Burning Man

21 years ago
The hypocrisy of the Burning Man organization really pisses me off.
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Current Music: Acetate -- Noir ♬

22 Responses:

  1. baconmonkey says:
    21 years ago at 8:04 pm

    I suspect multiple agendas that have some overlap.

    "create an environment where people can feel comfortable being nekkid."

    and

    "protect the Brand"

    both are achieved by the same means. I kinda figure there's a combo of hippie idealism, and ruthless corporate bastard going on, hence the mixed wordings.
  2. electricdog says:
    21 years ago at 9:59 pm

    What the hell is Burning Man, anyway? I keep reading references to it but I don't actually know exactly what it is.
    • opiummmm says:
      21 years ago at 11:01 pm

      http://www.burningman.com/

      Basically, people pay around $150 - $250 to go to the middle of the Black Rock Desert, build a community, have a large, perpetual arts and entertainment festival, and on the last day of the camp, they burn down a 40' structure resembling a man.
  3. king_mob says:
    21 years ago at 1:10 am

    I don't know how much they can protect the Burning Man himself; I think an image that the Druids apparently came up with is considered to be in the public domain. (Probably for the best, as a few people already used it.)
  4. darwinx0r says:
    21 years ago at 3:44 am

    "Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity"

    Have you considered that perhaps the reason they have a crappy neo-hippie justification for their policy is that they're neo-hippies? While I think they're being unreasonable wrt IP freedom in their little corner of the world, they may actually be doing it with the best neo-hippie bullshit intentions in mind. The left frequently comes down against freedom when it conflicts with other ideals that they hold more dear (or immediate practical concerns).

    In any case, with Burning Man I'm not sure you can prove that their actions are motivated by "market" concerns as much as they are by aesthetic sense. With Disney, it's clear it's branding/marketing.

    Many people consider Burning Man public space (and considering it's on public land.. (?!?)) but when it comes down to it, it's not. The organizers accept the financial responsibility (which is significant) and the liability (which is way way way way more significant) for the event. As we live in a legal framework, the idea that they should operate outside of the law in some way when dealing with 17,000 potential litigants is absurd. They have used contract law to attempt to create certain rules in their private space, and it seems legal and not totally unreasonable to me.

    This doesn't mean that I agree that all pictures created should belong to them, etc., etc., just that "private" space is "private" space, and we live in a legal society with which hippie groovy love-fests in the middle of nowhere have to interface.

    =darwinburnxx
    • jwz says:
      21 years ago at 6:22 am

      In any case, with Burning Man I'm not sure you can prove that their actions are motivated by "market" concerns as much as they are by aesthetic sense. With Disney, it's clear it's branding/marketing.

      I don't think there is any distinction between "aesthetic sense" and "branding/marketing". Disneyland and Burning Man have exactly the same goals in that respect: presenting a consistent face to customers (sorry "participants", sorry, "cast members").

      They have used contract law to attempt to create certain rules in their private space, and it seems legal and not totally unreasonable to me.

      I never said that their behavior was unreasonable or (should be) illegal. What pisses me off is their halfassed attempts to hide their behavior. I hate that they lie about it. They pretend "we're all in this together", but really, some animals are more equal than others, aren't they? (Not to switch metaphors midstream or anything.)
  5. jette says:
    21 years ago at 3:46 am

    I dreamt I went to burning man once. It was awful.
  6. merovingian says:
    21 years ago at 3:51 am

    In defense of Burning Man on this...

    They don't want to become a porn factory. There's a large market outside of Burning Man that will pay for pictures of naked women, but the BM people don't want that to happen. They seem to be cracking down only on photographs, rather than other branding issues. (The nearby towns of Empire and Gerlach, for instance, make shitloads of T-shirts and chotchka with all kinds of Burning Man labels and sell it, and the Burning Man people sort of tacitly encourage it.)

    And they don't make their own porn.

    On the other hand, it's definitely the case that every year, Burning Man gets less free and more controlled. An old boss of mine stopped going when they forbade firearms.

    I'm sure eventually it'll reach a point where the bullshit is too much for me, but in the meantime, I'm still going. It's sufficiently entertaining at the personal-experience level to justify, for me, the hypocrisy of freedom-yet-control on the management level.
  7. rzr_grl says:
    21 years ago at 4:57 am

    "if you take a photo on the playa, we own it, and get to tell you when and where and how it can be published."

    Not only that - they demand a percentage of the profit!! It's either 10 or 20%.
    You also have to send them a copy of all images so they can use them for whatever they like.

    Guess what I've sent them?
    That's right.
  8. atakra says:
    21 years ago at 6:51 am

    Zozobra is the "original" Burning Man, held in Santa Fe NM.
    http://www.zozobra.com/zozobra.html
    It's a great thing seeing a 75 foot tall effigy of a priest in Clown makeup being burned as a protest against the white man's invasion of the southwest.
    It comes complete with radical born-agin types raving against the heathens, near-riots, and general mayhem every year if you play your cards right.

    Burning Man is a cheap candy-raver substitute.

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