Did I mention the orgies and drugs?

Sorry to be talking about this again, but I just want to assure you that I'm not panicking. I know you definitely read The Daily Mail article entitled "Panic grows that iconic Burning man festival famed for drugs and orgies is on verge of COLLAPSE [sic] after washout 2023 event," and I just thought that you should know that nobody is panicking. 

Pictured: the sensationalized, passive voice headline can be found in the 
lower quarter of the screen above that's not filled with ads for container homes
 and scrap metal recylcling companies. The algorithm's outdone itself this time!

Huh, the folks at Orgy Dome don't look
all that panicked. I wonder why the article
even mention--wait, do you suppose...

Well, not about this. There's plenty else to panic about. The climate, humanitarian crises across the globe, MAGA goons, the fact that there's a sequel to Beetlejuice coming out despite the track record of sequels that happen decades later. Lots. But whatever the hell this is? Not panicking. Obviously, nobody takes The Daily Mail seriously, but even for nonsense news sites, that headline is a masterpiece of click bate. Are there orgies and drug use at Burning Man? Yes. Does that have anything to do with the story? Not even a little.

The caption could also read: "Festival-
goers wait patiently in line to exit
Burning Man. But it doesn't say that.

There's also a shot (left) which is captioned: "A mass exodus consumed the festival as fed-up revelers fled Nevada's Black Rock Desert last year after torrential downpours turned the drug and orgy filled experience into a muddy mess. (Pictured: A massive traffic Jam as people tried to leave the festival)." Sigh. Couple of things. For one, the mass exodus didn't consume anything, the line to get out always looks like that. And it looks like that because the organizers pulse the traffic out so as not to overwhelm the highway and the small towns it passes through. 

To most people stuck with tickets I say,
"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that." To ticket
re-sellers I say: "whomp-whomp."

They also didn't miss another opportunity to mention drugs and orgies, did they? Anyway, The story itself is about how demand for tickets was probably affected by last year's weather, which is true. Like I said, we talked about this already, but the idea is that the demand is low and supply is high. There are almost certainly a lot of folks, some of them friends, who are going to be hurt by the financial impact of unused tickets. That's terrible, and I definitely feel for them. There're also going to be speculators who thought they'd turn tickets around for a profit. That's schadenfreude and I don't so much feel for them.

Pity them not is what I'm saying.

But growing panic that Burning Man is on the verge of collapse? Eh...Would it be the worst thing in the world if this was the last Burning Man? The glamper festival kids who lost their minds when it rained last year would just take their culturally appropriative headdresses and RV's to Coachella or whatever. As for more dedicated Burners, they're adaptable, and would probably just go to regional events (mini-Burning Man things that happen, all over the world). 

Apart from the folks who work for the organization, the actual victims here would be people who live in the nearby communities who've build small industries around the event. And that doesn't even get a mention in the article. 

But curiously enough, they did mention the orgies. Like, more than once.