THE MAN WILL BURN S1E4 MUDBURN 🤩

This is it. Episode four is apparently the final episode of THE MAN WILL BURN, though it feels like there should be more to it. When I first started reviewing this docuseries a couple weeks ago, I was on the fence about whether it should even exist. I’ll say it now: MUDBURN was absolutely my favorite episode of the series, the most rounded and well-done episode by far. And my final answer is no. This show should not exist.

Let’s start with what worked, because a lot did. This episode is all about MUDBURN, the nickname for 2023 Burning Man. (The actual theme name was Animalia.) I didn’t go that year, but I had a lot of friends who did. There was a ton of very heavy rain, and people were basically stuck in their camps, trapped inside whatever they were staying in. Tents, Shiftpods, and yurts flooded alike. Anything sitting directly on the Black Rock City desert, aka the playa, went under in the rain. And unlike other mud and dirt, when that surface gets wet and then dries, it hardens into heavy bricks. Driving was out. Biking, regular or e-bike, was out. Even walking in your boots was a nonstarter, or you’d end up hauling those heavy bricks around on your feet. People were duct-taping plastic bags over their shoes so the mud wouldn’t collect, or so they could just peel the bags off when it did. The ones without plastic bags were wearing socks on the outside. It was a Burning Man where you’d better have liked your campmates, because there was a lot of staying put.

Several things worked well together to create the series’ best episode. It’s beautifully shot, like every episode before it. But during a rainy event in an environment that makes movement nearly impossible, the lens still captured the magic.  The interviews are excellent, not just with people inside the organization but with attendees on what they were up to during and after the rain. And because I have so many friends who went that year, I know firsthand that for a lot of them, MUDBURN was actually their favorite burn. They loved being stuck in camp, getting to know their campmates, sharing food. I’m sure plenty of people had an absolutely miserable time, but everyone I know had a blast. I do know that once the rain let up toward the end of the week, there were some huge parties thrown in Black Rock City, and I do wish the episode had featured more of that. 

Now here’s my final decision on why this show shouldn’t exist. The second of the Ten Principles of Burning Man is Decommodification. It reads: “In order to preserve the spirit of gifting, our community seeks to create social environments that are unmediated by commercial sponsorships, transactions, or advertising. We stand ready to protect our culture from such exploitation. We resist the substitution of consumption for participatory experience.” This series is a commodification of Burning Man, full stop. HBO doesn’t work for free, they’re always chasing subscribers, and I saw plenty of advertisements for this show: billboards, promos, internet ads, print ads. Somebody got paid to be in this. Burning Man itself almost certainly got paid to hand over that archival footage. It felt like exploitation, dressed up as a documentary.

I’ve felt similarly bothered these past few years watching Burning Man running advertisements across social media pushing people to buy tickets. That’s just another way to commodify the event. So what if it doesn’t sell out? We should be finding ways to make it cheaper for people, not marketing harder. And this documentary itself proves the point: the year there was no formal organization (2021) and the year everyone sat put in their camps because of the mud (2023) are, for a lot of burners, among the most beloved years. I don’t think we need the massive level of, I won’t call it organization exactly, but every single bell and whistle that comes with the fully built-out machine that Black Rock City has become. I think people get along better with less law enforcement out there, which I know has been a sticking point for years. I love everything about the art that comes to Burning Man. From massively scaled projects that are hundreds of feet long to tiny little installations on every corner. I think the BORG should give people the space out there to create but with more freedom, and the magic will happen, even without camp placement reservations and a printed schedule. I’ve seen it firsthand: people running theme camps get pressured into providing basically 24/7 entertainment, and that’s not what gifting is supposed to be. You should be giving what you can, not what you’re required to.

So in the end, I’m glad I watched this. It was beautiful to look at. I hope there’s not another season, and I hope Burning Man can find its way back from a version of itself that’s become overrun with influencers, TikTokers, and celebrities. I don’t actually mind celebrities or influencers being there, if they’re there to genuinely experience it and participate, and not just to take from a community that’s busy participating around them.

All four episodes of THE MAN WILL BURN are streaming now on HBO and HBO Max.