Peculiar Things About Burning Man No One Tells You

I just attended my first Burning Man experience and let me tell you, IT WAS AMAZING. And hard. And challenging. And beautiful. And the best thing I’ve ever done. I am that annoying person who gets back from their first time and can’t stop talking about how amazing it is. I’ll get to that in another post. But for now I want to entertain you with some funny things about Burning Man that I only found out by going.

• People say “f*** your burn” to each other, but it’s kind of in a sarcastic, nice way. I’m still not really sure why or what it totally means, but I did start saying it too and somehow you just know when it feels right to say.
• You are not supposed to wear loose glitter, feathers, or anything that could end up on the ground because the event is “leave no trace” so the goal is to leave ZERO garbage, paper, anything behind. There are NO GARBAGES. You take out what you bring in and more.
• If you do drop something or see something on the ground, it’s called MOOP (matter out of place) and you should pick it up and put it in your bag to take home.
• People call Burning Man “Home” and everywhere else the “Default World.” I used to think it was stupid. Now I get it.
• It can take upwards of 10 hours waiting in traffic in your car to get in or out of the festival. It’s basically one road in or out so you better hope you have good karmic timing on this one. THOUGH, it’s kind of a party in the line and can be enjoyable if you make it such. It’s part of the experience so there’s not point in dreading it.
• You can’t pee on the ground. That’s part of “leave no trace.”
• There’s no one really “in charge” of anything or that you can go to to ask things about except your fellow festival goers. There are Rangers, but they don’t usually know too much.
• There are undercover cops though arresting people, mostly for drugs.
• Sunrises are the most special and popular time to be out and about here especially at a dj set like one at Mayan Warrior or Robot Heart.
• People have their own burner names like “Glitter” and “Lobster C**k.”

Those are most of the weirder things, but there are still so many more things to know about Burning Man so I might post more articles about it, what it’s like, how to prepare, what to expect, the after effects, why you should go, all the things!