Preponderance of Darktards

[bluesbob]

I was really amazed at how many people wore no lights at all this year. Each night on the playa I came across many unlit people, and sometimes this led to very close calls.

The worst was Tues. night when some 20-something on a BMX bike came screaming out of the darkness. He wore black shoes, pants, shirt and baseball cap (turned fashionably to the side) His bike was also black. We missed each other by a mere couple inches. After barely avoiding him he came to a stop. I circled my bike around him and said, "Wow, you really need some lights!" His response? He threw his bike down in the dirt, threw his arms back and puffed out his chest and said, "Why don't you suck my dick, motherfucker!?" I circled around him once more and replied, "You really have the wrong attitude for this place...why don't you just pack up and go home?" I then cycled off into the darkness.

[dBrew]

Yes. Hella darktards this year. I think I'm going to have to hand out beatdowns and lights next time around.

[Plasticover]

Yea I had to light up a midget (little person, maybe a dwarf), but she was like 2 ft tall with no light walking around the 3 o'clock key hole, It was insane.

[devilgrrl]

I was amazed at how many people almost ran into well-lighted art cars.

[Savannah]

Heh! I'm wondering what substance such folk have consumed. I definitely see people drawn like magnets to lights occasionally. Last year a girl drove her bike right toward my well-lit-up self before realizing what she was doing and just sort of . . . falling over, because she couldn't remember how to stop. I picked her up & invited her not to take any more of whatever-it-was for a while . . .

[jella]

I had a blast tossing a few glow sticks just ahead of small groups of darktards as I zoomed past on my bike. The ooooh look a glow stick faces are at least a little entertaining. I started keeping them in my jacket pockets

[Turnip]

My camp mates shared an amazing story about a darkwad this year.


Apparently he was laying spread eagle, just out in the middle of open playa starring emptily up into space, presumably tripping his ass off and completely unlit. When the group of them encountered him, they tried to rouse him and assure him that sort of behavior would GET HIM KILLED, but he was uninterested. So they all started to decorate him with random blinkies and glowies and ELwire. By the end of it he was better illuminated than a full body ELwire suit.

[Ugly Dougly]

I had a blast tossing a few glow sticks just ahead of small groups of darktards as I zoomed past on my bike. The ooooh look a glow stick faces are at least a little entertaining. I started keeping them in my jacket pockets

There ya go. It's better to light a candle than curse the darkwads.

[The CO]

I've just started aiming for them. On foot, on bike, on quad, whatever. Run them over and maybe they'll learn.

[weirdscience]

My camp mates shared an amazing story about a darkwad this year.


Apparently he was laying spread eagle, just out in the middle of open playa starring emptily up into space, presumably tripping his ass off and completely unlit. When the group of them encountered him, they tried to rouse him and assure him that sort of behavior would GET HIM KILLED, but he was uninterested. So they all started to decorate him with random blinkies and glowies and ELwire. By the end of it he was better illuminated than a full body ELwire suit.

that's hilarious especially if he didnt move while they did it lol

[happydragon]

I think I will start carrying a squirt bottle full of white gas and a lighter... my new mission, turning darktards into screaming alphas! Then you will be able to see them and hear them!

[Recoil]

was driving my MV this year and lost count of the amount of darktards that would all most walk into my rooster that had fuckin 1200 LED's that shifted colors and 60 feet of rope light with two sets of head lights. For real driving threw the city was a nightmare even with how small my Mv is trying to see and ovoid all the darktards was so damn stressful, next year im bringing a ton of doller store glow sticks

[BBadger]

I was relatively tolerant of the dark'tards early in the week, but by Thursday I wanted a steam roller to crush them beneath my wheels. I was absolutely sick of those morons. Maybe this next year I'll actually fit my bike with something to at collide with the idiots like a big lit-up beachball on a rope or something. Maybe some anti-darktard land mines would be good, spraying those dark'tards with chum or something. Maybe just a high powered spray bottle would be good. Nothing like getting sprayed by some water in the middle of the night for your own stupidity.

[hookahdude]

How about "juicing" glow sticks and puting the "juice" in a super soaker? It's supposed to be non-toxic.. Just a thought....

[waxpraxis]

It is non-toxic, but it smells awful and stains a lot of fabrics...

In other words... it's PERFECT!

[Ugly Dougly]

= A trebuchet throwing an armload of glowsticks into the desert night.

[geospyder]

My bike is lit with el-wire, has a front and tail light yet I felt like I was taking a chance with life by riding at night. Tuesday night I hit a bike that was just lying out on the Playa and took a tumble. Just a few scratches but it could have been worse. From that point I decided to ride only during the day. I did give out 40 finger lights and one string of led lights. But back to the original post - yes there were far more unlit people this year than I've seen (pardon the pun) in previous years.

[Turnip]

My camp mates shared an amazing story about a darkwad this year.


Apparently he was laying spread eagle, just out in the middle of open playa starring emptily up into space, presumably tripping his ass off and completely unlit. When the group of them encountered him, they tried to rouse him and assure him that sort of behavior would GET HIM KILLED, but he was uninterested. So they all started to decorate him with random blinkies and glowies and ELwire. By the end of it he was better illuminated than a full body ELwire suit.

that's hilarious especially if he didnt move while they did it lol

He didn't move a muscle, and stayed completely immobile until he was at least completely out of their view.

[FireTommy]

Oh! A question...I use EL wire for my bike, but it burns out the 9-volt batts after only about 45 minutes. Is that normal, or is my EL wire for shit?

[Timezone LaFontaine]

Oh! A question...I use EL wire for my bike, but it burns out the 9-volt batts after only about 45 minutes. Is that normal, or is my EL wire for shit?

You didn't say what length of EL wire you're running, but at a glance that seems way too quick. Sounds like something is wrong with the driver.

[creativecstasy]

Oh! A question...I use EL wire for my bike, but it burns out the 9-volt batts after only about 45 minutes. Is that normal, or is my EL wire for shit?

Suspect to me. My 10 ft lengths didn't need batteries replaced a single time during the burn. I was shocked, and have an absurd number of batteries at home now.

[cloudnine]

I am concerned about the Bro's. Not only are they usually the people that end up being dark tards, but they bring homophobia, cliche, and negative energy to Burning Man. I saw so many "Bro" hats this year. Eventually a group of gangsters camped next to us late in the week. I thought I would give them the benefit of the doubt, ignore their cursive chest tattoos and backwards hats with the stickers on it, and give them some Burning Man love. (perhaps they just weren't in their outfits yet? Or really nice first years?)

Nope. He was surprised I came up to greet him, and he said "your pubes are showing."

Throughout the week they let their dirty water hit the playa, and mooped up the place. Didn't have one glowstick or light.

Why do Bros have to ruin EVERYTHING? I know they are here for the "sex and drugs", but I was hoping the tutus, attitude, hippies, art (that you have to actually comprehend), gay accepting, non-clicheness would keep them at bay. What a horrible youth culture this is. I'm 23 and I was so happy to find a culture like Burning Man. I hated school simply because of Bros. It just seems so wrong, the opposite of love and acceptance. What can we do about it? Any ideas? I wish there was a way to pick and choose who comes to Burning Man. But that would be time consuming and turn it into a judgmental scene itself. Thoughts?

[BBadger]

Oh! A question...I use EL wire for my bike, but it burns out the 9-volt batts after only about 45 minutes. Is that normal, or is my EL wire for shit?

Set it to blink and it lasts a lot longer.

Throughout the week they let their dirty water hit the playa, and mooped up the place. Didn't have one glowstick or light.

All the more reason to break out the steam roller and just rid BM--and society--of all darktards. Their darkness is a mere manifestation of their more fundamental dysfunction.

[trilobyte]

I thought this year had a lower overall percentage of yahoo/fratster/bro types, but the darkwads were in massive abundance. It also seemed like a lot of people started packing up early this year, whole camps down by burn night and half the city in the back of a truck by the time the temple burned. It seemed like a lot of otherwise well-dressed and well-lit folks were doing the darkwad desert raver thing on Sunday night, more than half the people we pedaled past were not only not carrying any kind of light but not even paying attention to the well lit vehicles and bikes whose paths they were getting in the way of. I can appreciate that you want to get out of the city early or whatever, but for fuck's sakes don't pack your personal light-up gear in the truck before you go out for the night!

[Irreverent Moniker]

I felt a little awkward walking around with my deathguild friends. I know they're against the whole glowstick culture, but just toss a bike light on for the sake of safety.

[Zhust]

Oh! A question...I use EL wire for my bike, but it burns out the 9-volt batts after only about 45 minutes. Is that normal, or is my EL wire for shit?

EL wire is about 1 watt per foot at full brightness, so in a later post you say about 10 feet, so that's about 10 watts. A 9V alkaline battery is typically around 500 milliamp-hours which is about 4.5 watt-hours, so that would be less than 30 minutes of power (10 watts * 0.5 hours = 5 watt-hours). As the battery dies, the voltage goes down and the EL wire draws less power, so that's probably why you got 45 minutes.

You should get one of those AA adapters that hold 8 or 10 AA batteries and has the same 9V battery snaps. If you use super rechargeable camera batteries at 2,500 mAH, you'll get over 2 hours per set. Bring a spare set and you'll be good for most of the night.

"Blink" is a good idea because it's usually half-on, half-off, but sometimes it's 25% on, 75% off. In the former case, your battery life doubles, and in the latter, you get 4x more.

[Zhust]

... He threw his bike down in the dirt, threw his arms back and puffed out his chest and said, "Why don't you suck my dick, motherfucker!?"

Perhaps you just didn't hear him correctly and he said, "I forgot my glowsticks. May I have one?". It's easy to confuse the two.

[bluesbob]

... He threw his bike down in the dirt, threw his arms back and puffed out his chest and said, "Why don't you suck my dick, motherfucker!?"

Perhaps you just didn't hear him correctly and he said, "I forgot my glowsticks. May I have one?". It's easy to confuse the two.

I packed some Q-Tips, just didn't find them till the fourth day.

[tamarakay]

We gave away several led flashlights, everyone we gave one too was extremely grateful. One guy said "oh no thanks, i have one" then turned his light on. He said that he was enjoying being one with the night sky (or something like that) and that he could see very well just by the stars. I explained that i didn't really care what he could see, that I was 50 and couldn't see for shit and had almost wiped out on my bike trying to avoid splattering him and that next time i'd just run his ass over. Then we actually had a couple people tell us to turn our lights off. Ken had a red rope light wrapped around his bike, I had two strings of led color changing flowers on mine. Then some blinky's. They thought we were interfering with nature. LOL, look around! Nature created flame throwing octopi?

[Elderberry]

We gave away several led flashlights, everyone we gave one too was extremely grateful. One guy said "oh no thanks, i have one" then turned his light on. He said that he was enjoying being one with the night sky (or something like that) and that he could see very well just by the stars. I explained that i didn't really care what he could see, that I was 50 and couldn't see for shit and had almost wiped out on my bike trying to avoid splattering him and that next time i'd just run his ass over. Then we actually had a couple people tell us to turn our lights off. Ken had a red rope light wrapped around his bike, I had two strings of led color changing flowers on mine. Then some blinky's. They thought we were interfering with nature. LOL, look around! Nature created flame throwing octopi?

Now that's funny!