 Fascinating! |
Today’s Burning Man: Anarchy? Not so much — Burning man, with this article, is done.
But from chaos comes order. Now it’s Burning Man, a limited liability corporation. Tickets can cost more than $300, and reportedly cell and texting bandwidth is available for the first time. Participants must sign a “terms and conditions” contract that seems potentially harsh in this free-form, anarchistic expressionist environment: “NO USE OF IMAGES, FILM, OR VIDEO OBTAINED AT THE EVENT MAY BE MADE WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM BURNING MAN, OTHER THAN PERSONAL USE.”
 Looks like a cheap trailer park to me |
Kind of defeats the purpose…it was supposed to be about ‘Free Expression’ right?
(sarcasm) Glad to see a CORPORATION took it over…..(/sarcasm)
sounds like a CORP has found a marketable ITEM and is trying to commercialize it…AS THEY ALWAYS DO.
Long ago, sports events were FREE to get into, concessions were the PROFIT…
NOW??
People go there to be free. Making them YouTube victims seems to be opposite of the purpose. If you want to see it, go there!
Funny as hell…An event to celebrate free expression…example #353, that progressive liberals are retarded…
They go there to be ‘Free’?!?! It costs over $300 ‘to be FREE’ ?!?!
Yep…P.T.B. was totally correct. Only in this case, 10,000 are born every minute….
#4 Jäg
Different strokes for different folks.
These aren’t the same folks and this isn’t Burning Man anymore. They may still call it Burning Man but it isn’t.
JCD is correct. It’s just a cheap trailer park now, filled with tourists we nastily call ‘summer people’, at least where I come from.
I’m sure the event is still amusing if you have time to kill and money to spend.
Actually, it has nothing to do with commercialization. It has to do with protecting the free expression of the participants.
The Burning Man organization is run by Burning Man attendees, people who believe in the event they help create.
What seems from the outside to be just another case of The Man taking rights away from The People is actually a very well thought-out strategy to maintain the integrity of the event, and organization by continuing to protect the rights of people who wish to be anonymous at the event from being used for the potential profit of others without their knowledge or consent.
The number of photos and videos from Burning Man that are currently up all over the internet should let you know that media for personal use is very allowed.
And, this “contract” is not new. It’s several years old now. It’s just this one uninformed EFF opinion that is new.
Dvorak, you can make all the “cheap trailer park” comments that you like. It won’t change the fact that tens of thousands of people invest considerable time, energy, love, and money to create an ephemeral desert trailer park they call home.
Corporations Snorporations!
Anyone who wants to go out in the baking sun, with thousands of freaks, no running water, inadequate toilets (so I’m told) and dust everywhere DESERVES to be ripped off, and seriously NEEDS something worthwhile to do!
I mean, at least the Renaissance Pleasure Faire has trees!
#9 Kiki
Are you saying it’s still an utterly spontaneous, totally disorganized celebration of zany creativity…
…that just happens to cost $300, where cell and texting bandwidth have been pre-arranged and participants must sign a “terms and conditions” contract?
OK.
I thought I went to Burning Man years ago. Turns out I was just drunk in front of the Christmas tree and my dog was pissing on me.
#12. “bobbo, been everywhere, done everything”: Yes, I hate it when that happens.
If a corporation is involved it is by definition no longer cool. Please don’t let this happen to DEFCON.
Ha Ha Ha. Burning man. What a bunch of horseshit druggies pissing in the wind. They all deserve everything they get at the wonderful free expression they create. Can you get in without a tattoo?
#12 bobbo
Actually, I remember that very clearly. This is one of those times when you thought you were wrong but you weren’t.
It actually was at Burning Man.
Now that’s the TRUE spirit of the event. Way to go, bobbo!
🙂
Considering that Burning Man occurs in the nation where you can grab a burning charcoal and you can sue the company who made it because it didn’t have a warning label etched onto each one it’s no wonder.
You know those jerks and jocks that you hated in college? The rich daddy’s boys that belonged to upper fraternities? They are the typical kind of guy that attends Burning Man these days.
The local RV rental place in the San Francisco peninsula regularly charges $145/day… right now they are charging $375 + mileage {and they are sold out.) Their biggest client? Burning Man “Tour Groups” that charge by the head for what basically amounts to an all inclusive summer camp program.
It’s just another form of cool-dude Spring Break, where trashy women and jocks go to drink beer from the same funnel with a hose that they used in college, exchange bodily fluids in a drunken stupor and then have bragging right for having been ‘cool’ and attended this year’s Disney version of Burning Man.
there is no cabal
been there! done that!!! and yes i have the t-shirt!
This is not well thought out at all.
Burning man is about tons of people getting blitzed in the middle of nowhere and then lighting some large type thing on fire. Previously if you OD’d, well, shit bad luck. Now somebody (the monetizers) get sued for HUGE money.
Here’s my old man moment: I remember the day when you could go to see a festival with all of the hottest acts of that year (of a specific music genre, with a few other genre acts thrown in) for easily under $20 bucks. I also remember real clubs, hazily, where corrupt cops kept everyone safe and really high.
Trying to turn these things into a cash cow is dicey, legally, for the promoters and a poor value, always, for the punters.
The Virgin Fest($300) has taken the place of WHFSTival($25) for me locally.
This doesn’t mean that entertainment is on a downslope. It means that folks that go to other more vibrant and stumbly events that cost a small fraction of the cover charge.
If you have visited san francisco then you have been to burning man. same thing just not so hot at night.
>> cornholer said, on August 31st, 2009 at 2:25 pm
>> Funny as hell…An event to celebrate free expression…example #353, that progressive liberals are retarded…
Wow, you conservatives can spin ANYTHING.
Burning man was cool when the freaks where running it but then the suits got a hold of it.
>> bobbo, been everywhere, done everything said, on August 31st, 2009 at 3:06 pm
>> I thought I went to Burning Man years ago. Turns out I was just drunk in front of the Christmas tree and my dog was pissing on me.
You too? I hate it when that happens
I thought I was at Burning Man but, instead, my wife got too close to the candles in her Chinese flannel nightgown.
Sure. No trash left behind.
Burning man died the moment it was mentioned on a prime time sitcom. From what I heard it went from one year artsy festival with awesomeness to a whole bunch of overweight assholes trying to get laid.
The best events will ALWAYS be underground.
There is a youg lady that works for Leo Laporte of the TWiT podcast. She mentioned the other day she had build a computer for some friends to take to Burning Man.
I heard Mary Hodder say she was taking liquid nitrogen to Burning Man to make frozen desserts.
I was thinking, Burning Man has jumped the shark. They’ve all sold out…
People come to burning man to let their hair down and do the wild thing.
They don’t want that posted on line.
What happens at burning man should stay at burning man.
I didn’t know anything about Burningman until corporation I was working offered discounted tickets to the event. I look at the picture of previous years and figure they were trying to get me so I didn’t buy them
I went to the Burn for the art and the music and the fun. What’s wrong with that? No one likes a negative critic. Having cell service just means you have to remember to turn it off as soon as the Virgins get slapped in the ass.
Nothing at all wrong with music, art and fun. But a celebration for the non-conformist? Not anymore. Go without a costume and find out that unlimited inclusion has a different meaning at Burning Man LLC.
Save the money. Put on a decent outfit and be open enough to respect local custom, then spend that ticket price in Paris, or San Francisco. Same intensity, more reality (always much better later), and experience far fewer alkali coated old man testicles.