Every year around Labor Day, a group of 60,000 people gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert for a week of bacchanalia and “radical self-expression.” But what actually happens at Burning Man? Even regular Burners have difficulty describing the experience with any clarity — and since there’s so much going on, everyone’s experience is a little different.
Now Burning Man has gotten so big and notorious that pretty much everyone, even those who’ve never been, have an idea of what it’s about. So we asked a bunch of adults and children, none of whom have attended, what they think happens there and then illustrated the best responses (see above).
Jules, 24, Los Angeles — poet
“I think of it as a dust equivalent to Waterworld with massive sculptures and hand-built structures scattered around. I imagine people putting cloths over their mouths as they pass from one structure to the next, battling the wind and desert bugs. Guiding your way from structure to structure are people who are hula-hooping and swinging fire torches and using those light-up finger gloves. There are many events happening at one time, so it’s like a conference. You have to choose between the panel on burning giant wooden men and the naked hopscotch demonstration because they’re both happening at 11:30 and on opposite sides of the desert. Also, drugs.”
“There are many events happening at one time, so it’s like a conference.”
Sanjana, 21, Bangalore, India — student
“I think there is some type of bonfire? Everyone has sex in tents, but somehow people are not freaked out about STDs, which I really find remarkable. Am I just missing something? Is there some secret foolproof sex where you don’t have to worry about babies and hep C? To be sure, a public-health nightmare.
People have deep conversations about what ‘it all means.’ You are likely to run into that woman who pops eggs of paint out of her vagina as performance art. I feel like they have drinks but no food, so do they eat baked beans? That’s really not very sexy.
All these tech people pretend to be hippies and do the whole kumbaya thing before returning to Google.There is also music, but of the non-mainstream variety. If you actually know the bands at Burning Man, you are not doing it correctly. Maybe people prepare by consuming artsy music in advance, like vocab on the SATs.
Overall, there is sex.”
Anonymous, 35, Canada — Google product manager
“I think it’s where culturally repressed middle-class white people seek liberation from their false struggle by piggybacking off of the true struggle of artists and vagabonds with whom they would otherwise never socialize.”
Sophie, 9, San Jose — child
“I think Burning Man is a useless holiday where crazy people sit all day, and when another group of people come, they just want to trade all their stuff. I think it would be really boring. Then they burn the giant man because they have nothing better to do with their day.”
Grace, 22, Chicago — grad student
“Everyone does Molly while watching a scarecrow burn. Also, the whole thing happens while they’re naked. I feel like that’s part of it.”
Jack, 24, Buckingham, England — industrial designer
“It should be called ‘Burning Money.’ I imagine it’s sort of the physical incarnation of the Trump campaign — meaningless, searing and fun to be at once or twice, and it leaves you questioning if this is real life or not. But I guess with less hate. Or it’s just what a five-year-old would do to ants if you gave him infinite money and a blowtorch.”
“I imagine it’s sort of the physical incarnation of the Trump campaign — meaningless, searing and fun to be at once or twice, and it leaves you questioning if this is real life or not.”
Anonymous, Texas
“People are convinced that they were born in the wrong decade. ‘Artists,’ trust-fund babies desperate for a taste of ‘real life,’ actual artists and a few journalists who can’t believe they’re getting paid for this gather in the desert to not shower, trip their balls off and trade bits of pipe cleaner for quinoa patties. After a few days of incomprehensible insanity, during which a few masterful works of art are created (and a lot of really bad ones), everyone buries their flower crowns and and runs, hollering and nude, all the way back to San Francisco, Portland or New York City to gush about how the desert changed them, how the gifting ‘economy’ really just makes sense and how we wouldn’t understand.
Anyone seen departing for another city is immediately shot dead, and their bodies are used for art installations at Wasteland Weekend less than a month later.”
Nicole, 22, San Francisco — TBI Editor
“Pseudo-catharsis. Carpenters bring giant phallic statues they’ve been working on all year and light them on fire in the center of intersectionality chant circles. People cry. There’s no currency, so you trade canna-butter and a brief blowjob for a lighter. About 20% of the people pretend to be more spiritual than they are; 50% of them use drugs to reach nirvana; and the other 30% I would never want to spend time with, because actual spirituality is insufferable.”
“There’s no currency, so you trade canna-butter and a brief blowjob for a lighter.”
Sue, 54, San Francisco — my mom
“It’s like Woodstock, where people get together. They rip clothing off of men and … they burn it. Because Burning Man. Everyone is so drunk that they don’t really know what’s going on, so most people just give into it. Or maybe it’s this female-empowerment thing, where these women get together and build statues of men and burn them? There are also animal sacrifices.”
“They rip clothing off of men and…they burn it.”
Robert, 22, Wilmington , North Carolina— mechanical engineer
I’ve never been, but I’ve read cracked articles about what happens there. If I remember correctly, you just wander around and occasionally pop into a tent where maybe you engage in group sex if any of the people in said tent are still standing. More generally, I think you just lounge around tripping and trying not to die from the heat/sunburns. The group sex in theory includes people of all ages and descriptions, but in practice it’s just hairy old dudes.
Grant, 22, Portland — journalist
“I imagine thousands of people around the country all think in snowflake unison, ‘My life would be better with more drugs, nudity and moral hedonism. I feel like I can connect better with The Ultimate that way. Then, what evidence of societal regression we can’t burn, we’ll have forgotten by the grace of drugs and repressive amnesia.’ At which point they do that.
There is something about art, but that seems secondary. To be clear, I’ve definitely thought about going full Burning Man just by myself. Final conclusion: pretty sure it’s just people get high, fuck, divine the meaning of life, burn symbolism in effigy and then forget it all. In the desert.”
