Burning Man Appears Like Distress. Why Do Attendees Suppose It’s Enjoyable?

Dust, solar, and bikes. What’s to not like? (Photo: Susan Becker/Burning Man Facebook)

Hey, did you hear: Burning Man is happening proper this second!

Like me, your Instagram feed might be chock-full of movies of your coolest pals, all dressed like Rob Zombie within the Thunder Kiss ’65 music video, gyrating and boogying atop a 50-foot-tall metallic thingamajig coated in neon lights. These folks seem to be having a blast.

But wait—are they really having fun with themselves? For each bonkers video of dance events, cars that look like the Concorde, or folks going ham inside a Mad Max-inspired Thunder Dome, there’s additionally no less than one story in a mainstream information outlet about Burning Man chaos and Burning Man distress.

And if you happen to’ve been gazing this content material all week, like me, it’s possible you’ll be considering the everlasting Burning Man query that every one non-Burning Man attendees ask themselves.

Is Burning Man actually that enjoyable?

Over the years, information websites have printed tales about epic sand storms and bottomless mud bogs, and ones about hopelessly marooned partiers being diminished to pooping right into a plastic bag. Yes, you’ve in all probability learn a few of these items on Outside. 

And wow, a formidable tonnage of stories about Burning Man distress has graced the Internet in 2025. It all kicked off this previous Saturday, August 23, when a gale-force winds battered the playa. Gusts measuring 52 miles an hour shredded tents, stuffed eyeballs and different physique elements with coarse sand, and blew glittery costumes excessive into the stratosphere earlier than the competition even kicked off.

Media retailers dubbed the storm a “bad omen” for the approaching burn, and no less than in accordance with the information tales, issues solely bought worse. The competition shuttered its entrance through the wind, making a visitors jam of epic proportions—the road of leisure autos, pickup vans, and possibly a struggle rig or two, stretched to the horizon.

Then, rain drenched the dusty panorama, turning it into peanut buttery mud. As SFGATE columnist Timothy Karoff defined “within minutes of my arrival, my sneakers were completely caked in mud. Not a thin cover, but a two-inch think clump so heavy it made my Nikes feel like moon boots.”

The moon boot-clad attendees then found the worst information of all. Burning Man’s famed Orgy Dome—a large tent the place attendees meetup to, properly, you already know what they do inside—was declared unusable after it sustained crippling harm within the wind storm. Ack, no orgies this 12 months. Huge bummer.

After that, there’s been a gradual trickle of minor calamities: a guy got electrocuted, there was extra rain and dust, after which there was this report concerning the occasion feeling like a “zombie apocalypse.”

OK—again to the everlasting Burning Man query. Despite these tales of horror, the Burning Man folks in my Instagram feed and on my favourite YouTube channels are nonetheless so stoked. It’s as in the event that they stay in a wholly completely different universe from the one described to me by The New York Times. 

What’s the foundation of this Burning Man paradox? Why is there such a distorted view of the competition in media stories when in comparison with the man-on-the-ground perspective? Should all of us—as the Times suggests—simply cease speaking about Burning Man? It’s been round for practically 40 years, in spite of everything.

I posed the query to Outside contributor Brent Rose, who coated the 2023 version for us. In my eyes, Rose is the proper individual to assist us perceive the paradox. He’s been to Burning Man six occasions, and in 2023 he endured one of many worst calamities within the competition’s historical past: the goopy quagmire that stranded 1000’s on the playa. Yes, Rose is the man who needed to poop right into a plastic bag.

So, why do Burning Man attendees love the competition, whereas media retailers deal with the disasters?

“I think there’s a real appetite in the media and from people who are reading these websites for Burning Man to be a catastrophe,” he stated. “People hate Burning Man, especially people who have never been to it, because there is an obnoxiousness to it.”

Outlets will perpetually be capable to make Burning Man appear to be hell on earth, as a result of location of the competition. Nevada’s Black Rock Desert will at all times be buffeted by winds and blasted by rain in late August. And tens of millions of individuals will learn these tales of Burning Man calamities, as a result of all of us secretly hate Burning Man.

But for attendees, the get together that goes on often overshadows the tough circumstances, Rose instructed me.

“You get to engage in this silliness and playfulness that is missing from adult life,” he instructed me. “Where else can you go order free french fries from this 30-foot ketchup bottle in the desert.”

Rose didn’t attend Burning Man this 12 months attributable to a scheduling battle, however he stated that his pals on the competition have texted him numerous images and updates about their enjoyable experiences. And yeah, the wind and hovering temperatures have made life troublesome. But he instructed me he can’t wait to return.

And yeah—this coming from a man who actually needed to poop right into a bag again in 2023. Call me loopy—I believe I’d name it quits after that.

Whether Rose’s perspective perpetually solves my Burning Man paradox is, in fact, not assured. And I can assure that I personally won’t ever attend the factor.

But to any extent further, once I learn one other headline a couple of destroyed orgy tent, or about sandstorms, or about a celebrity hiking for six miles to flee waist-deep mud, I’ll additionally assume that no less than a number of folks had enjoyable.