Born to Burn

One of the central tenets of Burner culture is giving, with no expectation of reciprocity. Burners gift, barter, and parlay, whether with swag or with words or with vibes, always striving to learn how to do so better next time. The essential imperative that drives our little pop-up city is an aspiration to be part of something greater than the sum of its parts. This requires sacrifice, and more importantly surrender. Ego-driven narratives of entitlement are the antithesis of this. We gift and exchange freely to ensure the purity of our interactions. To prove that we are not just another manifestation of capitalism (even though we are, even if as counterpoint). 

With Renegade, I suggest that for the first time we have seen a marked differentiation between Burning Man i.e. The Org, and Black Rock City. We’ve seen this difference now because 20,000 of us decided that if we wanted to go out to the desert, set up shop, and get weird, regardless of whether we have ‘permission,’ we would do so. You can’t stop us erecting BRC. 

What is troubling is that the Org, as far as I can see, wanted no part in this wholly natural and organic manifestation of the culture that they claim they champion. Whilst the spirited among us determined that it would happen - come hell or high water, the Org remained deafening in their silence. They wouldn’t allow the official ‘Burning Man’ name to be used. “hey, we got that trademarked!” (Ironically, the name is considered a ‘possession’ that they do not want sullied by a bunch of dirty burners. Kinda backfired…)

 

There was no mention of the Renegade Burn on any Org run webpages or social media. It was conspicuous by its absence in the Jack Rabbit emails. They did burn a man themselves, which just happened to coincide with the amazing drone burn. Timing is everything. 

In short, they couldn’t stop it, but they did everything they could not to help it get where it was going. The stench of fear could not be more odious. Whether fear of legal repercussions, or other… 

And the ‘other’ is understandable. This is an existential threat that the Org have never faced before. 

OR: 

Is it a challenge that they can meet head on? Will they make the wrong decision like they have so many times? Or will they show themselves to be truly the ‘indentured servants of the culture’ they portray themselves to be? 

Call me an optimist, and this might just be decompression talking, but based on probability, and I think the fact that the reality of the situation has to set in at some point, I think we might see the Org make their first truly boss move in almost 25 years. 

I suggest the following: 

The Org is a placenta. 

They have nourished and maintained our culture to the point where it is now ready to become something more than just some endless variation on a theme. We need to be born, and to do so we need the Org to grant us the type of freedom that can never be reversed. 

I can’t think of a greater gift you could give to the community than surrendering the power you have in making BRC happen and gifting it to us. 

We already have all the pieces in place. Hell, burners in their millions have been doing this for so long how could they NOT continue to achieve greatness year after year, Org or no Org? 

Don’t misunderstand me. Elements of the Org are an absolute necessity in the default world, where corporations are king. We need to be able to deal with the myriad legalities and to provide the infrastructure. The mammoth undertaking of building the city cannot happen without an absolutely ridiculous amount of organisation. And we will always need a version of the Org to run things. But what we don’t need, and what was holding us back, is the fact that when all was said and done, it had previously come down to relying on a fiefdom of unelected ‘elders’ to make things happen – a Royal family of real people, with real fears and real inadequacies. And they have been hampered by an astoundingly infantile lack of confidence in the power of our movement. 

What would happen if BM HQ and a couple of hundred staff were to all get swallowed by The Big One tomorrow? 

Up until this year we could only speculate. 

This year we found out. 

The city will rise regardless. A beautiful desert bloom whose only master is nature itself. 

Last year it was a few thousand. Nothing but RV’s and pop-up discos. 

This year, 20,000 made the pilgrimage, some estimates even say 30,000. And there were sound camps and a man burnt and temples burnt and the poop situation miraculously did not shit itself. 

One of the things Marian Goodell has bemoaned is how difficult it is to juggle so many things at once, and the constant backbreaking efforts necessary to keep the majority of people happy. It sounds exhausting. 

But it does not need to be that way. This year we demonstrated that if 20,000 people want to peacefully converge in the middle of buttfuck nowhere and do weird shit until they drop, they are free to do so. 

We the people of Black Rock City have kowtowed for too long. We wanna be free to do what we wanna do! 

This year we saw something truly remarkable. The City organised itself. An essentially decentralised collection of 200 odd camps all used social media to plan, and it was implemented largely without hitch. The BLM tried to tell us what we could and couldn’t do, and we all laughed and we made it happen anyway. It didn’t put us off, quite the opposite, it made us more determined. 

Which brings me back to the core consideration of the Org’s continued role. And I suggest the reason they need to be made redundant in their current iteration. As figureheads for the burn, they become targets should the powers that be decide that TTITD is getting too uppity. Too dangerous. 

What was thrown into sharp focus this burn is perhaps the Org’s greatest crime of all - the Org has unwittingly allowed BM and BRC to become sanitised and safe; so it can ‘continue.’ Essentially, they have become cowed by the power of the thing that they were duty bound to honestly represent, without fear. 

I humbly suggest that ALL burners need to grow a pair, not just the 20,000 that ventured out into the great unknown poop apocalypse this year. And we need to realise that we make the rules – not the other way round. We call the shots from this day forward. 

The Org represents our biggest problem in this regard, because these are people who would face the very real repercussions of allowing the above to happen. 

Hence - decentralisation. 

And a publicly accessible tome of institutionalised knowledge. As the Org prepares to allow us to govern ourselves completely. 

“I’m just popping to the library to find out how to build Black Rock City. Be right back”. 

No more secretly elected officials. We get things to the point where every one of us organises the burn, at every single level. 

And before any members of the Org or the many heavily-invested camp leads respond in a naturally-reactionary and defensive way, ask yourself: is that fear and ego talking? 

You’re in or you’re out. 

Who knows, in 11 years’ time, when you have handed billions of people the last of the keys to the kingdom, and you are actually able to enjoy the burn without any of the business of running things distracting you, you might find yourself atop a flying saucer, drinking strawberry daiquiris, as the sun comes up over our city, and realise this is where you were meant to be all along.