Burner culture is a funny thing. Anarchistic rebel do-gooders embracing the unknown universe with idealistic zeal. Whatever, I see it as an opportunity to be present in the moment while participating in alternative forms of social organisation. Plus, they know how to have a good time.
Decommodification is some hippy bullshit that’s gonna make me uncomfortable, I thought as I scrolled through the burner profile registration for Afrikaburn. Radical participation, Ha! I’ll radically participate in getting fucked up, no way will I succumb to your unicorn-fart-powered utopic visions of civic responsibility. What is this, the 60s? Fair enough, I’ll bring my own shit and take it with me, that’s not too much to ask, damn, I’ll even pay for the privilege just to show just how open-minded I can be.
In short, it wasn’t without some misgivings that I signed up for my first Burn and went to see what it was all about. I’d heard good things and, despite the onboarding process challenging my notions of what it means to ‘have a good time’, I was willing to broaden my horizons and see it for myself.
So, off we trotted to Capetown and grabbed some wheels to roll into Tanka Town in some recess of the Karoo. As an aside, holy shit! that place has got some serious issues with wealth distribution. First world shiny malls, cars, and public infrastructure carefully cordoned by electric fences, buttressed by rolling glades of human poverty and the glowering hungry eyes of the excluded urban poor. This impression was to frame my first burn experience indelibly as only the upfront view of destitute poverty can for a privileged product of socialist-leaning Australia like myself. I digress, let me get back to the hippies in the dust. There we were rolling into this place to have an incredible 7 days, which felt like forever and no time at the same time. Glittering lights, flames, smiles so many smiles. Deep techno beats rolling through the night and day, happiness and treats from strangers all along the way. Fucking epic. Wish I’d been a hippy much sooner.
So, wait, I was supposed to be talking about Cacophony. Well, here’s the thing, this bunch of cunts is much more down to earth than those South African fucks with their white privilege and exorbitant consumption, partying in the dust while their world, or at least the poor bits of it, burns. Expatria in Shanghai in 2018 is a trip, to be sure, but there’s a modesty about it all, an obsequious regard to the local customs and culture which is at once so familiar and modern and at the same time strange and so, well, Chinese. You’ve gotta watch your step in China and not piss off the locals, there’s more of them than you and they’re just as afraid of the government as you are. Bless them. No stark poverty here, though there are whispered rumours of it existing out past the end of the metro; it’s all glittering metropolis, convenience stores, spotless vehicles, clean streets and dancing grandmas. QR codes, so many QR codes, turning phones into magic wands of consumer delight and sterile connectivity.
Needless to say, meeting up with the culture jamming characters in the Dragonburn community was a welcome relief after spending the first few months in Shanghai scratching my head at what it was all about, peering at the expanse of monolithic multi-storey apartments and high rises. In fact, after meeting this welcoming fringe of radical Burnerism my reflections on their South African counterparts softened a bit. After all, if a bunch of burners can create the TAZ under the benevolent all seeing gaze of Chinese capitalistic, totalitarian communism, who am I to slight the efforts of the privileged predominantly white classes of Capetown? Well, a judgmental prick to be sure. Wealth distribution in Shanghai was just so much more efficient, a bazillion bees buzzing around for digital scraps, jobs for everyone, plastic replacing iron bowls of rice and BMWs galore.
So, after joining the WeChat group and heading to one of their fundraising gigs (not all burners are silicon valley rich, reader), we responded to an invite (you’re already a member – they said!, cheeky fuckers) to join the Cacophonists on a frolic through sub-zero temperatures to save the polar bears or some shit. It sounded weird so we went along, I was pretty hungover from the previous evening, a level 4 if I remember correctly, and I had hopes that there would be opportunities for more drinking. Polar bears drink something, surely? Well, we rocked up at this sheila’s place and they’re all painting themselves in bloody white paint in their undies! Wtf, in for a penny and all that. Thankfully this bloke, called himself the immortal Godhammer, had a big bottle of vodka to give us the courage to brave the -3 degrees outside and make our polar bear pub crawl for climate change. A bloke from another online community I had been active in joined, Zac, rest his soul, as he passed away not 6 months later from a heart attack at the age of 28 – a victim, one supposes, of the unhealthy choices that can be made when the 'all you can drink and eat' brunch at Zapatas becomes breakfast every week. Anyway, the bar was packed with revelers and here we were in our tidy whities painted white with black noses (polar bears – geddit?) stealing ourselves for the next run to the Family Mart down the road. We were asked to leave, eventually, as it was unbecoming to bear such skin in public apparently. We managed to paint a couple more people white in solidarity with our arctic brethren, though, and off we went down the road – it was bloody freezing.
The night progressed through a pumping nightclub where I managed to get into the spirit of things and lead a round of chanting doofers to the cries of ‘climate change! climate change!’ in time to the bass. Now I’m an exhibitionist environmentalist, Slieve help me. There was Karaoke at My Place and a couple of the crew wrestled Jiu-Jitsu. Many beers were had for the cause.
What did it all mean? Who were these cacophonistic creatures of the night? Why did they care so much about the environment? Or was it all just an excuse to get shitfaced? Dunno, I’m still thinking about that as I tap this out. The introduction to the Zone Trip and culture jamming as well as events I’ve participated in since have been some of the most thought-provoking social interactions I’ve had on the planet. They were a nice, weird, buffer for the culture shock onslaught that is life in supervised Shanghai. A lovely group of humans to be sure.