The author at Burning Man, before the storm. Anneta Konstantinides/Insider
- Many of the headlines surrounding Burning Man 2023 focused on celebrities fleeing the event after a storm.
- While the stars left, many of us stayed behind to mobilize the community and clean up the playa.
- I wish people knew these stories from Burning Man 2023.
As our RV left Black Rock City and the beach was just waking up to another sunrise, my phone came back to life.
After almost nine full days without a service at Burning Man 2023, I watched dozens of “Are You Alive?” songs. The news came in en masse. That’s when I realized how bad the headlines must have been.
Burning Man has been in the headlines for years, especially after celebrities, CEOs and influencers began joining the over 70,000 people who flock to Black Rock City for over a week of art, music, fashion and, at the end, the indescribable playa -Magic to enjoy every August. Although the event’s founding principles are based on “radical self-reliance” and the beauty of giving and community, many people seem to know it more as a playground for models and billionaires.
So it wasn’t entirely surprising to me that when Burning Man was hit by an unprecedented storm and curfew this year, most of the media focused on how celebrities handled it. Stories about Diplo and Chris Rock’s six-mile escape from Black Rock City, where they hitchhiked with the help of a fan and their pickup truck, or about Victoria’s Secret model Kelly Gale and her fiancée, “Suicide Squad” actor Joel Kinnaman, running through the mud to “escape” the festival on Saturday was all everyone knew about this year’s event.
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The headlines about the stars’ departure from Black Rock City were dramatic. “Chris Rock and Diplo were saved from the Burning Man disaster,” one said. “Celebrities flee the hell of the Burning Man desert festival,” said another. I found them all hilarious – and quite inaccurate.
I was one of thousands of people who weathered the storm and helped clean up
This year was my first Burning Man, and my experience couldn’t have been more different than what much of the media has portrayed – and I think it’s safe to say my camp was far less glamorous than any other involving international DJs and comedians were guests and supermodels.
While many have portrayed Burning Man 2023 as a disaster that was so frightening and the uninhabitable people would do anything to leave, the truth is that most of us stayed for days after the storm. We have also worked hard to maintain community spirit and keep the playa clean.
When the sun rose on September 3rd and the mud finally dried, my camp spent six hours using screwdrivers, knives, and our nails to peel away any trash that had gotten stuck in the mud and to dig out shoes and other items that were in the storm’s slush been buried.
Cleaning up the trash at Burning Man. Anneta Konstantinides/Insider
We all stayed that night to watch the man burn, and the playa was still full of burners who chose to stay and live out the rest of their experience. As we climbed into various art cars and danced the night away among tens of thousands of people, it became clear that the resilient Burner spirit was stronger than ever.
There are so many stories I wish people would hear about Burning Man 2023, beyond celebrity “survival” stories
While Diplo’s “great escape” got all the press, the DJ story I enjoyed hearing from Burning Man came from Rinzen.
The Los Angeles-based DJ revealed on Instagram that he played an impromptu three-hour set when he encountered hundreds of people dancing at Fluffy Cloud – a popular Burning Man installation – on Saturday after the storm.
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“The celebratory mood after the rain made it so emotional,” he wrote on Monday. “Personally, I was overwhelmed by the joy that I was still able to play.”
Music created a good atmosphere in the camps throughout the weekend, including me. Although we couldn’t ride our bikes out to see the big names on the playa, there were still nightly dance parties in our dome where my campmates showed off their own incredible skills. Their sets ended up being far more memorable than any of the famous acts I saw earlier in the week – sorry, Diplo!
Many Burning Man attendees stayed until Monday evening to watch the man burn, an annual tradition. Anneta Konstantinides/Insider
The most ridiculous rumor to come out of Burning Man 2023 was claims of cannibalism that seemingly started with Chris Rock.
But the truth was that the Burners fed each other with whatever they had available during the storm. When one of my friends got stuck on the Burner Express, which takes participants from Black Rock City to the Reno or San Francisco airport, right after Friday’s storm, he said that a Burner who was camping nearby had made over 100 quesadillas out of theirs own supplies to feed everyone on the bus.
The next day, I watched as one of my campmates brought his grill onto the dance floor at our neighboring camp’s sunset party so he could serve everyone his famous grilled cheese sandwiches.
Feel-good headlines will never get as much attention as “Disasters” or “Diplo.” But these are the Burning Man stories that I think everyone should know.
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