Communities Burning Man Mud Bath (Community)

[The Gays From LA]

"Why all the Burning Man hate?" asks John, my favourite Burner lolcow:

Why so much “POST BURNING MAN” Negativity??? (And What Should We Do?)

I know exactly whom he's referring to. This fucking snowflake /u/sovamind who rage-quit BM a couple of days ago, and felt the need to make it know in every single fucking thread on /r/BurningMan. He spammed at least 4 different threads with this same copy-pasted message:

[–]sovamind 2 points 41 minutes ago
25 years doing cacophony/burner stuff, 15 Burns, and this one was my last.

The event and the BOrg no longer represent my values and they have proven time and time again that they will chose the event and the leadership over the community or public safety. Burning Man is a scam (at this point) in that it claims it is doing all these things "good things" when really it is an excuse for an unsustainable party where "radical inclusion" is allowed to justify behaviors that should not be tolerated.

I've seen the BOrg do all the following and don't see it changing:

1) refuse feedback and chase off or harass any that disagree with leadership
2) abuse employees and (illegally) classify employees as "volunteers"
3) publish anti-discrimination and anti-harassment policies that are never enforced and those that try and use them are pushed out without a real investigation of anything
4) continuously use "beliefs" and "tradition" over data collection and science in making decisions
5) cover up sexual assaults (multiple times)
6) chose to lay off nearly all the staff to be able to keep executive salaries and their ridiculously fancy offices
7) only give lip service to sustainability, dismiss the massive ecological damage the event causes, and do no real work making the event more sustainable
8) get increasingly more political, but only in ways that benefit them, not the communities or environment
9) refuse to accept that the population cap needed to stay around 45,000 people
10) accept fascist drug enforcement policies and actions that leave people traumatized
11) completely abandoned volunteers and employees injured while working at the event, some of which are now permanently disabled and will never live the same lives prior to working for BOrg.
12) promote a cultish culture and encourage others to not question the hypocrisy
focus on continuation of the BOrg over everything else...

I've decided that my time and energy needs to be spent on making something better and affecting the change I want to see in the world. I've started a non-profit that is focused on creating an equitable and sustainable future and while some of how it will work is based on my experiences from Burning Man, I would say that it really has more to do with creating software tools to better organize people, but specifically non-profit organizations. With any luck in 5 years we will be having similar large gatherings but without some of the cultural and societal problems present in Burning Man.

Comment
by u/RV_Mike from discussion
in BurningMan

He says the population cap should be at 45k, so I suppose it's a good thing he's fucking off to bring BM closer to that arbitrary cap.


He was raging in another thread about the fact that the BM org is, in the name of burning less shit on playa for the sake of improving their environmental record, encouraging artists to sell their art instead of burning it, getting a 25% cut if they do. Interesting that this person was complaining about the environment, but then artists selling their art instead of burning it is STILL not good enough for him:

Comment
by u/Steelandfeels from discussion
in BurningMan

Here he accuses them of being cluster Bs, LMAO:

Comment
by u/Steelandfeels from discussion
in BurningMan

On a more serious note, apparently some "serial rapist all week" was arrested at Burning Man, while some "naked bagpipe guy" was taking crotch shot of women:

Comment
by from discussion
in BurningMan

The rest of this thread is full of women and gays saying they got groped, roofied, etc:

The dark side of the burn
by in BurningMan

 

[Crimson Fucker]

Is it live sacrifices throwing them into the fire like the wicker man? I feel like that's where you're going with this.

 

[The Gays From LA]

John Halcyon has been crying a lot since he got back from Burning Man. Can you guess why?

John Halcyon claims that someone did something to his asshole at BM, and then he woke up with hemorrhoids:

Burning Man is basically John's estrogen, it makes him cry half a dozen times a day like a troon:

 

[The Gays From LA]

"German goes to Burning Man", LMAOOO!

"So far Burning Man is a little too soft, ja?"

 

[The Gays From LA]

"German at Burning Man" explains his INSANE Burning Man Experience:

What REALLY Happens at Burning Man! Orgy Dome, LSD Trip

John Halcyon took his Burning Man hemorrhoid to the doctor for a rectal examination, but he made sure to properly groom his asshole first, which was much appreciated by his doctor:

If you think it's all just buttfucking degeneracy at Burning Man, think again: this woman literally found Jesus at Burning Man

I found Jesus because of Burning Man.

No joke, there were actual Evangelists at Burning Man, repping Jesus Christ on the playa:

This evangelist went as far as to dye his beard green just to bring Jesus to Burning Man, LMAOOO (he claims it worked!):

He calls this "the most Satanic place" but then he says "people are so open". Maybe he needs to wonder why that is so. Why are people more open to Jesus at BM than elsewhere?

 

[Gargamel]

I'd rather declare TTD and move on, than whatever it is you're trying to do here.

 

[The Gays From LA]

"Burgin" (aka, a Burning Man newbie or "virgin") Sophia on her first burn: she took her clothes off and even touched the highly alcaline playa dust (on the last night, so she could wash it off the next day before it started to crack open her skin)

These videos of Burning Man dust storms with the art barely showing through are the most surreal otherworldly sci-fi videos:

I also love all the young zoomers at Burning Man constantly comparing it to Dune, LMAO! It's so funny to me because the zoomers actually have that cinematic reference material readily available as a visual image in their minds, whereas older Burners had to use their imagination to create a connection between the event, the playa and that sci-fi book.

@Firegirl26 Fireworks from an airplane at Burning Man:

 

[Time 4 Guillotines]

I'd rather declare TTD and move on, than whatever it is you're trying to do here.

He doesn't even have a clue what he's doing anymore. Gays' approach is to use this as his personal blog site instead of caring if anyone gives a shit, so I guess mission accomplished

 

[The Gays From LA]

Two zoomers who had two very different experiences at Burning Man:

"Discovering BM, the art of saying YES!"

@Firegirl26 These bears made from pennies are so damn awesome:

I can LMAO at Burning Man and Burners all day, but I will readily admit that the art installations they have on the playa are really awesome.

 

[Crimson Fucker]

Gays posts come off as obsessive rants of a homosexual lunatic that wants to bang trannies.

 

[The Gays From LA]

Is this the future of Burning Man? Burners do away with the drugs and try to burn while sober:

In the mean time, Burning Man has a huge 100+ comment flame war about "consent badges", with even the disabled Burners saying they don't want them because they don't want to advertise their disabilities:

Feels like these sorts of consent badges could be useful/needed at the burn
by u/coolrivers in BurningMan

They're also having a massive flame war about a rejected installation that was a watermelon emoji that included the Hamas charter phrase: "From the river to the sea"

Time for a renewed discussion on Plug-N-Play art. When a (Con)-Artist outsources 100% of their fabrication overseas, no communal effort, radical self reliance, flips pieces for insane profit, makes no effort to bring those Chinese workers to Playa and routinely takes credit for their work...
by u/Steelandfeels in BurningMan

Apparently some PDSers wanted to create a giant watermelon installation for the playa, but the BM organization turned them down?

Sacredness in the political environment at burning man
by u/GreshlyLuke in BurningMan

Several people that this alleged watermelon emoji installation was just a hoax/trolling attempt without a real art camp behind it actually planning to build this supposed art project on playa:

The watermelon piece never existed. The Artery, to save labor, opened up the public-facing database for people to document the the work they planned to bring to the playa. When the contact information was proved to be bogus, the listing was removed. Essentially it was database graffiti.

Sacredness in the political environment at burning man
by u/GreshlyLuke in BurningMan

That's correct - it was clear from their submission there was no real build team or actual plan to bring the art piece to the playa. The contacts provided in the art submission were dead links. It was removed from the directory because it was not a real art project for the playa.

Sacredness in the political environment at burning man
by u/GreshlyLuke in BurningMan

More PDS at Burning Man, with people once again warning them this is supposed to be an a-political event:

Verbally attacked, harassed, and filmed in the Temple by a Zionist who accused us of being paid activists for grieving for Palestinians.
by u/Longjumping_Half_535 in BurningMan

Here's another thread where someone was complaining about the PDS loonies forcing their politics upon everyone:

Keep politics outside of Burning Man
by u/salehjoon in BurningMan

For Burners, The Temple is like a holy spiritual place where they commemorate their dead. It's supposed to be the most quiet, reflective, emotional structure on the playa, where people visiting The Temple are expected to show respect for the mourners there. Well, guess what: there was PDS here inside The Temple at Burning Man:

Political anti Jewish pro Hamas Palestine garbage at the temple

Political anti Jewish pro Hamas Palestine garbage at the temple
by u/Sad-Perception-9323 in BurningMan

I think Burners should uphold their stated rules more: people who violate the "no politics" rule should be banned from the playa the same way moopers are.

 

[The Gays From LA]

"Burgins" posting videos about their first Burning Man are always fun:

POST BURNING MAN VISUAL Q&A | HOW MUCH IT COSTS, GIFTING ECONOMY, DUST STORMS, STORY TIME & MORE

This video here is expertly produced and is one of the best "introduction to Burning Man videos" I have seen thus far on Youtube, and I have watched dozens of videos by now due to this thread @Firegirl26 if you're still thinking about going to BM definitely check this out:

I survived my first Burning Man

This was my favourite shot from the above video, the "tip jar" that was a bucket full of random crap that people gifted them, including a rubber duckie.

This thread from /r/BurningMan where "Burgins" reflected on their experience was also fun to read:

Thoughts from a burgin burn
by u/anonymous-burgin in BurningMan

 

[The Gays From LA]

The absolute worst thing you can do at Burning is... literally dying at Burning Man:

Dying on the very first day of BM? My impression of Burners with a death wise is that they usually get to indulge a little before ODing or running into the fire or getting hit by an electric cable.

BM doctor provides some wellness tips:

 

[Crimson Fucker]

The absolute worst thing you can do at Burning is... literally dying at Burning Man:

They just toss your body on the fire and sacrifice your soul to moloch.

 

[The Gays From LA]

There's a "Camp Normal" at Burning Man?!

Some of the art works shown in this video I hadn't seen before, like that yellow horse with the googly eyes, or the stained glass house:

 

[The Gays From LA]

So I decided to check in with /r/BurningMan to see if their subreddit too had been infected with TDS, with people raging against Trump and Elon Musk and wanting to set cybertrucks on fire every hour of the day.

Footage of a cybertruck being painted in Chinese symbols at Burning Man 2024:

You would expect Burning Man, as an explicitly a-political event, to be able to ward off the more severe forms of TDS on their subreddit, right?

Foreigners should skip Burning Man (and all US tourism)
by u/doctor-yes in BurningMan

Oh...

Seriously, I don't think I've seen a more heavily swept up thread in /r/BurningMan since I began lurking there.

"But Reno is a blue leftist area!", LMAOOO, we remember how /r/Reno feels about that!

Foreigners should skip Burning Man (and all US tourism)
by u/doctor-yes in BurningMan

Someone tried to counter weigh the TDS alarmists, but their thread immediately got downvoted to shit:

International Travelers: don’t listen to the alarmists
by u/heyhodadio in BurningMan

American Burners apparently really crave eggs, they'll even travel to European or even South African Regional Burns for them...

But the foreign Burners are saying: Yankees must stay home and fight their Natsees! Think global, act local! LMAOOO!

Foreigners should skip Burning Man (and all US tourism)
by u/doctor-yes in BurningMan

"Lol at the lefties crying about burning man because of the US political environment. And then suggesting Afrikaburn. In South Africa, that famously excellent political environment"

International Travelers: don’t listen to the alarmists
by u/heyhodadio in BurningMan

AMEN to this indeed!

Someone tries to give the OP a reality check, immediately gets downvoted:

Foreigners should skip Burning Man (and all US tourism)
by u/doctor-yes in BurningMan

And the moral of this thread is: "BM is full of MAGA Fascists", I guess I should go then, LMAOOO!

 

[The Gays From LA]

A troon got misgendered at Burning Man by some drunk boomer Burners (because even the smashed out drunk boomer can tell you're a fucking man), and posted a Facebook rant saying he'll never attend Burning Man again, because somehow the whole of Burning Man should've prevented this from happening:

Naturally, a troon leaving Burning Man for some other post-apocalytic LARP event in a desert had to become a major topic of discussion

Surprised this hasn't been discussed here. BTW I am in full agreement with her.
by u/Warm-Blackberry1520 in BurningMan

This here is the troon who wrote the above Facebook rant:

Naw, you still look like a man my dude, those are manly man shoulders, like cry, seethe and dilate about it.

I mean look at him full-bodied in this (younger) picture, this troon clearly doesn't even bother to tuck his gurldique, yet he thinks he can distract Burners from his manbulge with his moobs, LMAO:

Never heard of Neotropolis before, but with a video title such as "Dilation Effect", you know what you're in for!

BTW, this is how "inclusive" this other event Neotropolis actually is:

Neotropolis Shadow Banned Me!

I Was Shadow Banned at Neotropolis 2024. Here is my story:

For over 25 years, the character of Buckethead/Waterboy has been a part of my creative journey—bringing a blend of performance art, cosplay, and science to museums, events and “gatherings in the desert.” Last year, I had the opportunity to attend Neotropolis 2024 and perform as Buckethead, sharing my character with an incredible community of creators and participants.

The response was nothing short of amazing. The energy, joy, and support from the people who encountered Buckethead reaffirmed why I’ve kept this character alive all these years. However, the road to sharing Buckethead at Neotropolis wasn’t without challenges.

Prior to the event, my posts about Buckethead were rejected from the Neo Facebook group by one of the moderators. When I reached out to ask why, I was told the character posed potential safety concerns— I explained that I had been safely performing Buckethead or over 25 years and I assured the admin that it was perfectly safe for me to perform. I was told that they were concerned about copy-cats trying to imitate Buckethead. I explained that I had never experienced a copy-cat in 25 years, and had no reason to expect any to appear now.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t an isolated case. My attempts to share other content in the group were also blocked by the moderator without explanation. After pressing for clarity, I found my ability to participate in the community effectively shadow banned, with all my Buckethead posts blocked or removed.

Even after the event, photos and videos of Buckethead at Neotropolis—whether shared by me or others—were removed from the group. This pattern of erasing Buckethead left me feeling excluded from a community I admire.

Isn't this exactly the kind of shit you would expect from an event oriented towards troons? So this is the new "cyberpunk" festival that wants to compete with Burning Man, by literally stealing the idea of having a post-apocalyptic event in a desert (Neotropolis is in the Mojave desert), but trying to attract more troons and their dilators, LMAO! You can just imagine the amount of suppressed and unreported rapey going on at this event.

The Neotropolis subreddit is nowhere near as busy as /r/BurningMan with a mere 600 subs (/r/BurningMan has over 100k) and only 4 active members, but hey, that's what you get for running a troon event:

Neotropolis • r/Neotropolis

Neotropolis is a immersive Cyberpunk Scifi themed event put on by Wasteland World.

old.reddit.com

In the same thread, because these people always flock to the same threads, Burners have all of sudden discovered and turned against Elon Musk's brother Kimball Musk being on the board of Burning Man, despite the fact that he's a collector of a lot of Burning Man art and has supported Burner artists for years. Now they're calling him a "talentless super elite inside trader and brother and collaborator to one of the most malevolent forces in American history":

Surprised this hasn't been discussed here. BTW I am in full agreement with her.
by u/Warm-Blackberry1520 in BurningMan

If this continues, Kimball Musk is just gonna take his money to another event, but then again, that's exactly what these accelerationists want.

More TDS on /r/BurningMan

Seriously Disillusioned
by u/Swtdrmz42 in BurningMan

Just so everyone knows, the person who wrote this OP was barely active on Reddit until a month ago, when they posted this:

Will BLM layoffs play a role in this year’s event?
by u/acbcv in BurningMan

In other words, this person is deliberately baiting people in the BM subreddit because they hate the fact that Elon Musk's brother Kimball is on the board of BM.

 

[The Gays From LA]

Neotropolis versus Burning Man: Will the Burning Man troons ditch the Burn for a sci-fi dystopia in California? - Counting Cybergunts at Neotropolis, a dystopia of obese American sci-fi nerds and cosplayers (troons are either or both of those)

Neotropolis - Cyberpunk Science Fiction Cosplay LARPing in Mojave, CA

So Neotropolis, the new sci-fi LARP event that is supposedly such a greater safe-space for troons that Burning Man, is apparently affiliated with Jeff Bezos advertises Amazon with coupons on their website, LMAOOO:

Surprised this hasn't been discussed here. BTW I am in full agreement with her.
by u/Warm-Blackberry1520 in BurningMan

Surprised this hasn't been discussed here. BTW I am in full agreement with her.
by u/Warm-Blackberry1520 in BurningMan

I think it's pretty obvious that the troon cross-posted their crybully post from Facebook to /r/BurningMan to effectively advertise Neotropolis on a bigger subreddit, so more people would join /r/Neotropolis... which gained a whooping 16 subs to add to the 600 they had before. Good job troon, you really made /r/Neotropolis blow up with your drama bait post!

Neotropolis is happening this month, so let get to know this new event that is directly competing for the hearts and minds and bodies of Burning Man troons who get misgendered by drunken Boomers at the Burn.

Burning Man is in decline:

What I said on the previous topic: 2019 was a peak, then the pandemic, after '22, heat, '23, early gate close, rain, large virgin percentage, and '24, low attendance, tech layoffs, unknown economy in 2025, our very experienced leads predict camp bankruptcies, asset liquidation, and camps simply not returning.

Entire Large Theme Camp for Sale 95K
by u/michaelkersch in BurningMan

So I had a look at a couple of these Neotropolis videos and it's basically a LARP of Night City in Cyberpunk 2077. It's aesthetic is overtly militaristic, way more about big guns, portable nuclear bombs, robocops, robodogs, transhumanist biohacking/bodymods/supersoldiers, that kind of thing:

Check out the Neotropolis robocop guy pointing his gun at the robodog during this part:

IMO it's way more militaristic than what you actually see in a game like Cyberpunk 2077, which makes me wonder why these Neotropolis people think they're somehow more "inclusive" than Burning Man. Isn't all this overt militarism at Neotropolis going to alienate the Queers for Palestine contingent that hate the Military Industrial Colonial Complex and the BLM folks who want to #AbolishThePolice? I mean they literally just make the military look sexy and futuristic, so how are the woke SJWs responding to all this "copaganda" at Neotropolis? How the fuck can you stand there protesting good ole Burning Man with this new event happening right under your noses? I will never understand these woke cultists. They insist the police and the military are bad and Evil Empire... unless they look like a sexy Manga cyborg fuqtoy? Also, constant shots of girls kissing (and a shot of a woman wearing a prosthetic chest-piece with three boobs) to show how LGBT friendly they are. Make this makes sense. (I realize it's not supposed to make sense, because the woke cult has no moral or thematic or ethical consistency. It's supposed to be a post-modern mess.)

On their webpage they list the kinds of LARPs they consider acceptable:

In the meantime, here is a quick reference list of themes that would be acceptable. This obviously doesn't cover EVERY Sci-Fi movie/book/game, but it's a start. So if you're just needing a little direction, we will say this- Space Travel: Yes
Cybernetics: Yes
Netrunning: Yes
Artificial Intelligence: Yes
Robots: Yes
Big Futuristic Corporations: Yes
Gritty Street Level Gangers: Yes
Aliens: Yes (but try to be careful so it doesn’t get too goofy)
Lasers/phasers/Plasma guns... (ie. Sci-fi energy weapons): Yes
Bullets: Yes, but we mean props. No actual firearms or projectiles are ever allowed
Space Suits/Mecha and Robot Suits etc: Yes.
Darth Vader: No
Pointy Ears: Yes, BUT, while it’s fine to be an alien with pointy ears, no Elves or Orcs please.

This is a DESERT planet. It’s also a far flung outpost. There will be a certain amount of dirt, a certain amount of distressing to outfits. No, it’s not Wasteland Weekend and not everything needs to be post-apocalyptic style and have “more dirt,” but some weathering will definitely help make it feel like you’ve been on this dirty planet at the end of the universe for more than a few days.

The Theme Zone — NEOTROPOLIS

Wanna be where the action is? Learn more about the official Theme Zone and how to apply!

www.neotropolis.com

It's kinda hilarious to me that the troon said he feels more at home at this event than he does at Burning Man, because I immediately noticed that the CosPlay at Neotropolis is more gendered along the traditional gender divide (yes, I am using those terms), by which I simply mean that men look like men and women look like women at Neotropolis, even and despite their futuristic costumes. Yet the troon likes this better somehow, which means that he actually likes the idea of the gender binary enduring into the future.

Let's get to know some of the troons at Neotropolis personally. Here's Molly showing off his cyberpunk jacket that he bought with his tax return:

As for anti-commodification, Neotropolis definitely feels more commodified, and unapologetically so. I mean, that is Night City but a gigantic shopping center? People always complain about how expensive Burning Man is, but I feel like I need at least 3 times the average BM budget to attend Neotropolis.

I think I would've enjoyed Neotropolis more if it was more ironically self-aware, if it had a sense of humour about itself the way Burning Man can be very silly, but no, these people are dead serious about their dystopian LARP. Which likely explains why they banned that guy with the fishbowl helmet with the bullshit excuse that people might copy him and drown themselves (while they literally have people in the above promo video with the grossest body-mods on full display, I guess no one is gonna copy that and hurt themselves): because these Neotropolis nerds truly have no sense of humour about what they're doing. You won't find a "Camp Bad Idea" at the Neotropolis dystopia. Militaristic policing is their overt aesthetic, because they really are about policing their participants. Of course a troon mortified about getting deadnamed would find this more attractive than Burning Man.

The Neotropolis festival trailer is trying to make it seem like everyone there is young and sexy, but I watched some of their actual streetcam footage, and holy shit at the amounts of cybergunt and the shaggy fat cyberasses on full display, you're telling me there's no Ozempic in the future?!

The sci-fi nerds at Neotropolis are definitely fatter than the Burners. They want you to think that everyone at Neotropolis is an intergalactic bright young thing, but don't believe the hype. This is who actually goes to Neotropolis and they're very well fed:

A Walk Through Megablock 01