Next time you spy drug-blasted people bicycling through Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, wearing tutus and little else, don’t be envious. They’re invariably at Burning Man, the annual pop-up festival which runs from Aug. 28 through Sept. 5 — and are probably miserable with themselves.
Sure, it looks fun to spend a few days enjoying a gift economy, listening to techno, cooling off in refrigeration trucks and gawking at surreal sculptures or taking in offbeat performance art. But, according to Daniel Yudkin, a social psychology Ph.D. candidate at New York University, as reported by Quartz, the eight days of decadent hedonism provide once-a-year opportunities for attendees to experience bona fide connections with others. All the other non-Burning days of their lives? Not so much. – READ MORE
