I’m sick of hearing about fucking Burning Man—and all the
fucking you did at Burning Man. I’m glad you went into the middle of
the desert and built deeper, more intimate bonds with your
“community”—but when I look at this group of people you describe
as “open minded, creative, thought leaders, and radical pioneers,” I
see a socially stunted set of dorks who use sex, drugs, and homemade
costumes to hide their complete inability to function in and form
meaningful relationships.

So congratulations on finding a community of similarly smug sluts to
ride with you on the fluorescent-colored psychedelic short bus to the
middle of the fucking desert. Yeah, I’ve heard your arguments. Art
festival, blah blah. Creativity, blah blah. Expansion of consciousness,
blah blah. Radical self-reliance blah blah. Maybe if you continue to
repeat those mantras, I’ll start to believe that the time, money, and
resources you burn on the way to “the burn” are worth it. But for now,
listening to you has me convinced that Burning Man is one big weeklong
circle jerk of social retards.

For the record, I respect furries—at least they have the
self-awareness to call their fetish a fetish, instead of trying to pass
it off as a form of visionary social responsibility or true community.
Too bad all the drugs you did this year didn’t provide the clarity you
claim they can. Instead, they just added to the denial and distractions
that keep you from growing the fuck up and learning to live, love, and
fuck like a responsible adult.

92 replies on “I, Anonymous”

  2. or maybe you’re just mad that lover just cheated on you while at burning man cause you weren’t stimulating them enough. bummer man. get over it.

  4. i had the misfortune of wasting a week of my life in that miserable stank pit of human waste last year. it’s where the uglies return annually to spawn.

  5. Hey, “FurriesDontRespectYou”…
    Furries don’t fuck stuffed animals, they just like wearing animal costumes (and not necessarily for sex, just in general).
    It’s a completely different thing.
    You obviously don’t know any of them and have no clue what you’re talking about. Bored much?
    And no, I don’t respect you. At least you got that part right.

  6. burning man is totally what you make it. i’ve been five times and yes, there are lots of burners who seem like they can only talk about burning man. before i went i thought my friends who’d gone were insane–part of some weird cult. but then i said what the heck and i went. i have traveled extensively all over the world and there is nothing like it on the planet–and it’s uniqueness has very little to do with partying or sex.

    people emphasize the partying and sex because it is there and readily available. but let’s be honest, if you are young or someone who has not allowed yourself to really play in those arenas a lot, burningman is your shangri-la–you’d talk a lot about it too. but that’s not all there is to it.

    you can go and have a fabulous time stone cold sober. you can go and feel sexy (or not) and not have sex at all. or you can go and fuck your brains out–the choice is yours. you can go on the cheap, which i’ve done, or go with more creature comforts. how much you spend, what you do is totally up to you. it is radical self-expression, but it is also radical self-responsiblity too.

    i’ve met and made art with people from all over the world. i’ve built things out there under intense conditions with people much more skilled than i am and have been able bring those skills and experience back to help people in my regular life. not everyone is major into the costuming thing, you don’t have to be, but it can be fun! it’s fun to just stop judging yourself and everyone else, it’s fun to break out of the daily grind and the repression of our culture and feel totally free to be and do whatever you want. AND there really is absolutely brilliant art. many of the massive sculptures put the public art on display here in seattle to shame. sorry, but it’s true.

    anyway, i think if you just said to your friend, you know i’m really happy that you had such a great time and found some cool people to play with, but to be honest, i’d love to be able to talk to you about some other things every once in awhile they would probably appreciate it.

    most people who go to burning man are pretty open and friendly, and actually really talk to one another. everyone just let’s everyone else have their trip as long as it doesn’t hurt others. i bet your friend would be receptive to your feelings.

    that said, i totally understand not wanting to hear about it all the time. burning man is great, but it’s one tiny part of our vast, really cool world. i would say that if this last burning man was your friend’s first time, try and cut them some slack. it can be mind-blowing the first time you go, especially if you’ve been a bit repressed or sheltered…but if your friend is relatively smart, he/she will gain some perspective moving forward.

  8. Go to the fucking desert and do whatever you want, just stop talking about it constantly to people that aren’t interested.

    It’s no different than people who talk constantly about their kids, pets, favorite sports teams, etc. Except I’ve *never* met anyone who talked so much about their kids/pets/sports teams as burners talk about BM.

    The worst ones are the environmentalists that talk constantly about saving the planet and horrible yuppies and don’t realize that the energy wasted on BM and people getting there (flying from all over the world) could power a small African country for several years.

  9. Hmm, insightful much? I, Anonymous is a font of misdirected, misunderstood anger.

    I’ve never been to Burning Man. I can safely say that I will probably never go to Burning Man as I am just short of albino pale and am not interested in courting skin cancer (Sun block is only so effective.). It also doesn’t appeal to me. That said, who cares if this guy is really into Burning Man? Bored and tired of hearing somebody go on and on about Burning Man? Don’t hang out with them. Don’t talk to them. Here’s a radical suggestion: Tell them you’re not interested in hearing about it.

    Incidentally, I’ve heard people rave/brag/go on and on about all sorts of things. News flash: sometimes people are boring. There are many more complaint-worthy things in the world.

    Incidentally, incidentally, why do people get pissed off at other people for their clothing and hairstyles. Who cares?

  10. Any activity that comes with a ‘philosophy’ is probably going to embarrass the participants later on. Might be fun now, but you really are just ridiculous idiots. See hippies in the 60s, disco free love swingers in the 70s, on up to burners in the 90s and now. Everything you think is so new, isn’t, and everything you think so revolutionary isn’t either.

    Whether its SCA or BDSM, BRC or any other alphabet soup altculture excuse to go blow it out and fuck in public, people have done this since ancient times. Why is yours so amazing and so wonderful and so likely to change society? Don’t you know in the end you lose? Ask the Dionysian cults of Rome. Ask the pagans of Europe. Death takes us all. Your alt-cult is nothing new, and really nothing that special.

  12. Thanks for the comment Burn Victim.

    It’s pretty much assholes like you that make me want to pack up my shit and live in the middle in the fucking desert once a week every year. I get what I put into the event(blood, sweat, and tears), and quite clearly so do you(nothing).

    Save your uninformed sweeping comments about shit you don’t care about for the drones at your nine-to-five, and shut your fucking hate-hole.

  13. I am a burner.

    I think this perspective is valid and worth contemplation by everyone who goes to the burn. What turned me off in this community of open minded friendly fun lovers is that they don’t really care that much about each other, unless it is to their own ego boosting benefit / desperate need for friends. The level of abuse (psychological and physical) they heap on each other is unacceptable and too many blind eyes are turned cause that would interfere with the fun. Burners are like drug friends step off the line and it’s hard to make a connection back. You know it’s true – this isn’t just me talking this is a story retold again and again but there are always new recruits to believe the hype or who just haven’t gotten out much up to that point. Every one needs validation and to feel special just keep some perspective kids. I was at burning man and it was fun but like the carnival rides at the fair once you look at the gears behind the scenes it’s a little unseemly. So to the good ones in the scene (don’t assume this means you) the thing is to think about this as a call out to integrate into society and bring the playa out to the real world and not an excuse to hunker down with the “e” at the next mono cultured party.

  14. Bravo! I wish I could hug you! Erm, I mean give you a high-five! You are SO RIGHT!

    See you in the dust at BM08, my Anonymous Hero. 😉

  15. Burning Man is not what it once was, this is true. However, it IS nice to be able to walk around naked. Like anything, Burning Man is what you want it to be.

  16. I love it! I thought I wanted to go, I quized everyone I knew who went – what goes on there? What’s so great? I guess I should have gone years ago when getting fucked up and “being original” still seemed worth while. I have enough local opportunities to get my freak on if necessary, I don’t need to blow my wad to get to the desert and compete in the costume contest.

  19. alright, having comments for “I anonymous” misses the point of the feature, which is a writer getting something off his chest without justification, moderation or further self- examination. You readers want to criticize? Well criticize your own frail asses.

  20. mmm, comments rock.

    “Anonymous” + “Community” has been proven and re-proven again for 30+ years on the internets alone; much less the long tradition of wearing masks to an orgy…. (no honey, i draw the line at fucking you in the desert. masks are fine, but the desert is OUT.)

  21. Wow, you so brilliantly pigeonholed 50,000 people (in addition to the many hundreds of thousands in the historical cumulative attendance).

    Do you also have grand generalizations against all column writers?

  22. THANK YOU for putting into words the irritation I have felt for years. Maybe, if I accidentally attended BM, I would learn to love it. But probably not.

  23. You just can’t stand it can you? That someone else enjoys something that much? What gives them the right huh? Who do they think they are; liking something that much?!? I understand to some degree… if you don’t feel like that about anything in your own life… could get irritating… probably sounds like bragging to you.

    It reminds me of something my grandmother once said… “The only people who get irritated at the sound of the neighbors having sex… are people that have gone too long without making those noises themselves.”

  26. “This issue of the stranger was brought to you by Captain Obvious and the letter Tell Me Something I Don’t Already Know”? ha ha…that made me chuckle out loud.

    I also like the concept of “accidently going to burning man”.
    OOPS! I was just walking along and all of the sudden, I fell into a black hole that turned out to be burning man. damn!

  28. Ha ha, this was great! Brings back the saying. If you arent pissed off your not paying attention. Buring man sounds like a fun idea, then I got out of college got a real job and started contributing to my community while the dead beats who didnt have the tenacity to realize their true potential complain about the world instead of fixing it. yes, I am a cog in the wheel, but the goal is to be the wheel and then learn how to stear it. Hard to do that if you dont even know what a cog is and are to lazy and fried to figure it out. I know this from experience. I love hippies, but not wannabes. Let go, live, laugh, love and those connections (which is what life is all about) are far more intense if you leave the drugs in hi-school/college and take that next step in the journey of who we all are.

  29. Byte_me:

    Oh please. “Furries do X” is like saying “Straight men do X”. Or “people who identify themselves as old-school nerdlingers by commenting themselves as “byte” need to find ways to masturbate other than wanking while they type self-righteous asspuckering comments”. I don’t care if you’re a furry. I don’t care if you yiff. I DO care that furries are used as the primary source of something that’s all kinds of fucked up in social and physical strata by both their “defenders” and their attackers. Hell, I’m into girls who wear thigh-high stockings and nothing else; were they wearing fun fur leggings and nothing else I might be as drooly.

    But seriously? You’re an ass – each of you that have been yakking on about how Burning Man is (insert assumptive definition here). Fuck your assumption, fuck your attitude, and most of all, fuck your pathetic life that uses the choices of others to counterpoint the suckiness of your own. If you can’t justify your own choices any other way than by denigrating the lives of others, maybe you ought to look into that whole depression thing. Or maybe figure out what’s wrong with your OWN shitty life, instead of pissing in everyone else’s Cheerios.

    What crawled up your shitty life and died?

  31. I’m a burner and The event changes my life every year. My girlfriend hates burning man. In fact, I’m e-mailing her this article.
    Leaving there feels like getting cast out of heaven. It’s not what it is, but that’s how it feels. You miss it. Thats all. My girlfriend always asumes I’m being pedantic when I bring up burning man, when really…I’m just remembering something wonderful or trying to explain somehting that happened to me. I just don’t talk about it anymore…and–consequently–don’t have anything to say to her.
    So I just don’t talk anymore.

  33. It sounds like the real issue here is that your partner/friend “burner” is diverting resources (money, time, love) away from you to attend this event.

    Is Burning Man the big love fest that everyone says it is? Probably not. Let’s face it, it is a bunch of people getting high and partying. Nothing wrong with that, but don’t justify you getting high and partying with “building community, creativity and blah blah blah”. Its a party. A big party. But don’t make it more than it is.

    But, all of that being said, Burning Man isn’t the problem here. Your relationship with “the burner” is.

  35. Ha! I think the negative comments back up the point, Burners take themselves too seriously. they often seem to have something to prove, and ironically they are disapproving and closed-minded toward people who don’t want to compete with them in kinkiness and exhibitionism. This column is pretty harsh, but definitely funny.

  36. Am I the only one who agrees with this person?? Way to go, burn victim! Let the hippies die in their self-satisfied privileged desert party!

  42. The Burners’ comments here, and their need to defend Burning Man against a random anonymous rant, only further demonstrate the point: Burners take themselves too seriously, and far too many of them have pretty much invested their entire persona in their little party in the desert. Ever been stuck at a party populated by Burners who are incapable of having any conversation that doesn’t ultimately end up being about BM? It’s unbearable. Seriously.

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