How Burning Man Failed

As Burning Man expanded and became more popular, it lost its self-parodying humor, its self-critical irony, and its encompassing social vision, to a great extent. It started to feel increasingly hollow, shallow, and narcissistic. Much of the art now seems designed to provide a fitting backdrop for Instagram selfies. The outfits and hats became copy... See more

As more and more people of status and wealth swarmed the event, it replicated the status hierarchies found in the “default world,” although with a psychedelic/floaty Ketamine tinge.