Burning Man has always been a little apocalyptic – dust storms, towering flames, and people who work in private equity cosplaying as anti-capitalists in Mad Max costumes.
For the uninitiated, one Redditor succinctly described the increasingly infamous annual festival with the following: ‘The philosophy there is “haul in/haul out” meaning that everything must be brought in with you, (including food and water), and everything must be taken out with you (including all kinds of waste).
‘The burning at the end is sort of part of that “leave no trace” philosophy, and so the whole thing revolves around the beauty of impermanence.
‘So, a small tent city pops up overnight made up of art installations that must all be disassembled by the end. There’s an emphasis on communal living, and a “no currency” rule in the camp, and so attendees bring things to give. It’s a “gift economy” meaning you bring things to give out to other people without expecting anything back.’
Beginning in 1986, there have always been distinctly pagan undertones to the event, but this year, things in Black Rock City got so chaotic that people online are convinced the festival has been struck by an honest-to-Zeus curse.
First came the collapse of the legendary Orgy Dome, after high winds brought the structure down and scattered its would-be worshippers into the dust. It seems all subsequent instances of group sex were forced into the confines of smelly tents or took place under the stars.
Then, in a twist that could have been ripped from scripture, a woman who didn’t know she was pregnant went into labour and delivered a baby in her R.V. camper, with the help of fellow Burners.
Mother and child are both safe, but the surprise arrival added to the feeling that something very Old Testament was at play.
‘Even the nurses at the hospital were like, “You don’t look like you were pregnant at all.” I didn’t have any symptoms,’ Thompson, who is believed to have been about 36 weeks pregnant, told the New York Times.
And then came the darkest moment: on Saturday night, a man was found dead in a suspected homicide just as the festival’s iconic wooden effigy – ‘the Man’ – was set ablaze. Police are still investigating.
Onlookers didn’t hesitate to connect the dots and make jokes, not all of which were in good taste given the tragic circumstances.
‘Zeus is that you??’ one person joked on X while another wrote: ‘The will of the Old Ones.’
‘What in the Horror Movie Hell went down at Burning Man?’ asked another.
‘They accidentally called on ancient gods, by the sounds of it,’ read one viral comment.
Even regular Burners admitted this year felt uncanny. One longtime attendee who left early wrote that the event had become a ‘hollow echo’ of its past.
Originally intended to be an anti-capitalist gathering that paid tribute to creativity, community, and the natural world, Burning Man has slowly evolved from a radical gathering into a luxury theme park for tech bros and influencers.
Like so many things that have begun as truly countercultural, has Burning Man lost its soul to the mainstream? As Burning Man collapses under the weight of its own ideals, has some spirit of the land been awoken and taken its pound of flesh?
It’s a fanciful idea, of course – one that ignores the real grief and tragedy that hangs over this year’s festival.
Collapsing domes and surprise births may feel like omens, but the suspected homicide is a stark reminder that these stories are playing out in the real world with real consequences.
And yet, Burning Man has always thrived on ritual, symbolism, and spectacle. It makes sense that people reach for the language of curses and gods when the desert serves up chaos – in some ways, it feels truer to the spirit of the event than any TikTok of writhing neon-clad bodies ever could.
So maybe it’s not that the ancient gods are angry, just that Burning Man itself has become a kind of relic of what it once was, one that now teeters between countercultural legend and Instagram theme park.
Still, with collapsing domes, surprise births, and tragic deaths all in the same week, you can’t blame anyone for wondering if the spirit of the desert has just finally had enough.
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