This week, the Burning Man festival – a convocation of large groups of men and women seeking sex, drugs, rock and roll, and other forms of hedonistic bliss – was flooded. It seems that a half inch of rain swamped the event, which takes place in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, turning the dust to deep and sticky mud. The images of barely-clad neo-hippies struggling to walk through the muck spread like wildfire across the internet; even the White House was forced to acknowledge that it was monitoring the situation.
For a huge swath of Americans, all of this was simply amusing. But the rise and mainstreaming of Burning Man is a far more interesting story than its pathetic possible demise. Burning Man was founded in 1986, when some hippie types gathered at the beach in San Francisco to burn a nine-foot-tall wooden man. Over time, the bonfire became larger and larger, until eventually it moved to Nevada, where it has been located ever since. Each year, 100,000 people head out to the middle of the desert to participate in events ranging from impromptu art exhibits to orgies and mass drug use.
.png)
.png)
