Burning man, what a concept. Every Labor Day weekend thousands upon thousands of would-be productive members of society (we’re kidding of course, put your itchy comment fingers away) descend upon the Black Rock Desert area in northwestern Nevada. But WTF is going on down there?

Burning man, what a concept. Every Labor Day weekend thousands upon thousands of would-be productive members of society (we’re kidding of course, put your itchy commenting fingers away) descend upon the Black Rock Desert area in northwestern Nevada. What started out as a largely hippie-esque movement of completely going off the grid for one solid weekend, bartering trinkets and creating a self-sustaining city atmosphere while the un-ending parties raged on, has grown to be one of the pivotal “see-me-now-mom” events of the year.

But with all things pure and innocent, it’s been sabotaged, it would seem. The influx of wild revelers and unwelcomed guests have turned the peaceful gathering into a proverbial shit-show, some say. The new complaints are that behemoth capitalists are using it as a meet-and-greet session with startup companies that may set stake down there for the event. This of course goes against everything Burning Man was set up to do, that is, damn the man and it’s little green paper goblins.

On top of that, there’s already been an insane amount of problems in the desolate landscape and the big events have yet to even begin. Yesterday there was an odd, god-damning type of rain that closed the main gates for hours and just this morning shortly after midnight reports came out that a woman was struck and killed by a bus. Burning Man co-founder Marian Goodell released a statement shortly thereafter:

"This is a terrible accident," said Goodell. "Our thoughts and prayers are with her family, friends and campmates."

Details of the crash were not immediately available and the name of the victim is currently being withheld, because, really, let’s have some respect for once in our lives shall we?

"Burners," as attendees like to refer to themselves, identify with the Burning Man ideals as it’s stated in the festival's 10 principles: radical inclusion, gifting, de-commodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation and immediacy.

If you’re still wishing you were there, check out the live video stream set up. As for us, we’re going to kick it curbside with some locally crafted brews and stay far away from strange weather and greedy capitalists – that kind of stuff is reserved for workweeks.


Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream