modern hippies fail at hippiedom, exhibit 37
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
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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.
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