BM

I love listening to the change in attitudes about Burning Man from the people who don't go to it. In the late 1990's when I first got here, people would treat talking about BM like speaking about adventure travel: wow that's really cool that you went on a survivalist retreat in the desert. I admire you for it, but that's not my kind of fun.

Then it was known as sort of a raver party thing as it got nearer to the dot-com boom: yeah I've heard about it. It sounds fun but a little retarded. I'm tempted to go but really not all that tempted.

Then the new batches of people flooding into the city who played fusball at work and carried scooters on BART were excited about it, which is about the same time it became okay to mock Burning Man with friends you trust.

Then after the bust it seemed the hardcore burners became militant while word of the event spread further into the country. Here in San Francisco, we learned about after-burn and decompression parties and other exclusionary events: That party sucked; it was full of Burning Man people.

Then slowly the tide had started to turn against them. Otherwise cool people who continue to go to Burning Man annually finally shut up about it and started keeping it to themselves.

And now, it's only three weeks before the event that the chatter picks up. People admit they're going to BM like they admit watching American Idol- it's an embarrassing guilty pleasure. They say: I'm going to Burning Man, but I'm sure you think it's stupid. And more than ever before the average person is openly hostile to it. Rather than feeling someone out before making fun of the event, it's fine to talk shit about BM in public.

And when that guy lit the man on fire prematurely this year, people were laughing and emailing it back and forth at work, glad to see it get messed up. I thought that was a little cruel to be happy when others' good time is ruined, even if you think their good time is dumb.

But then again, I've been hating Burning Man since long before it was cool. Now that all these amateur poseur haters are joining in, it's just not as much fun anymore.

So I'm now declaring hating Burning Man over.

From now on it's all about loving Burning Man ironically.

But I can't talk about that right now. I'm busy planning the best decompression party ever.