Culture - Camps - Placement

[Ratty]

I think that goes for Hushville too. They always have a great location. We hate generators at Tiger Man Camp. All solar or batteries.

[Jackass]

I credit Mr Jackass for being the prime mover in the community addressing the PnP issue - thanks! - and he was followed a few days later by the sherpa's lament.

*Only with the help of several other concerned individuals, thank you for giving a shit and making some NOISE!

[motskyroonmatick]

The survey took me forever but as along term camp mayor I had much to say. It was nice to see some very well thought out questions. It will be interesting to see what the future holds and what kind of action is spurred from the information.
On the surface it seems pretty ridiculous that somewhere north of 70% of the city is occupied by placed camps. Not too surprising with Sell Out, DGS, ticket scarcity and media pushing being in a theme camp as an absolute necessity for first timers.
I miss the days of being able to get tickets at the gate. I think in those years the motivation to do a theme camp was way more on the gifting side of the spectrum than today where resource acquisition seems to be a major motivation for many camps. I think resource acquisition mode has diminished the amount of acculturation that happens and decreases the weirdness of camps.
Ideally I would like to see the more exclusive divided culture camps that pay for services like support staff, technicians, labor and transport to stop paying for labor on playa, limit OSS use and accomplish their operations and real inclusive interactivity through physical participation by all camp mates.

[Token]

That’s a good noggin there Motsky.

We have gone from creation to consumption.

[TT120]

I don't have a problem with people/camps having more money than me. If you want to bring out your million dollar RV's and have lavish accommodations, then by all means as long as you do it yourself. What I take issue with is hiring a crew to do it all for you. That is commodification.

If these uber rich and famous people had to set up their own shit like we do, you can bet they wouldn't be there.

Burning Man is hard. It's supposed to be hard. That's what make it a very special event.

[maladroit]

Some might point out that Baker Beach was easy, but really...I think Burning Man only found its soul when it moved to the desert. So yes, it's supposed to be hard, and that's what drew most of us to the event. I can easily go three months in the default world without feeling angry, sad, hungry, lonely, or uncomfortable. I can barely go three days at Burning Man without feeling all of the above, but in return am allowed to regain a sense of wonder and participation that doesn't often penetrate the cocoon of modern life. Of course I'm going to get fucky if I see people hired to build a cocoon around Burning Man.

[wraith]

My big gripe was DGS and “theme camps” being the instrument of the Devil. Everyone wants a placed camp so they can get tickets and early passes.

I pushed hard on cutting theme camps to Esplanade and A/B and going back to non-placed camps.

And villages, outside Kidsville, AEG and Hushville - fuck ‘em. Sorry Doc P.

Decommodificatio above all else - no fucking services. Make BM hard to pull off, not Disneyland in the desert.

My man.

That's pretty much exactly what I said. No offense to the village organizers like Doc, but every single vendor and vendor staff member on site represents Burners who can't come play in the dust.

Fuck that noise.

I repeatedly hit that same point Eye makes above, that it feels like we're allowing more and more of the rich and beautiful set to treat BM like a safari to see the freaks in their natural habitat and take some snaps for Instagram.

My pet issue, and one which just keeps getting worse, is the availability of smartphones with service on the Playa. There are whole communities on Reddit now swapping nudes taken of people in the crowds at the Burn, and we're at a point where I'd be real cautious about going all-out on costume because that shit could be on Facebook tagged with my name before I got the dust off my boots.