Skip to content

Tag: Burning Man

4Chan’s War On Alternative & LGBTQIA Culture

Posted in Austin, Burning Man, Journalism, and MintPress News

After Donald Trump’s election, 4chan declared war on queer people and the American counterculture.

4chan is a lawless, unmoderated and completely anonymous online forum that frequently serves as a hub of internet troll culture. 4chan helped to spawn the Anonymous movement when some of 4chan’s users launched an organized trolling campaign against the Church of Scientology in 2008. That movement later became known for its hacktivism against the wealthy and powerful during the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in fall of 2011.

In recent years, however, the board, especially a subsection called /pol/ have come to be dominated by a hyper-conservative, white nationalist movement. The users believe, with an almost religious fervor, that their “meme magic” helped to elect Trump. More sober analysts are worried that 4chan and Reddit are helping to radicalize a generation by turning disaffected young white men into dangerous neo-Nazis.

Since November 8, 4chan has been linked to two seemingly disparate, but ultimately interconnected stories.

FICTION: “Lifting The Veil” (Apocalyptic Erotica)

Posted in Burning Man, Fiction, Polyamory, and Sex & Relationships

The smoke that flooded his mouth and spilled down his throat tasted the way a high school chemistry lab smells. Next to him, he felt Glory’s warmth and the nearness of her hand outstretched to catch the long glass pipe when it dropped out of his hand. Misha was suddenly afraid: You’re one of the first dozen people to take XDMT, what if …?

He opened his eyes. The bedroom wiggled around him as if badly rendered, the edges of every object shivering with colors that did not belong. He glanced at her. Waves of blue energy rippled from her skin as if trying to escape. She smiled and he lit the torch again, inhaled, and closed his eyes.

Misha fell through a dozen layers of color. He didn’t think his heart was beating anymore. He was sure he wasn’t breathing. But he fell calmly, stunned by the rippling tessellation of oranges and reds. He fell through the last layer and into a dim tunnel. Underground? He had no sense of his body at all, just motion, traveling through passageways that were more the suggestion of a place–slick metal, dank stone, something like a subway tunnel–than the actual experience of it.

He realized he could hear chattering, like hundreds of high-pitched voices speaking too quickly to understand. Misha traveled. He came to rest in a large open chamber. Other entities were around him, speaking in their alien squeals. He felt as if they all turned as one being to look upon him and then the wall opened up and he was sucked into space.

Misha floated. How long? He wondered. Minutes? Hours? How long since I left? That wasn’t exactly right, he knew. He hadn’t left at all, somehow. Then: I’m not alone.

Bacon: A Burning Flipside Story

Posted in Burning Man

Shredded Hate Bacon is a heavy metal band consisting of a number of Flipside’s finest. Kristen was the head “Baconette” (the SHB go-go dancers). Another Baconette and I were helping her unwind and Pyropolize after her arrival Friday evening when a crazy plan was hatched. At first, Kristen invited me to be a male baconette, an amusing concept to be sure but then we arrived at a far more brilliant notion. I could be the “bacon bitch” and cook actual bacon for the Shredded Hate Bacon show.

Most of you know I am an ovo-lacto vegetarian. Not only do I not normally eat bacon, but I usually go out of my way to avoid even touching meat. It’s kind of like dealing with cat litter — it’s OK if I gotta, but I hurry into the bathroom to wash my hands up afterwards. The idea of volunteering to cook bacon for a few hours was definitely across my boundaries. So that’s just what I did.

I didn’t just cook it though — I danced around with it. My face was bathed in the bacony smell rising off the pan for two hours. I waved the grease covered spatula in the air like a madman. I grabbed fistfuls in my bare hands. I ran through the crowd yelling ‘Bacon!’ and offering it up like the finest ambrosia. Near the end of the set while I cavorted between the Baconettes in front of the stage, bacon bowl atop my head, I lost my balance and dumped the greasy bowl on the ground and splashed it on myself.

A Look Back At Burning Flipside 2011 (burningflipside.com)

Posted in Burning Man

As the Web Content Lead for this year’s Burning Flipside, I essentially created an internal media team to document in the event. As a result, I was privileged to oversee an article about the event itself. It would be impossible to encapsulate the diverse experiences of thousands of participants into a single article of less than 1,000 words. Even so, I’m proud of what I created with help from my team, a couple great photographers and the input of several Burners.

A Burner Lexicon: Theme Camp

Posted in A Burner Lexicon, and Burning Man

Theme Camp, –noun, Lots of people camp together at Burning Man, but only some of them form theme camps. A theme camp is an organized group which provides food, drink, exciting events, or other services to the temporary community that forms around an event. The idea dates back to the early 1990’s, with the formation of theme camps such as Christmas Camp. The oldest theme camp in continuous operation is probably Deathguild / Thunderdome, which has existed in Black Rock City since 1998.