Burning Man census reveals demographic surprises for everyone but Burning Man regulars

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Ashamed that they didnā€™t go?

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One of the more interesting revelations: According to the 2011 survey results, nearly 16 percent of participants have lied or somewhat lied about attending the annual festival because they were ashamed.

In related news, almost 16% identified themselves as Republican or Libertarian.

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Looking at the chart, itā€™s almost 90% of the participants that have at least done some college. Only 11.2% of the participants put their highest level of education at high school diploma, ā€œotherā€, or ā€œnone of the aboveā€.

Well thatā€™s a point - is there a BoingBoing Camp?

That was my first thought :smiley:

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I think Boingers are too busy during the year to actually create a camp at Burning Man, but certainly the Boing Boing folks are not totally alien to the event.

Q:
Burning Man?! Ainā€™t that just a bunch of stoned, naked hippies hanginā€™ out in the middle of the desert for a week 'cause they do stuff thatā€™d get 'em throwed in prison if they did it anywhere else?

A:
Umā€¦ yeah. But I didnā€™t actually go, I just heard that it was happening at the same time I took my Las Vegas vacation.

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Burning Man is largely a place where engineers and librarians, among others, go to do things that they donā€™t get to do at home or in their day jobs. These things range from inventions to clothing to interpersonal relations.

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IMO half the folks hanging shit on Burning Man are secretly envious of the freedom, however fleeting.

Iā€™m thinking perhaps Matt & Trey are in that 16% ashamed/libertarian category, and had Cartman hang shit on the Burning Man hippies, and then had Cartman have Cthulu commit Lovecraftian genocide on their arses, in order to maybe try and cut down the numbers a bit and make it smaller and better for those who do goā€¦ any hippie-fest you go to, itā€™s the same old story: ā€˜hey, you should have seen it a few years ago before just anyone and their six mates turned upā€™ā€¦ the last one I attended was on the cusp of going stale; it was the first year there was any assaultā€¦

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That and you get the Burning Man Hipsters, who are always the first to point out that they attended back when it was cool before everybody knew about it.

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Well, Iā€™m even hipper than they are, I stopped going before the event even existed!

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Why am I unsurprised that they didnā€™t bother to collect data on cultural/ethnic identity?

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I figured this out back in my college days. The Golden Age of everything was just before I arrived. Itā€™s just all downhill from there.

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I will /never/ go to burning man. Largely because heatstroke just isnā€™t my thing. There are lots of similar events in other settings. When I do decide to go to one of these things, itā€™s going to be in a forest.

I donā€™t understand why everybody wants to have their outdoor festivals at the height of fucking summer. No matter where you go, everyone seems to think June/July/August is prime festival weather. Obviously itā€™s the most ridiculous if youā€™re holding your festival in a shadeless desert (for people who love heavy, complicated costumes! WTF!), but even in more temperate parts of the US, 90F is not optimal for running around outside. Why donā€™t we do this shit in late spring/early fall?

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Because itā€™s very, very white. And whenever that happens, the collected white folks DO NOT like having that pointed out. :-/

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They do collect that data, and have for several years.

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The Peninsula Press article is from 2012, and is about the 2011 Burning Man census. Is this info really that relevant?

They did collect this data, itā€™s in the underlying report. They chose not to feature it. 83% white and 0.9% black.