Rumours of an Ebola outbreak, it unsurprisingly turns out, were greatly exaggerated. Speculation that festival-goers might turn on each other in Lord of the Flies fashion did not come to pass. There was no cannibalism. No human sacrifices took place. Anarchy was not loosed on the world. Instead, the rain stopped, the roads dried up, and, on Monday, an exodus from the northern Nevada desert began. The tens of thousands of festival-goers who had been stuck at the Burning Man festival because of flooding got in their vehicles and left. By now, most of the revellers are safe at home – no doubt telling everyone they know how life-affirming and radically self-sufficient their Burning Man experience was.
While this year’s festival may be over, let us not forget all the jokes that were made along the way. For a brief but beautiful moment, large swathes of the internet came together to delight in others’ misfortune. People from the left and the right united in hilarity over the fact that 70,000 tech types were stranded in a desert, covered in mud, and having to deal with a less-than-enjoyable toilet situation.
