I was wrong about Burning Man
Polychroma by In Theory Art Collective. (Jane Hu/Special to SFGATE)
BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. - There must be something wrong with me. A Burner with blue hair just told me that she loved my "energy." Not only did I smile back, but I was genuinely touched.
I've spent the last week at Burning Man, surrounded by aging hippies, rich Europeans, fire twirlers and engineers gone wild. My skin is buried under a seven-layer dip of dust, sweat, sunscreen and spilled beer. My ears are still ringing slightly from the nightly barrage of electronic music. On a given day here, I've seen a lifetime's worth of bare cheeks. I am desperate to go home. But somehow, I'm happy.
Listen: I did not come to Burning Man solely to have fun. I was sent here for work, by my editors at SFGATE. I am not a Burning Man person. If anything, I am - was - what you might call a Burning Man hater. It's not the mud, the dust, or the heat, or any of the other Biblical plagues thrown daily at this hostile landscape. It's the culture. Or what I thought it was, anyway.
From left, Laganza, Zoriana Hats and Alisa Biketova show off their outfits at Burning Man 2024 in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. (Jane Hu/Special to SFGATE)
When I spot Burners at San Francisco bars, I tend to avoid them. I read the twinkles behind their eyes as false earnestness; I watch their artless dancing with secondhand embarrassment. I have long assumed that I am too young, too self-conscious, too cynical to meaningfully connect with this crowd.
When I arrived on the playa, I asked a young woman, also a first-timer, why she came out here. "I don't know," she said. "I guess I'm just into yoga, and energy and stuff."
Yoga, energy and stuff. Three things I am not super into. Any whiff of new agey-ness gives me hives. On the surface, Burning Man combines several things I dislike: goofy outfits, white dreadlocks and millennial kitsch. (If you're a millennial reading this, I'm talking about someone else.) I dislike tech-house, a popular Burning Man music genre, which finds a way to sap house music, a historically Black and gay genre, of all of its Blackness and gayness. I instinctively turn up my nose at crystals worn around necks.
FILE: Attendees dance during the annual Burning Man Festival in the early morning of September 5, 2023. (JULIE JAMMOT/AFP via Getty Images)
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For my first days at Burning Man, this was all I saw. On Monday night, I had a flaccid evening bouncing between bars and dance parties (to the shirtless muscled man who was playing Skrillex: thank you!). As I told my friend on Day Two: "I don't dislike Burning Man. I just dislike the aesthetics, the music, the parties and half of the people."
And then everything changed. I can't pinpoint exactly when I reached liftoff. It might have been when I was stuck in the Orgy Dome organizers' trailer during a heavy rainstorm, drinking black coffee and waiting out the downpour with idle conversation. It might have been the men in lawn chairs who waved me over, pulled up a chair and handed me a very, very strong drink while peppering me with questions. It might have been the middle-aged Swiss man who I met at the trash fence at sunrise, who saw that I was shivering (it gets cold at night) and gave me a hug. It might have been the Berliner who asked me repeatedly whether I was into leather, before diving into a heart-to-heart about dreams and aspirations.
A view of art on the playa during Burning Man 2024. (Jane Hu/Special to SFGATE)
I did not exchange contact information with any of these people. I will never encounter them again. But I will remember our exchanges for a long time.
Simply put, people relate to one another differently out here. Nobody is in a rush. People want to pull each other aside for long, rambling conversations, and lay themselves bare. The only thing Burners want out of each other is company. You pay for your free drinks with your conversation. For a hardened city slicker like me, this was difficult to comprehend, so I simply didn't believe it. I assumed, deep down, that the warmth and openness with which I was greeted was some sort of act.
But a few days into Burning Man, you sync up to the wavelength of the event, and start to feel the pull. And when that happens, you'll let a guy named Egg Man flag you down on your morning walk to the toilets, and he'll tell you about the Burn many moons ago where he was struck by lightning ("It was loud as f-k!") and then hooked up with someone from Perth, Australia the same day ("We f-ed standing up!").
The view of the muddy Burning Man playa in Black Rock City, Nevada on Aug. 26, 2025. (Jonah Page/For SFGATE)
The worst moment of my Burn: a much-hyped sunrise set from Rüfüs Du Sol. As crowds of ‘roided out dudes in fast fashion fur coats rushed the stage, I got flashbacks to my worst club nights in San Francisco. I ditched my friends to wander out into the desert.
The best moment of my Burn: an hour-long conversation with a dad and his fifteen-year-old teenager on Wednesday afternoon. I was handed a cold Pacifico, and I interviewed them about what it was like going to Burning Man as a family. I almost cried.
So yes, Burning Man melted my cold, cynical heart. There's plenty that I wish were different about this event. The absence of young people is alienating. It's a bummer that Burning Man doubles as a playground for some international elites, who treat it more like a second Coachella.
Planetary Playground by Rainbow Girl. (Jane Hu/Special to SFGATE)
But most of the stuff I don't like - the music, the Temu accessories, the occasional talk of "energy" - is window dressing. Beneath all of that, at the center of Burning Man, is simple, warm human connection.
I know that this sounds cliche. I know that I sound like the exact type of person I would scoff at in the "default world," waxing on about "energy and stuff." And look: If you ever catch me wearing a feathered hat, you have my permission to put me down on the spot. I'm not going to shake off my self-consciousness and start dressing like a "Dune" extra. But where it matters, I'm happy to have been proven wrong.
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