Getting into the muck of Burning Man

I try to hold two ideas at once

September 08, 2023

Strike Content

Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver recently joined forces on a new podcast called Strike Force Five. The five big late-night hosts can’t work on their shows due to the ongoing writers' strike, so they are making a podcast and donating the profits to their striking writers. Pretty cool. 

With two major entertainment unions striking simultaneously, I’ve been keeping an eye out for this kind of strike content. A large group of creative people spending time together on the picket line is a recipe for interesting new collaborative ideas. During the 2008 strike, we got Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog starring Neil Patrick Harris. I don’t think we are done with the strikes or new creator-produced and distributed projects like Strike Force Five yet. While I’m hoping for a speedy resolution that secures a living wage and career stability for the writers and actors, I’m also excited to see what other interesting projects come out of this moment. 

Note: It feels irresponsible to talk about Jimmy Fallon here and not also mention he’s recently been accused of creating a toxic work environment by a group of current and former staffers. 

Platform Updates

Instagram & Threads

The Rest of Meta 

TikTok

YouTube

Reddit

Pinterest (disclosure: I’m currently working as a contractor with Pinterest) 

Twitter

Culture Movers 

Regulation 

Music 

Auto 

Creator Economy 

Gaming 

Schrödinger's Culture

I’m happy to report that after a rainstorm turned Black Rock City into a muddy mess, my close friends have safely returned from Burning Man. There was a lot of internet Schadenfreude over the weekend as people imagine spoiled celebrities and tech billionaires forced to cosplay Lord of the Flies as their molly runs out. While I certainly enjoy that mental image, too, it’s also an incomplete view of the event from my perspective. 

Overhead view of Black Rock City during Burning Man

As I mentioned last week, I’ve never been to Burning Man, but living in San Francisco gives you unique access to the event’s people and culture without ever setting foot on the Playa. Burner camps throw big parties here in the city. You’ll end up at a house party that’s mostly Burners telling you that you’d love it. The art projects on the Playa will do fundraiser temporary installations at a gallery in your neighborhood. Your friends who do drag or DJ at the local gay bar will go perform there. I’ve never been to Black Rock City, but I feel it’s culture all around me. Burning Man acts like a lightning rod for creativity, kindness, and community that crackles out into San Francisco and my social world. 

I also read a lot. I hear about Chris Rock and Diplo hitchhiking their way out of the shelter-in-place. I read about the private jets and chefs the ultra-wealthy bring with them to the dessert. I know Elon Musk attends and loves it, and I honestly don’t want to be at any event where that bigot feels welcome. Burning Man also exists as a symbol of inequality and uncheck excess in my mind.  

So, how do I square these two opposing views of the same event? It’s both a fountain of creative innovation and a monument to inequality. A beacon of loving acceptance and a haven for cruel abusers. A temporary city of over 70,000 people isn’t going to be homogenous. Like San Francisco’s roughly 800,000 residents, Burning Man exists in a quantum superposition within America’s cultural imagination. Look too hard at a city, try to observe it too closely, and you’re forced to see it as just one thing. 

Needing Burning Man to represent just one of these ideas collapses it down into something easily consumed: a soundbite, a headline, a tweet. The problem is we don’t live in the world of tweets anymore. There is no Twitter, just X and the panoply of different services trying to occupy Twitter’s old cultural electron cloud. So maybe it’s time to let go of the narrowing effect thinking 280 characters at a time had on our cultural thinking. Maybe I can let Burning Man be both things in my mind. 

Spooky Season PSA

I hereby declare that Spooky Season, the time when it becomes appropriate to put up Halloween decorations, begins on September 15th. Life is short, the world is on fire, and we all deserve more whimsy and fun. If anyone complains about your Halloween decore, send them my way.