Burning Man Consumes Itself

Whatever was once cool can never stay that way. The very nature of “fresh” is new. Coachella was perhaps once indie. So was Sundance. Even the first dude with a nose ring or ironic fedora deserved some begrudging respect simply for being first. James Dean died at twenty-four. Had he lived to forty he would’ve been shopping Smart & Final for sweet deals on household paper products. Burning Man now features Paris Hilton soaking in glamour shots.

Burning Man turned on itself in its 28th year when mid-level accounting executives pretending to be eco-hippies in the Nevada desert savaged a rival wealthy camp. The traditionalist calls themselves “Burners” and pretend to be self-sufficient outdoorsman surviving off bio-degradable Sternos and organic shrooms. They’ve come to detest the increasing number of glamour camping Silicon Valley and wealthy foreigners invading the desert with fully-loaded rich digs. The “White Ocean” camp features generators, professional cooks, DJs, and worst of all, British people. The Burner hooligans took to the White Ocean camp and cut their power and flooded their camp with drinking water, because they’re not really desert survivalists.

The first rule of Burning Man is you must talk about Burning Man. It used to just be the endless fucking stories. Now it’s 438,000 Instagram selfies. Nobody dies in the desert anymore. Not in decent numbers. It sucks when nobody in the fold can come up with a second idea.

Photo credit: Instagram