The Burning Man festival has been soaring in popularity. In 2011, sixty thousand people converged for a week in the Black Rock Desert to build a temporary city, live in a gift economy, and experiment in radical self-expression. Inspired by Isak Dinesen’s short story “Carnival,” DECOMPRESSION is a comic look at the dark side of this cultural phenomenon, where the privilege of a generation is also its undoing.
From Carnival, a short story by Isak Dinesen, written in the 1920s:
"In a hundred years, I have been thinking, some other people will dress up as a supper party of our period, of a hundred years ago to them. Let us be that tonight, until tomorrow noon, a supper party of 2025, masquerading as people of a hundred years ago . . . For it is a little silly to be a caricature of something of which you know very little, and which means very little to you, but to be your own caricature -- that is the true carnival!"
Burning Man is an annual art event and experimental community in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Each year in August sixty thousand people gather to create Black Rock City; a temporary metropolis dedicated to self-expression, self-reliance, immediacy, communal effort, and living in a gift economy. They depart one week later, having left no trace whatsoever. Here is an interesting explanation of the festival.
A Decompression Party is an official event held in many cities that acts as a local reunion for Burning Man participants to help them return to the real world outside of Burning Man.
The Juggalos are fans of the hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse. ICP, in their song “What is a Juggalo?” said:
"What is a juggalo? / He drinks like a fish / And then he starts huggin people / Like a drunk bitch / Next thing, he’s pickin fights / With his best friends / Then he starts with the huggin again"/ While the Juggalos started out as the fandom for Insane Clown Posse and Psychopathic Records, they are now listed in the FBI’s National Gang Threat Assessment as a “loosely-organized hybrid gang.” The FBI claims that portions of the subculture commit criminal and gang activity.
"In a hundred years, I have been thinking, some other people will dress up as a supper party of our period, of a hundred years ago to them. Let us be that tonight, until tomorrow noon, a supper party of 2025, masquerading as people of a hundred years ago . . . For it is a little silly to be a caricature of something of which you know very little, and which means very little to you, but to be your own caricature -- that is the true carnival!"
Burning Man is an annual art event and experimental community in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. Each year in August sixty thousand people gather to create Black Rock City; a temporary metropolis dedicated to self-expression, self-reliance, immediacy, communal effort, and living in a gift economy. They depart one week later, having left no trace whatsoever. Here is an interesting explanation of the festival.
A Decompression Party is an official event held in many cities that acts as a local reunion for Burning Man participants to help them return to the real world outside of Burning Man.
The Juggalos are fans of the hip-hop group Insane Clown Posse. ICP, in their song “What is a Juggalo?” said:
"What is a juggalo? / He drinks like a fish / And then he starts huggin people / Like a drunk bitch / Next thing, he’s pickin fights / With his best friends / Then he starts with the huggin again"/ While the Juggalos started out as the fandom for Insane Clown Posse and Psychopathic Records, they are now listed in the FBI’s National Gang Threat Assessment as a “loosely-organized hybrid gang.” The FBI claims that portions of the subculture commit criminal and gang activity.