EP 1 - The Shadow of the Man, an introduction

What is life like after Burning Man? For that matter, what is Burning Man? If you have chosen to listen to this I am assuming you have a basic understanding of the event and movement.

This podcast explores the changes over time brought about by exposure to Burning Man to people, places, and things.

To start off these conversations it is important to ground ourselves. I want to set the stage so we are all on the same page contextually.

Burning Man is an event world renowned for its art, music, community, and slightly less publicly well known for it’s transformational nature. Almost everyone who attends reports not just an amazing experience but also a life changing event.

While most people are familiar with the party less attention has been paid to the effect Burning Man has had on individuals, communities, and in some ways the world. This transformative effect and the changes it causes are what this series will explore in all of its facets. Over time we will delve the depths of life after Burning Man and follow it wherever it takes us.

Topics discussed:

So who are we talking about?

How big is this phenomenon?

The event as inspiration 

Evolution of the Man

Old versus New

The other 51 weeks of the year

Why you are here

This podcast is all about exploring how Burning Man has changed people, places, and things. Everyone who participates has their own unique experience and take away. Yet the one bedrock commonality is everyone says Burning Man has changed their life.

In a series of interviews with notable burners you will be exposed to stories that can shed light on this transformational experience. You will learn the backstories and historical details that are not commonly known. I aim to put the human back into the legend and provide a platform for the many unsung heroes to tell their own tale as they see fit.

No two stories are the same yet they all contain the same magic. In the end everyone who has some experience with Burning Man is affected by it’s touch, this is their “Shadow of the Man”.

I hope you listen, enjoy, and subscribe,

Thank you,

Andi

Transcript

They make the trek out to Burning Man for a week and a day. After a lot of work, oh, there's a lot of play. Party party drama drama drama. b****, b****, b****. Year after year, they come back to scratch that itch. They all say their lives have been changed. After many years, lives have have been rearranged. That changes what this show is all about. You'll see the impact of Burning Man up and out. So sit back, relax, and cancel all your plans. These are the stories about the shadow of the man.

Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the Shadow of the Man podcast. I'm your host, Andy. Yes, that Andy. So, what is life like after Burning Man? For that matter, what is Burning Man? If you've chosen to listen to this, I assume that you have some basic understanding of the event and what some would call a movement. This podcast explores the changes over time brought about by exposure to Burning Man, to people, places, and things. Now, to start off these conversations, it's important to ground ourselves. I want to set the stage so we're all on the same page contextually. Birdie Man is an event worldrenown for its art, music, community, and slightly less publicly well known for its transformational nature. Almost everyone who attends reports it's not just being an amazing experience, but also life-changing event. Now, while most people are familiar with the party, less attention has been paid to the effect Bernie man has had on individuals, communities, and in some ways the world. This transformative effect and the changes it causes are what this series will explore in all its facets. Over time, we will delve the depths of life after Burning Man and follow it wherever it takes us. So who are we talking about here? Okay, everybody who goes to Burning Man has a different experience and there doesn't seem to be anyone who has gone has not have it affect them in some way. Broadly, I'm going to divide these people or burners as they call themselves into four groups. And then there are many people who have never been to the Black Rock Desert, which is where it happens. Yet their lives have also been shaped by this same phenomenon. When I say going to Burning Man, I'm referring to Black Rockck City in the Black Rock Desert near the town of Gerlac, Nevada. There are numerous regional events all over the world that adhere to the ethos of Burning Man as codified in the 10 principles. There are many people who have never set foot on the PIA of the Black Rockck Desert, but who are also very active in the regional network. They are very much a part of the Bernie man community and movement. The first people to ever be affected by Bernie man other than the original originators would have to be the local residents of northern Nevada. The northern Pyute and western Shosonyi people probably never saw anything like this in the thousands of years they have been around. The lonely dusty town of Gerlac and its hard scrabble inhabitants certainly would never be the same. The first group I would refer to amongst the people who've attended Bernie man, I will refer to them as tourists. These are people who've only gone to Burning Man once for whatever reason. For some, it's a bucket list item and they have no intention of going more than once. You know, some find it difficult whether because of distance, time, finances, whatever. Some just don't like it and never come back. So the second group is what I would call the parters. These are people who go to the playa for about three years on average. This group tends to not get involved with volunteering or making art. They're there for the party. And after three years or so, they become jaded and bored. Been there, done that. Now, this third group of people we'll refer to as veterans. This group attends for number of years. Let's say about a mean of a dozen years. Veterans survive longer because they get involved. Some navigate their own opportunities within the event by creating art, forming theme camps, building an art car, doing a ply art project, etc. Others find opportunities to get involved through the Burning Man organization like volunteering, getting hired as staff, getting involved in the regional network, perhaps becoming a regional contact etc. And finally, the fourth category of burners I will refer to as the lifers. These are burners who never stopped going. Perhaps they've taken off a few years, but they still keep heading back. Most burners in this category work for what they call the project or Burning Man project, but not all of them. For a very few, this is their life's work. Now, these four categories of burners get more rarified as you go on. Tourists and parters make up the vast bulk of everyone who's ever gone to Burning Man. Consequentially, the more years of experience on the player, the greater its overall effect on the Burner's life. Now, there is one more category of those affected by Bernie men, but paradoxically, they've never participated. These are the children, the partners, the co-workers and neighbors of of burners as well as random strangers around them. Their lives are affected whether they like it or not because they are very close and share lives with burners. So, how big is the Burning Man phenomenon? Okay, the the numbers I've come up here I've come up with here are highly speculative. They're based on Bernie man's own census data which has evolved from one year to the next. But it's all the information that we have. Some numbers will be pure speculation as there's no data, just guesses based on reasonable assumptions about the data we do have. My aim is to be within the ballpark so we can make broad characterizations. So from 1990 to 2022, I have calculated two estimates for the total number of unique visitors/participants at Black Rock City. The low estimate is 311,656 and the high estimate is 481,720. So when you add in the 2023 numbers, we're talking somewhere in the range of nearly half a million people. Marian Goodell, the Birdie Man Project CEO, said that the estimated somewhere around 850,000 burners worldwide when you add in everyone from the regional network as well. The event as inspiration. A friend once told me repeated revelation ceases to satisfy. Meaning the more you repeat a lesson, the less you get out of it. You approach the point of diminishing returns. Perhaps an analogy will help. Let's say this is an English class we're talking about. You took this class and it changed your life and perspective. You really clicked with the course material, your teacher, and your fellow students. You loved it so much that you go back and take the same class again and again and again. You love this class and can't get enough of it. Over time, this experience changes. Your fellow students move on other subjects and classes. Your professor moves on and the core subject doesn't have that same fresh excitement. So, what do you do to regain or extend that experience you crave? Retaking the class doesn't do it after a while. You can become a professor and seek to teach the subject to countless new generations of students, perhaps imparting this love in others. Alternatively, you can take this knowledge and newfound love and apply it to a new endeavor. You can take your experience and creativity and generate something entirely new that the world has never seen before. You could maybe change the world with it. I assert that this is the prime experience of Burning Man. It is an experiment in living. You can hang around the nest soaking up this experience hoping it will never end, but it inevitably will. And what participants do next with this new understanding is what this exploration is. All about the 10 principles is the recipe to create the conditions necessary for this experience. Like what many people think, it is not actually a dogma. And what exactly is this life lesson? There's no universal definition. It is different for each participant. If you're curious about my definition, it's something I call the connection hypothesis. The evolution of the man. Famously, this whole story starts on Baker Beach in 1986 with Larry Harvey and Jerry James and friends building a wooden man on the summer solstice. This event was repeated each year until 1990 when it became too big and unruly and the park police shut it down. In 1990, the San Francisco Cacophony Society invited Larry to bring his man to the Black Rock Desert for their zone trip number four. There was also another group there doing very similar activities called Desert Sight Works that heavily influenced what would become Burning Man. By 1993, this Labor Day weekend event in the Black Rock Desert evolved into its own entity. It subsumed elements from the Cacophony Society and Desert Site Works and evolved beyond them, attracting new participants. By 1996, the event grew to about 8,000 participants, and the volunteer group that ran the show strained to manage the event. For the first time, there were a few tragic deaths and a whole host of chaos. When the dust settled, older originators left saying it should be shut down, while more recent participants banded together under Larry Harvey's leadership to write the ship, organize, and incorporate. Growth slowed from the yearly doubling as time went on, but the population continued to rise. Finally, in 2011, the event sold out for the first time as the Bureau of Land Management cap the number of tickets based on how many people the local infrastructure could handle. From 2012 to the current day, ticket sales moved to a lottery and directed ticket sales model. No longer could you just show up and buy a ticket, get in on a whim. The ticket to Bernie man had become a hot commodity and was frequently sold and resold to the highest bidder. Sticking to the 10 principles, Birdie Man still retains its core values. Even as an event, it has become quite expensive to attend and to a degree exclusive. One thing that remains the same over all these years is its power to affect the lives of participants. Old versus new. In 1993, there were cacophony Society participants who complained that the event had grown too big and veered away from the original intent in 1990. It had grown in into something else and that wasn't as familiar as the original. Thus, the event should end and failing that they will leave and not come back lamenting the death of the past. In the early days, Brainy man was ver referred to as an experiment. in living. The idea was to go as close to a was to go to as close to a blank slate as possible, leaving behind the baggage of modern society and create a new society based on better ideals. As the years marched on, each iteration of Black Rockck City was an evolution from the previous year, and no two years were the same. Burners who attended for many years and those returning after a good absence. What they experienced now had evolved far from what they had originally experienced. Like most things in life, your first experience with something is usually the most memorable and what you measure on suing similar experiences too. It has been quite common for veteran burners to walk away claiming the event has changed beyond what they remembered and loved. Sometimes these burners would take their experience and know knowledge home and attempt to recreate this experience in a regional group. Others would melt into what burners call the rest of the world the default world. Yet they would retain these ideals and have them subtly guide their lives. The other 51 weeks of the year. Most burners take their play experience home and consciously or not, it changes how they interact in their world. Many burners simply melt back into the vault world after a period of decompression. Some burners try to keep the interactive flame alive all year long by participating in year round Burning Man activities. Over the years, different groups have sprung up to facilitate the spread of the play into the rest of the world. The Burning Man project has developed programs to manage these needs. Black Rock Arts Foundation was one of them. The Burning Man Network, Burners Without Borders, So, why are you here? This podcast is all about exploring how Birdie Man has changed people, places, and things. Everyone who participates has their own unique experience and takeaway. Yet, the one bedrock commonality is that everyone says Bernie man has changed their life. In a series of interviews with notable burners, you will be exposed to the stories that can shed light on this transformational experience. You will learn the backstories and historical details that are not commonly known. I aim to put the human back into the legend and provide a platform for the many unsung heroes to tell their own tale as they see fit. No two stories are the same if they all contain the same magic. In the end, everyone who has who has some experience with Burning Man is affected by its touch. This is their shadow of the man. I hope you listen, enjoy, and subscribe. Thank you.

Thank you for listening to this latest show. We have to make another one. So, got to go. Don't worry. For next month, we already have one in the can. Very soon, you'll be listening to a new Shadow of a Man.