I’ve been to burning man. I sit a little bit on both sides of the fence having not felt like I totally fit in there when I went, but also understanding the original mindset behind it.

At this point, I feel the backlash against Burning Man generally is a bit overblown. These folks are at a festival (yeah burners, I called it a festival because that’s the word we use for such things in the English language) and they’re having a good time. Who cares. Most folks who go have good intentions and just want to connect and share something. Many artists work for years and months to have their pieces featured. Some of that art is incredible! My favorite parts though were literally just an astronomy camp where I looked through a pretty big telescope, held some billion year old meteor fragments in my hand, and listened to hours of lectures from science nerds about the cosmos. I also watched a magic show and got fed bacon by some drunk guy at his camp at 7 am who just wanted company. I personally havent drank at burning man, but it is a party. There are all manner of things at burning man, anything you might want and some things you might not… from talks on how to build a sustainable green energy house to orgy tents to camps offering free ice cream and French toast.

On the other hand, burners can take this shit a bit too seriously and get wrapped up in the experience to the point of being annoying. One guy in my camp scolded me for asking too much about his normal life. He was a tech worker and apparently wanted to pretend that he wasn’t when he was at burning man. How ridiculous to think standing in the desert should mean you can’t talk about your actual life. Another time I pulled out my camera (aka phone) to take a photo of some art and some random chick yelled at me to put my phone away. As we all bought DLSRs and Polaroids for this event because it’s more authentic that way, and as if the folks that did totally aren’t going to go home and put it on Instagram anyway. There were plenty of women just posing on the playa for their photographer “friends.” I doubt they all just put them in a family photo album for the memories.

That said, Burning Man is a unique event and most folks are just trying to share and view some of the most unique art in the world and connect with others. At my age, I generally find most festivals annoying and burning man has plenty of people to be annoyed at, but it is what it is and frankly I don’t know that it deserves more hate than something like Bonaroo or Coachella. At least Burning Man is full of folks trying to be more than mere passive consumers of entertainment. The mandate is for you to be a participant. God forbid you attend an event where you’re asked to do more than consume, but rather give, anything you want or feel the others benefit from.