This opinion piece suggests that, as in the rest of the world, sex appeal has become the chief commodity at supposedly non-commodifed Burning Man. Since the media mostly chooses images of photogenically sexy people at the event, the event naturally attracts photogenically sexy people. In their growing numbers, they are changing the culture to be more and more like the worst (i.e. sexually objectifying) parts of the rest of the world. Everyone goes there to strip off the default world and its expectations, but they still need self-worth, and if it's not found in work or participation / performance, it's in sex.
May be true. I'm a very sexy man (shush) but that isn't important to me and since I didn't have significant work to do or any results of work to share (e.g. homemade artsy bicycles / costumes / accoutrements), I lost interest in going. I didn't want to just hang out and party.
Old festival-goers never die, they just start cottage industries and fade away.
1 comment:
Everything in media is about sex appeal on one level or another. I wonder if there were no pix of Burning Man if that would change things. What if the sexiness of the sexy was not recorded for all time, but instead floated away into nothing but (possibly distorted) memories like bits of conversations?
One thing I'm coming to dislike (intensely) about online interaction is the recordedness of it. Not by Google or FB or the NSA ~ I don't GAF about that. I'm talking about how this, right now, feels more to me like a convo than an essay. I don't want to be held to it like I'm offering up a scientific theory. I don't want my words to be quoted back to me three years from now by a Sylvia type. BUT YOU SAID AT DON'S BLOG THAT BLAH DE BLAH.
This is why I periodically hose my FB wall and revisit blog poasts to see if I want them out there for all time.
I think life was different (not necessarily better) before every goddamn thing had to be Fb'd and Insta'd. I do believe it forces peeps into a photographic mode, thinking about how they will look later, rather than the fun they're having now. I know I resent going on hikes when I have to pose for a group photo all hot and sweaty. Why do we need a photo? It's annoying! (And it makes me think differently about what I'll wear, which is stupid.)
Post a Comment