I think a little of it would go a long way for me, personally, but I’m curious about others experiences.
While the original Burners tended to be at least relatively environmentally considerate, the current iterations are extravaganzas of wasteful use of precious resources as well as trashing a pristine landscape. Whatever ethos of involved group cleanup that may have ever existed certainly seems to no longer.
I was chatting to a mate of mine about this recently. She said that it used to be awesome, but now it is heavily commercialised and results in trash being left everywhere. It’s lost the spirit of what it used to be.
I don’t understand the appeal. There are far cheaper, easier, safer ways to party.
Never been, but I have to assume it’s like saying, “we don’t need to get takeout, we have perfectly good leftovers in the fridge.”
People like a new experience, they like a destination, it seems like the point is to be out of your comfort zone with a bunch of others who are doing the same, not “safe and easy”. The specific location is probably not important, but the remoteness of it would obviously contribute to the novelty of the experience.
I went ‘01, ‘03, ‘04.
The last year I went was the first time it seemed like LA people and startup CEOs were starting to show up in numbers, which was changing the vibe.
Also, there started to be a lot more photos and videos posted online. I wasn’t trying to have my employees find video of me four days into smoking crystal and candy-flipping, dancing at a rave camp.
I would’ve gone like 20 or even 10 years ago. Now it seems like a social media party.
There are smaller regional events that have the same original spirit without many of the issues the original event is facing that might be a good introduction for you.
