In the year 2019 I participated in an event called Burning Man and found it a very perception altering experience. Feeling that the event was very different than real life, it really changed my perspective and challenged the way I think about the world and how we humans behave. Burning Man is a gathering held in Nevada during the summer which accommodates 70,000 people in different themed camps. Having gone with people who have been many times, I found myself often wandering off and questioning different myths, truths and realities. I found myself realizing my own mental reactionary programing to situations and my own individual biases which I carried on from what the more experienced Burners would often refer to as “default world”. Ultimately it forced me to see that the way we view the world is somewhat circumstantial and even impulsive. Therefor I wanted to use this opportunity to explore how this gathering of creativity and chaos changed other people’s thought process too. It’s important I note here that Burning Man is a sort of “lawless land” which is run by implementing 10 rules. These 10 principles are used as guidelines for decision making, similarly to laws, which include things like: radical inclusion, gifting, radical self-reliance, radical self expression, communal effort and civic responsibility. Burners include any and every type of human and have the most phenomenal ability to come together and build a fictional city in a matter of days and then leave nature exactly as it was after, while using no currency or bartering system of any sort. At BM real names and origin countries have little meaning, as your given a name by other Burners and belong to a camp which is recognized by it’s gifting contribution to the gathering. My research question is, In which ways does attending Burning Man change people’s perception of the world?

I gathered my data by participating in event, observing the event and then later on reflecting to analyze it. In addition to the methods of participation and observation I also held a brief interview with two people which helped me gather more collective assumptions. The interview I conducted was face to face and semi structured interview method to collect data through interviews and observations which included a variety of first order and second order exploratory questions. The interviews were recorded to then look back at and be more present with the data. At times I did feel that in order to extract more information and evoke a sense of “thinking out loud” and remembering things, I did have to ask similar questions in different angles. The interview was structured in the sense that it was according to the times we had scheduled, included some friendly chit chat before and was held in a comfortable environment with cookies. As the thoughts and stories started to flow more freely I got to hear more of the narratives and the way the interviewee reveals the ‘meaning’ behind the experiences. The interviews were ended on a good note which much thanks and were very nice to do. Some of the questions I asked included:

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1. Do you think attending BM effected the way your see the world and if so in which ways?

2. What are some experienced that challenged your biases or thoughts?

3. Do you believe attending Burning Man generated new found creative, imaginative or entrepreneurial abilities in you?

4. How you think BM effected the way you view yourself?

5. Were there things that made you uncomfortable in the beginning of BM that didn’t bother you by the end of it?

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The stages for identifying recurring statements and ideas inside the text was done through analyzing all the findings.  I Identified some recurring themes and patterns such as seen in in regards to: community help, creativity, judgement and acceptance, freedom, nudity and money. Doing this I also took notes on categorizes, temporary categories and interpretations as well as the voice and tones used. Some remarked on how seeing 70,000 people come together with 0 violence really challenged their assumptions about people, others on how they were overwhelmed by the kindness of humanity. Everyone reported feeling more hopeful or loving about the world post Burn. Interviewees felt it made them doubt social phenomena such as: nations, religions, hierarchy, lack of gifting and why certain things are considered “weird”. All interviews walked out of BM willing to do things that felt taboo before and have reported being less judgmental of people in real life. Everyone felt uncomfortable regarding nudity of others or themselves at first, and ended up not even registering it mentally by the end. As a man said “the threshold for weird went up. It’s all relative and not all things you do define you”.

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A deeper notion of this could be that by witnessing more expression and less judgement, people become more accepting and free. Though a semi constructed universe with no implications people can get a new change to self explore who they are and grow in ways that regular society may hinder. Ultimately this could possibly allow the illusion of separation and judgement can be pushed aside to bring people together closer than before. Another conclusion made from this is that terms used were often very personal to the individual’s meaning of the overall experience. This is in correlation for a question asked at which on why did they go to Burning Man, and then in what it taught them. For one women on the 2nd burn she attended to get over a breakup, and reported a lot of individual exploration and self reliance. She said she felt sheltered and not truly engaged on connecting with people before. While for me and the man who are multicultural, we tended to put a lot more emphasis on the cultural attributes, enjoying the loss of structure of naming nations and cultural identity. All of us reported being more closed minded before in different aspects and being more comfortable trying new things.

I loved doing this research and seeing the commonalities between all those who attended. I also really enjoyed that it made me think of another possible Hypothesis in regards to Burning Man’s reputation. Most people have only heard about in regard to very small scale occurrences that happen there, thinking it’s a sort of drug sex party. But in reality there’s everything from classical music, to scientists making 2 large trains crash, to pranks of people saying they’re Daft Punk and the list goes on and on. Both my boyfriend and I who participated in this study don’t do drugs, are monogamous and still had a very heart and perspective opening experience. Since the answers that occurred all had nudity and occasionally a discussion on drugs, I do wonder if the reason people give Burning Man such a reputation is because it includes (a small) percentage of humans doing we fear the most? As some sort of survival instinct signaling other humans to stay away from possible primate dangerous. This could possibly be backed up by evidence of seeing how easy it is to get a bad reputation, and hard it is for things or people to get a noteworthy good one. Most bad reputation often do involve body shaming, sexuality shaming, etc. Perhaps this is the same kind of judgement which Burning Man eliminates? 

When examining the answers in regard to the ways Burning Man changes people’s perception of the world we can see ultimately people who’ve attended reported a greater belief in humanity rather than before. Attaining a higher threshold to witness and do things which may felt too outside of the comfort zone before without judgement. The experience made everyone feel more comfortable with themes like nudity and communal effort increasingly more accepting of different kinds of people.