Burning Man grew from San Francisco counterculture into a consensus-seeking festival

Evidence

The Burning Man festival was a meeting point for the Cyborganic community, as it has been for several generations of San Francisco digerati. While it took a completely different approach to achieving community, it drew from many of the same cultural influences. Burning Man was a product of San Francisco 1980s counter-cultural groups like the Cacophony Society, the Suicide Club, and Survival Research Laboratories. In 1986, Larry Harvey and Jerry James burned a wooden figure on Baker Beach to celebrate the summer solstice, in an example of what Burners now call “radical self-expression.” Burning Man became an annual event attracting hundreds of people, until the burning of a four-story wooden figure in a public place became impossible for authorities to overlook and the event was moved in 1990 to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Today Burning Man is a city, built from scratch every year for the week, that celebrates artistry and individual self-expression in ways set out in the “Ten Principles” of Burning Man, which include radical inclusion, participation, communal effort, gifting, decommodification, and leaving no trace. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 136

Categorization

• XREF: Burning Man’s ideals (radical self-expression, decommodification) form the ideological backdrop to later Silicon Valley self-branding culture this book analyzes — connects to: Burning Man is a physical counterpart to the open, collaborative Internet ethos — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 138; Burning Man models the ideals and labor structures of tech culture — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 139

Broader Connections

• Burning Man is a physical counterpart to the open, collaborative Internet ethos #expands (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 138
• Burning Man models the ideals and labor structures of tech culture #expands (0.85) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 139