$390 + $80 vehicle pass + fees.<p>Get real, they are ALL jet-setters & rich kids.<p>It's the red hats vs the blue hats. <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0684186/" rel="nofollow">http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0684186/</a> The haves vs the have mores.<p>Yes I'm a little bit down on the whole burning man thing.<p>You want peace & love? Have a solar panel installation party. Plant trees party. Pick up sea trash party.<p>Not a check out my dreads, tattoo & flashy bicycle party.
Any sufficiently large group will eventually develop sub-groups. Those sub-groups may become sufficiently polarized to generate conflict among them.<p>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 <i>who first conceived of the plot to kidnap Pontius Pilate's wife</i> [0].<p>Human beings will fight over anything.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Life_of_Brian" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Life_of_Brian</a>
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.<p>And as a poor kid growing up, nothing pissed me off in quite the unique and wonderful way as "show and tell" at school.
Let me see if I can explain all of this, as someone who has been 9 times since 2004.<p>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.<p>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).<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.
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.<p>About jet-setters at least, there is little that can be done. Fork the event?
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.
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 ...
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.
"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.
I don't understand why this is a problem.<p>Wealthy people should just build an electric fence around their section, install security cameras and hire guards to patrol the perimeter. Problem solved.
Here are some facts:<p>-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.<p>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.