| I was thinking the exact, same thing as I read that. Burning Man has become what every human endeavor does once it gets "popular". Exploited. Seeing this in city after city across the USA as well. Formerly affordable cities used to grow, attract and keep artists and ground-up, bootsrapped creatives in business. This made these "B-list" cities a cultural hub and (for search of a better word) "cool". Wealthy people (many of whom were silver-spooned trustafarians) started venturing into the "cool" parties/scenes, loved the culture like everyone else there did — except they moved in and gentrified the city (some with good intentions and many others who didn't give a shit). Some (if not most) of these wealthy people just couldn't truly relate to the prevailing, scrappy culture and didn't really contribute anything to the dynamic and basically killed it. Only the cultural reputation remained and was kept as a corporate marketing ploy, but the core substance of the city (its working class creatives) were unceremoniously and tragically removed. The artists and truly bootstrapped creatives can no longer afford to live directly in the city, so they move to the run-down industrial outskirts. The city becomes sanitized, gains a lot of national corporate chain conformity and loses a lot of local, novel culture that made it attractive in the first place. Next thing you know, the industrial area becomes the cultural center and the "hip", cool place to hang out is at artsy, underground events and parties within the area. The wealthy, of course, end up there because it's the "cool" place to be. While they're there, they eyeball the industrial spaces as future fancy, high-ceiling lofts they can gentrify. They kill off the affordable spaces and the artists and creatives are now left with no where to go but leave the metro area entirely or become another corporate working stiff with no time for art and risky creative endeavors involving small business. That's where we are today and some of the last stragglers are jamming themselves into dangerous, crowded situations that led to the horrific fire at the CA space (in my opinion). Moral of the story is many (not all) trustafarians suck the life out of good things because they were raised in such a way that they can't possibly relate to working people or even care to do so. I'm not sure there's an easy answer to this short of a revolution of sorts where working people unite and demand a more level playing field instead of gross inequality and corporate greed. That's why I support organizations such as the Justice Democrats and things such as single-payer healthcare. I don't want equality of outcome, just more equality of opportunity. I think that's healthy for society and for a culture that produces more makers instead of mere consumers. The path we're on now is unhealthy and downright dangerous. It's got to change or we're headed toward misery for all of us (including the trustafarians down the road). /rant |
But I also can't help but think that it ascribes an unnecessary purity of purpose/intent to the "working people" of the city.
Do they think they have common cause with the "working people" of a rust belt town or exurb? Do they (or for that matter, the trustafarians) think the rust belt iron worker's lifestyle or neighborhood is hip and cool?