in unity, and to be seen, loved, and inspired” [Source: Burning Man web site]

This argument would carry more weight if giant statues of Jesus or Trump were also welcomed. We point to the recent case of the 14-ft Watermelon as evidence that this Tin Principle should be renamed Radical Woke Expression. Say anything you want, provided it is politically correct and aligned to the Progressive narratives that dominate the San Francisco Bay Area.

[Source: LA Times]

The piece was removed after an online petition gathered nearly 2000 signatures.

“Burning Man should not be allowing an installation of a watermelon representing political statements against another group,” one person wrote…“This is just crazy that this art was approved after what’s going on in the world after Oct. 7, it needs to be removed ASAP,” another wrote. [Source: LA Times]

Thanks to the work of Elaine Velie at Hyperallergic, a screenshot of the original listing in the 2024 Art Installations was found at the Wayback Machine.

Here’s the official statement from the Org:

Burning Man Project has removed a listing for a 2024 Black Rock City art piece from burningman.org. The listing was made using an anonymous Burner Profile – this violates the terms of our art placement submission process. Additionally, the listing’s content contained language understood by some to be hate speech.

We do not tolerate the use of violent, hateful, or incendiary language on our platforms.

It is customary for the Burning Man website to feature previews of art which Burning Man Project funds – this is called Honoraria art – as well as art that is self-funded and has applied for placement in Black Rock City. The listing was not an Honoraria art project and did not receive funding from Burning Man Project. We have a curation process for placement of all art which is functionally for operational purposes to ensure that height, fire safety, and location-related variables are applied.

Art is a very important form of self-expression, and Black Rock City is a very important venue for self-expression. We do not curate self-expression.

Should the artists want to contact the organization and appeal this decision, they can reach out to the art department using the normal means. Based on the circumstances around the way the listing was submitted, we believe that this is likely not an actual art piece coming to Black Rock City, but that the listing was instead intended to stir an emotional response within the Burning Man community.

We apologize for publishing something that should not have made it onto our website.

Burning Man culture is at its best when we build bridges across differences to make a better world. We are committed to this work.

Is a giant watermelon really more politically offensive than a shade structure under which people were murdered? This piece doesn’t seem like it would need round the clock security from Guardians working in 6 hour shifts.

Political statements for me, but not for thee…

[Source: Avi Katz, Jerusalem Post, via Tony Greenstein]

Aug 30 2019

Will Burning Man Face Its Demons?

Image: Julie Lucus

Salon follows up their recent investigations into sexual assaults and worker abuse at Burning Man.

From Salon.com [emphasis ours]:

…the renowned gathering is not as utopian as it might appear. Two Salon investigations in the past two years have revealed that the supposedly liberating environment has also provided cover for predators of all kinds, including some who work for and even run the event. It has also fostered exploitation of its most vulnerable workers, in a manner that rivals any corporate machine in the “default world.”

Now that these harrowing stories of exploitation and abuse on the playa have been made public, we were curious if the organization had sought to reform itself or merely doubled-down on denying and protecting its abusers.

Back in August 2018… published the results of a year-long investigation into claims of labor abuse within the Burning Man organization. We spoke to former and current employees and volunteers for the festival who painted a picture of a dangerous and stressful work environment. Some shared stories about a toxic management culture which they claimed was ignoring and creating a serious mental health crisis among workers within Burning Man’s Department of Public Works (DPW), seasonal workers who build the bulk of the infrastructure that allows the desert festival to function

Between 2009 and 2015, seven DPW workers died by suicide. That number is statistically significant enough to be alarming, according to Dr. Sally Spencer-Thomas, a psychologist and the lead of the Workplace Task Force for the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention. “To give you a benchmark, in a community of 1,000 people we would expect one suicide death in one decade,” she told Salon in 2018…

From hundreds of documents reviewed, and dozens of rangers and victims spoken to, it became clear that, contrary to Burners’ perceptions of the playa as a safe, welcoming space, women are at considerable risk of being sexually assaulted there. Moreover, their false sense of security is due in part to the disorganized way that Burning Man discloses sexual assaults— and the improper instructions and training that the all-volunteer internal security force known as the Black Rock Rangers and their supervisors, called Khakis, receive…

The inadequate self-policing system has the effect, intended or otherwise, of silencing and dismissing victims of sexual assault and other forms of abuse before they have an opportunity to report the crime to law enforcement.

Read the full story at salon.com

[Read Salon’s exclusive investigation into how Burning Man minimized reports of sexual assault on the playa]