As thousands of people remain unable to leave the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert after heavy rains inundated their campsites with ankle-deep mud Saturday, authorities say they are investigating a death at the event.
Attendees were told to shelter in place in the Black Rock Desert and conserve food, water and fuel after a rainstorm swamped the area, forcing officials to halt any entering or leaving of the festival.
The remote area in northwest Nevada was hit with 2 to 3 months worth of rain – up to 0.8 inches – in just 24 hours between Friday and Saturday mornings. The heavy rainfall fell on dry desert grounds, whipping up thick, clay-like mud that festivalgoers say is too difficult to walk or bike through.
Climate change is only going to make this event harder and more dangerous in the future. I just hope the death toll stays at 1.
Agreed, it’d be a little unnerving if the toll reverted back to 0.
Zombie burners. The fifth horseman of the apocalypse
Zombie would be an improvement on the personality of most burners.
it’d be a little unnerving if the toll reverted back to 0.
If it did, then that was probably Ozzie Osborne waking up from his daily heroine overdose.
Do you think he’s into Wonder Woman, or is he an MCU loyalist for his daily heroine?
Honestly, for an event this size, a single death should surely be in the odds.
I believe the death was unrelated to the weather.
Story time! My friend is a private pilot for an obscenely rich person. He dropped them off wherever the nearest airport is and man in a luxury RV picked them up. He drove them there, set the whole thing up, and left them to have fun. Apparently this is not an abnormal thing they do.
I guess last night they got a hold of the dude, who drove to an area a couple hours walk away, and they hiked to his truck. He went to the RV and they drove the truck 4 hours to Reno, and they’re staying at a four seasons or something. My buddy had to cancel his own vacation to go and pick them up this morning so now I’m at a beach watching his kids.
Whatever it was before, burning man is a playground for the 1%. When the shit hits the fan, their money will always get them out of any situation.
Was your buddy obligated to go pick them up, or was the money that good that he couldn’t say no?
I think being a kept man is a well paid gig. Sometimes the hours really suck though.
He’s salaried and essentially on call
I said in an earlier post that this was rich people’s problems.
People with cash looking for life transcending moments, but are just drugged up festival chasers hanging out with those who font hide the delusions. They’re there for the drugs and the festival.
And could afford it, too.
People gonna shit on the wealthy for going and still having the resources to get a way out almost no matter what.
People gonna shit on the middle class for trying to find a fun activity and deciding this looked like the best option for the week.
People gonna shit on the poors for being stupid by going and having no way out, possibly needing to be rescued.
People gonna shit on those who have enough time and resources in their life to go camping in the desert for a week and to see a bunch of wild people who are trying to get away from whatever square world they come from.
People gonna shit on everything no matter what. Ignore 'em.
Nobody should never “need” to be rescued and should always plan accordingly (10 essentials for us boy scouts, lol).
Anyways, rant over.
We aren’t shitting on anyone, just amused that perhaps less rich people exist now, and their own stupidity despite their ridiculous fortune. Same as the submarine thing. Tale as old as itme - sometimes it seems there’s a correlation between stupidity and wealth…
If they changed the name to Salty Millennial Man, would the event have wider appeal?
When Diplo and Chris Rock are attending it’s not Burning Man anymore. It’s just another event for trust fund kids and middle managers clinging to their long past youth. Add a sprinkle of tech bros for flavor and you get an event I don’t mind not attending.
Not that the folks who do attend Burning Man are regretting my absence in the least 🤣
I wanted to go to this when I was a teen because it was so counter culture and free spirited. Now you couldn’t pay me to go. It’s gross what techbros and 1%ers have turned it into.
Same with every festival. So disappointing that I’ll never have the chance to experience (or be able to afford, regardless) the way Coachella or Burning Man was when I was younger.
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
I went out to the black rock desert in middle School in the late 90’s as part of a school trip. We launched rockets in the desert. It was super cool. I remember hearing about this burning man thing they did there every year in the summer and it sounded so cool. Then I got older, and we got this. Good riddance.
deleted by creator
I read this to mean douchey business-minded tech people as opposed to the more traditional nerdy tech people (i.e. lemmy)
Alright y’all let’s vote!
Is this commenter…
A) speaking English as a second language,
B) Autistic, or
C) Trolling?
Removed by mod
My bad to all my tech bros and bras; I will now edit every instance of my error to techbreese
woman who works in tech here. Haven’t been to a music festival since Warped tour 04 lol
deleted by creator
I don’t care. I’m pretty self deprecating in real life.
0.8 inches…
Funny how so little fucked them so much!
They’re also at the lowest drainage point for that whole valley. Plus, the properties of the lakebed make it so that water is very slow to soak into the ground, so it’s going to take a while for things to dry out.
Hey, 0.8 inches is completely acceptable and it gets the job done. It’s not the size of the dingy but the motion in the ocean…or in this case it’s not how much you fill the graduated cylinder but how dry the soil is.
On a more serious note, this has the potential to become a huge tragedy; there are 10’s of thousands of people out there with limited resources and more rain is coming. I hope that things stay under control.
That dry lake bed is like powdered mud, it’s so fine that any water instantly makes mud.
Burning man is held on a dry lakebed, funny thing about lakes is that they tend to form in the places water naturally tends to accumulate, it just happens that it’s a desert, so normally there’s no rain so no water. So basically any rain that falls in the area tends to drain to the burning man playa, while only .8" fell directly on burning man, a decent amount more accumulated there.
The soil there also tends to turn to mud, and there’s no real plants with root systems and such to help hold it together.
deleted by creator
everyone loves to have a hate boner for this festival so how would you feel if it closes? one less fun thing in the world, even if it may not be your cup of tea. all the good festivals shut down where i am and it just feels so ‘sterile’ now
people die at burning man all the time. this wouldn’t end the festival.
it’s a fun time, but it’s definitely not for people without some disposable income. many people will budget a thousand bucks or two as the logistics required to camp there are serious.
we all know that you could spend a thousand dollars on something more useful to society or whatever, but i imagine most of the people hating on it aren’t doing shit.
Oh no all the billionaires are stuck in the desert.
There are 3194 billionaires in the world. If all of them were at Burning Man there would still be 69,000 non billionaires there.
My childhood friend’s brother is there. He is a veteran who saw combat in the Iraq War. Far from a billionaire.
deleted by creator
Been to Alchemy in Georgia. I can say that’s awesome, Burning Man is for rich white people.
Well yeah…because it sucks…
Removed by mod
I hate to sound callous, but I don’t feel much sympathy for a rich person who went out to the desert to pretend to be a hippie and didn’t check the weather forecast.
I used to run in a party crowd that had a LOT of burning man folks in it. There were a couple of them that had middle class incomes, maybe even leaning upper middle class. Those are usually the ones that had an art car or whatever that they sank some money into, instead of the crap that most upper middle class Americans blow their money on.
But the rest of them? They worked at restaurants, did massage therapy, teachers, etc. normal people with median or lower incomes that would forego other expenses to set aside a little a money for their annual get high in the desert trip.
Yes, there’s a bunch of elitists at the core of the event, but it’s not the majority.
TLDR: The trend of wealthy people is going up while the less wealthy trends down.
The other takeaway is that more than half the attendees make more than 100k a year so not exactly a minority.
100k salary is a decent amount of money but it’s far as fuck from being “rich”.
It might be a perspective thing, and how you both define “rich”.
If someone gets by every week on ramen, a salary of $100k/year would seem like a crap ton of money. Doubly so if most of their community is also living off of ramen. One year on that salary alone would be life changing for this person.
If someone lives in a pricy area and maybe has a few kids, a salary of $100k wouldn’t seem like nearly as much. Doubly so if most of their community makes that much. One year on that salary is just another year for this person.
For some people, “rich” is not having to worry about starving and knowing that they have a roof over their head. It’s about finally being able to buy non-necessities, and it’s about being able to have things just for enjoyment. Some people are very month to month in terms of costs and bills.
To others, “rich” is being able to buy expensive boats and cars. It’s about having excess wealth and never having to worry about any monetary problems. These people might think of millionaires and billionaires when they hear the word “rich”.
Of course some people would consider $100k/year rich. I’m certain that MANY people would take that salary boost in a heartbeat.
I’m not saying that $100k would set you up anywhere near as much as $1m would, but it’s a hell of a lot more money than many people can make.
In 10 years, that salary is $1,000,000. For someone making $50k/year, it would take 20 years for them to make that much. For someone making $25k/year, it would take 40 years for them to earn that much. I would feel disingenuous telling someone who makes $25k/year that making $100k wouldn’t be becoming “rich” to them.
Maybe that’s their monetary sweet spot, and they rely on other things to finish fulfilling their personal definition of “rich”. Family, friends, hobbies, etc.
If 100k isn’t rich to you then you have lived an exceptionally blessed life. Also “more than” doesn’t mean all of them are making exactly 100k
How rich you are on 100k really depends on where you live.
Bro, median household income in the US is almost $80k. It’s not 1998 anymore.
True for one person but this is household income. A married couple both making $50k would fall into this. While that is definitely not poor by any means. I think it is fair to say that it would be a bit of a stretch to call a person in the us today making $50k “rich.”
People tend to acquire wealth over time? There is a solid correlation between wealth and age, so this shouldn’t be surprising in the least. And especially those who had time/energy to spare to attend festivals earlier are especially predisposed for acquiring now wealth down the line. Assuming that they return over the years, all of this is pretty much to be expected.
—In 2013, the median age of burners was 32, and in 2022, it was 37.
My take away was that it seems like it is the same people going every year: they are getting older and richer, because that is what happens over time.
deleted by creator
They still should have checked the weather report.
Even if they had checked the weather, would they have known 0.8 inches of rainfall translates into being stranded in the desert and possible death? I’ve never been to BM or spent time in a desert so this is news to me. Were people warning about this and attendees just ignored it?
Yes. You need to stay out of the desert if there is any rainfall. That is basic knowledge you should know before going out there.
That’s a fair point, but at the same time the desert is well known for being the harshest of all environments on earth. It’s surprising so many people treat it like just a drive to the store.
Yeh I don’t understand it either. I’m from Australia. Driving into a desert sounds like a pretty dangerous thing to do, no matter what the weather forecast is.
Nah they know rain turns everything into quicksand. But it doesn’t create a situation more lethal than daily life there.
I didn’t say they were smart people. Just not all rich people.
And done what exactly??
It rains there sometimes. Forecasts change wildly day to day regardless. But it’s a desert and the water typically evaporates so quickly that an hour later there’s no evidence it rained.
Not to mention, it’s unlikely the person died from being trapped in the rain. I’m not sure why the article mentions both things except to give news about the event conditions I guess.
And not gone into the desert in the first place. This is basic knowledge when going into a desert.
Have you ever gone outside?
With that attitude, the only difference between you and the type of rich person you seem to despise, is wealth.
I hate to sound callous
No, you fucking revel in it. Why the fuck else would you feel the need to post this?
First you replace them with your straw man (“rich tech bros”) and then burn it down (“tech bros just deserve what they get”)
Well, stay in your basement you smug piece of shit. Mommy will have tendies ready soon.
Maybe in ten years you can rename it to “Monsoon Man” and theme it around rain.
It’s not a total loss.
Art floats. I see potential.
Lol, lmao even.
Not OP but I also laughed at the ocean sub crushing like a beer can against the forehead of god and I am CACKLING at this.
Same here. No love lost for those parasites.
Blocked.
deleted by creator
That’s because the people saying this shit think a 100k salary makes you rich.
These people are so broke that any amount of money to them is “rich”.
deleted by creator
These people are so broke that any amount of money to them is “rich”.
right, but it’s the reply you’re talking about was the callous one… smfh (/s to be clear - you are the callous one, a classist ass literally making fun of people who are struggling to survive, like wtf)
deleted by creator
Apparently the weather stations in the SoCal desert didn’t see it coming at all. Not sure how that’s possible, but that’s what they said Friday. Tons of flooding in Palm Springs and Vegas too.
deleted by creator
I wonder if any of them called the cops to suggest that the puddles had a gun. Any reports of the popo ramming the rain?
deleted by creator
They cleared those climate protestors off the road pretty quickly
deleted by creator
Apparently many of them tried to get the cops to come out and get rid of the climate protesters they had to drive by on the way in.
