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

[amw]

Ha! What an epic rant.

I know people who still go to Burning Man or have been in recent years, and they are/were pretty seriously into the arts scene, so i am quite sure it's still a lot of fun and filled with creative installations and great music and all the rest of the stuff it always was. I don't want to shit on an event just because it got big or famous. Like i said to siglinde99 above, i get that some people just really enjoy massive events. Can't fault them if that's their vibe.

Personally my sweet spot for a party is a couple of hundred people. I've been to a bunch of raves and festivals of 1000 and up and to me once you get over 500 it's just too much, even though the production values clearly ramp along with the headcount. I think i am just the kind of person who feels more comfortable with smaller scale events, even while being perfectly happy living in a city of millions of people.

I feel you on the crafts fair thing being import stuff. I actually know a few people who are in the business of sourcing products from South America, Africa and Asia and then selling them at a great mark-up at "humble" market stalls in developed countries... One even went on to open her own little store of hippie dippie foreign curios and knick-knacks. I have to say seeing the catalogs where they got their stuff busted my illusion of these market stalls dealing in hand-crafted wares made by local artisans. I mean, sure, there's still artisans making the stuff, but they're churning them out by the hundreds and going through middle men who deal to small business owners all over the developed world. Is this exploitation? Is it neo-colonialism? Is it a modern incarnation of the East India Company? Or is it just adventurous expats and wise traders linking up western buyers with artists and craftspeople from the global south who otherwise would never find a market? I don't know. I find it hard to judge when clearly some people get so much pleasure out of it.

I do wonder how i would feel if i had stayed in the US (or at least Canada) over the past 5-10 years, though. A lot of people i know have said the place is really going downhill, certainly as far as counter-culture goes. But is that just because everyone i know nowadays is old? Maybe there is a new counter-culture and we're just too old to see it?

[geminiwench]

I know people who still go to Burning Man, too... most of them are there for the party, and enjoy the art, and some are there for the art and enjoy the party.

There are a lot of things that get big, without having its culture (especially when it is SUPPOSED to be counter-culture) co-opted into a more commericalized and digestible form. "Commercial" as an adjective isn't just... branding or advertising (which Burning Man disapproves of).. it is specifically talking about integrating "wide appeal" or "mass appeal" into the event.
That picture of a 100 RVs idling in the desert in the traffic jam is just like a huge warning sign that the anarchists and artists could easily be less than half of the participants. So... who the fuck is everyone else and why are they there?

I spend quite a bit of time in lot of little fringe social/artistic/nerd communities and there is something that happens when the general public tries to attend en masse something outsider, just because its currently popular. Yes, some people become inspired and a great time can change lives... but most just come and fuck the whole thing up. So many things are [Awesome Thing} + a Party.... but if you really love the awesome thing, the party is usually just like the.. bonus. And the party is wild but safe. But if you come to the awesome thing... not at all interested in the awesome thing and ONLY the party, that's where parties become dangerous and weird and it looses all the fun for me.

A 3000 person party where everyone is at the party for the same reason(s) is very different than a 3000 person party where more than half the people give zero shits about the awesome thing, they're just there to party untethered... and it changes everything.