modern hippies fail at hippiedom, exhibit 37

[amw]

I read the news every day. Any given day in my life you can be sure of two things. I will drink coffee and i will read the news. To be honest, i mostly just glance the headlines because that's enough to give me general overview of what is going on in the world, but there are always a couple of articles a day that warrant a clickthrough

Comments

[geminiwench]

That long ass tirade was just me having a morning... but now I read your article!

"“They’re delusional, it’s idiocy,” fumed Molly, a festival attendee. “They think they’re going to fix climate change by blocking Burning Man? I don’t care what their argument is, they can go fuck themselves.”"

"“I think protest is very important, but destroying and inconveniencing people doesn’t do anything,” said a man named Will Semmbs, who was on the way to the festival. “I have solar panels on my RV,” he noted. “The protesters drove here in gas-powered cars. They’re literally making the climate worse.”"

Wow.... those people sure are bummed about their party... but good to know they can PROVE they care about the planet, with their tone of righteous indignation even if it is *slightly undercut* by their impatience with the conversation at hand! Ha!

[amw]

I know right? It's so hilarious to me that such proudly indignant people see themselves as the truly righteous ones. Like, if you are such a highly developed soul, have a little humility about it, have a sense of humor. The dude abides.

[geminiwench]

Have a sense of humor.
The dude abides.

I wonder if these events are different in the EU. I picture the stressed Americans going, "I only have 5 days of vacation a year! I'm, BLOWING IT ALL ON BURNING MAAAAAAAAN!" and then of course all that shit is so stressful that they can't even join the collective when they get there because they're so rigid about having SO MANY NEEDS because anxiety/time/money/stuff, ya know.. Americanism.

[amw]

I've pondered this a lot, and to be fair i've never been to a festival in the US so i can't compare directly. I have been in Canada and Australia, though, and i think those countries share a lot more in common with the US culturally than Europe, at least festival-wise

[geminiwench]

In Europe are they downtown festivals?
Or is it something where you can take over somewhere off the beaten path? I think of the Fringe festival or something where the whole city is taken over for... some time.

There are definitely downtown sorta corporate festivals in the U.S. but the wildest ones are generally out in a field somewhere.

[amw]

Oof, this is opening a can of worms, because if you start counting every event as a "festival", where do you draw the line? Let's say you add Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Do you also add Toronto International Film Festival? What about Just for Laughs (Montréal)? Frankfurt Luminale? Does Fulsom Street Fair (San Franciso) count? Notting Hill Carnival (London)? Calgary Stampede? San Diego Comic-Con? Are county fairs festivals? Are rodeos? Pow-wows? Weihnachtsmärkte? Pride? Wrestlemania

[geminiwench]

That's what I was trying to figure out.

But I think most events go through a big sea-change when they become overtly "popular".... where the attendees are less and less involved with the reason the event is taking place, and start showing up simply because there is an Event Taking Place, irrelative of it's meaning/purpose....

... what I mean is....

... fucking tourists.