I've been twice and I really enjoyed myself.

Tech, finance, and political people definitely don't make up close to the majority. You'd get sort of laughed at if you tried networking earnestly about like tech stocks or LLMs. Generally I don't prefer socializing with techie types from SF, the folks I met at Burning Man were nothing of the sort.

It's mostly just adults who really like dressing up, building stuff, and staying up really late dancing and partying.

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swaraj a day ago | parent | next [-]

This is exactly the right answer for people asking about BM on hacker news. 100% agreed

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jimmydddd a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

How long did it take you to leave (get out) at the end? I've heard they often have massive backups in the exit line.

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radley a day ago | parent [-]

It depends what time you try to exodus. If you wait until the end, it's 50k+ people trying to leave a campground at the same time.

	▲	dmarcos a day ago \| parent [-]
		You can also stay an extra day. Help clean up and leave with zero traffic. I’ve done it myself.

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varispeed a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Can you just smoke weed, enjoy the music and not talk to anybody? Is that sort of experience possible?

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wnmurphy 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Every sort of experience is possible.

You could spend the entire week high as a kite, biking around and just looking at everything without talking to anyone, though the vast majority of the community are people you probably would enjoy interacting with. I find most burners thoughtful, compassionate, playful, caring, etc.

What I suspect would happen is you'd start out this way ^, but then you'd gradually discover that the community is great and interactions with people are pretty fun actually. Part of the experience is the opportunity to get outside of your normal baseline personality if you want. You can be anyone for a week. Most people don't even want to talk about their lives off the playa.

Culture changes on the weekend, when you get a lot of "partiers" just for the man and temple burn. There are a bit more irresponsible and inconsiderate people then, but not enough to ruin the overall community vibe.

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radley a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You can, but a big part of the marvel is in walking around (er, biking) and seeing the spectacle. If it's your first year, that's your job: be the audience.

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shawn_w a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Smoking weed is iffy; lots of federal cops out here looking for it, since pot is still illegal on federal lands.

Just chilling and doing your own thing is certainly doable.

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hleszek a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure, but you can do that at home too.

	▲	varispeed a day ago \| parent [-]
		Earth is home.