EP 73 Shadow Shorts #13

Shadow Shorts #13 is out now! Recorded at BRC in 2025 participants were challenged to explain BM‘s impact in 5 minutes or less. Each Shadow Short is one person’s story, please enjoy this short story of how Burning Man has impacted and influenced people over time.

Meet Mikey B, who describes how the festival’s unique culture and community provided him with a sense of belonging and purpose after a period of feeling lost in his youth. He emphasizes that the harsh desert environment forces individuals to discover their inner resources and authentic identities by stripping away external distractions. His story describes how the meaningful human connections and collaborative art projects found at the event can lead to life-changing milestones, such as finding a spouse and building a permanent supportive community in a challenging city like New York.

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Transcript

Before we start, I would like to ask your help to do two things. First, tell a friend or two who you think might like the show. And second, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The more reviews the show gets, the more likely it will even appear in search results. Thank you, and now on to the show. 

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 been rearranged. That changes what this show is all about. You'll see the impact. of burning 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 Shadow of the Man Show. I am your host, That Andy. This is a Shadow Shorts episode recorded at Burning Man 2025. You can tell because of the background sounds. Okay, I have to apologize in advance for the variable sound quality. The microphones are quite sensitive and it picked up some noise from handling and occasionally the speakers allowed the microphone to drift away while speaking. Uh the sound might be more variable than the studio recordings, but the stories are fantastic. Please enjoy.

All right, there you go. And turn it on.

No, it's on. Oh yeah. Push up.

Push that up.

Yeah. Then hold it to me.

Hi, my name is Mikey B. I live in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, but I've been in New York for around 10 years. And I've been burning for 5 years. And Burning Man has changed my life in a lot of ways. I moved to New York when I was 25 years old. I moved with my older brother and he had gone to the burn when he was in He was six years older than me. We had never lived together since we were 12 and he was 18. I was 12 and he was 18, excuse me.

Um, and when I was in college, he was trying to get me to go cuz he was living in California. But when we moved together in 2015, I was really finding myself. Um, he helped me move to New York. And uh, through some friends of his, I found the New York Brooklyn Burning Man community, which has been really amazing.

And I liked it more than he did. And I kind of took off in it on my own. And I'll give you the short version of it is that uh 2017 I went to a sort of burner adjacent festival in New Jersey called Gratitude Migration which unfortunately was the last year they did it.

But in the morning Sunday morning of that while everyone's packing up I'm there blowing bubbles on the beach and this cute girl comes up to me and asks to blow bubbles with me. And I'll spare you guys the long version of the story but

that way we have ring on your finger.

That's right. Well, fast forward a few years, um, she introduces me to the broader Burning Man community in Brooklyn and, uh, my life absolutely explodes. And in 2022, I proposed to her on top of Snugs, which is a garden gnome themed art car that we brought out. Um, it's a real labor of love, just a scrappy group of people trying to bring some magic to the Playa. We had garden gnome themed uh, little tea parties and cute cozy. We'd lay down on carpets and tables deep playa and have a cute little sunrise. Everyone gets silly gnome hats. Um and we had some really beautiful moments there and it was a sunrise Saturday 2022. I proposed to her. Uh and our whole community and our life in New York is all our burner friends and the magic they make throughout the year. And they've started their own festival around the city. And we really uh I mean it keeps me going the the community is it's kept me in New York. It's not an easy place to live, especially for 10 years. And if it wasn't for the people in the community and the sense of purpose and belonging that I found there. Um I don't know who or where I would be right now.

So when you moved to New York and like before you went to Burning Man, I mean, were you just kind of like a fish out of water or like,

you know, I was 25 and I kind of been following whatever I thought I was supposed to do for a long time. You know, studied something I wasn't that interested in cuz I thought it would be a good job. Stayed with my girlfriend a little bit too long cuz I thought she was nice. And then I was back home and working part time and living with my folks. And something needed to change. So I moved to New York. That was the first big step. And then

finding uh the burn and people who, you know, inspire each other to find what makes them unique.

So after you came back from your first Burning Man, like how did your life change?

Uh it's a really good question. I felt like I really found who I could be in in the world. I think when you're out here

in the desert, um, you only have what you bring with you.

You know, there's a reason we do it here. We don't do it at the beach. We don't do it in the mountains. We don't do it in a river or forest.

In the desert, there's nothing to find. There's only what you bring with you. And so, I think the first burn for a lot of people kind of teaches you who you are and what you have to offer and what you need from others and how you want to show up because the harsh truth will be laid bear here. There's nothing else to do.

And what keeps you coming back?

The connections that I make with people. I mean, the big pretty lights and explosions and amazing art and all these things are incredible, but the way that people drop in and connect with each other, I think is the most magical place about this, the most magical thing about this place. Excuse me.

Yeah. I I don't know. Something that's coming through in some of these interview a lot of these interviews is like the art is kind of the hook,

but like what what sinks the hook is like the connection,

right? I think that we only as people we're social creatures. We only exist in relation to each other. Our identity, our identities are sort of defined and confirmed by how people view us as much as how we view ourselves. So the more you're making connections and the quality of those connections and the you know what you get from those connections makes you grow as a person. You don't nobody exists independently. Exactly.

We're all in this together.

Beautiful. Well, thank you so much for

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to share and for doing this. Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, rate, and review it on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen. The more reviews the show has, the more likely it will even appear in search results. Also, please tell a friend and share this show with anyone that you think might like it. Word of mouth reaches quite far, especially in the Burning Man community. If you would like to contact us, please send an email to shadowoftheman podcast atgmail.com. You can also follow Shadow of the Man on social media at Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky X, and YouTube. The links for all of these are available at shadowoftheman.com. Feel free to use any of these social media accounts to provide any feedback you might have. Your thoughts on the show are greatly appreciated. Thank you and see you soon for a new episode of The Shadow of the Man. Thank you for listening to this latest show. We have to make another one in the can. Very soon you'll be listening to a new Shadow of the Man.