[bmarquez]

The article mentions festivals as a "suspension of normal rules, mores, structures, and social distinction" and riots having a festive dimension. I don't know Girard's work enough to comment, but wonder if there is a connection between Girard and Temporary Autonomous Zones[1] (which Burning Man is a large scale example of)

As an aside, the article claims that online Burning Man failed because of it was too consumption based. It's not a good example since there were numerous issues including participants lacking VR headsets, userbase split up into different platforms (there was no singular "official" software), capacity constraints, etc. I tried it on burn night (Altspace VR) and the man was floating in mid-air as it was burning, so glitches too.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporary_Autonomous_Zone