{"id":8695,"date":"2015-09-17T12:03:30","date_gmt":"2015-09-17T16:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=8695"},"modified":"2023-09-04T14:56:45","modified_gmt":"2023-09-04T18:56:45","slug":"burning-man-demographics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/17\/burning-man-demographics\/","title":{"rendered":"Burning Man Demographics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Following every Burning Man, the organization conducts a census. Here are some highlights from <a href=\"http:\/\/z9hbb3mwou383x1930ve0ugl.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Census-2014-Afterburn.pdf\">the 2014 numbers<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the male\/female ratio is 58\/41 (plus 0.9% &#8220;fluid&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li>69 percent of Burners identify as &#8220;heterosexual&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>47 percent of Burners are from California and roughly 13 percent come from outside of the US\/Canada<\/li>\n<li>Democrats outnumber Republicans in a 43:6 ratio with &#8220;76% of unaffiliated BRC citizens [saying] they last voted Democratic&#8221;.<\/li>\n<li>median income is about $55,000 per year<\/li>\n<li>median age is 34<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DSC03040.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-8696\" src=\"http:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/DSC03040-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"DSC03040\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The media has been excited lately about the racial composition of attendees at Burning Man.\u00a0Larry Harvey, the founder of Burning Man, was asked a\u00a0question about the overall whiteness of Burners at a press conference\u00a0during the event. He responded \u201cWe are not a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Utopia\">Utopian <\/a>society. I will believe in Utopia when I meet my first perfect person. Unlike our liberal critics, half of my family is black. We\u2019re not going to set racial quotas or judge people by wealth. I\u2019m unwilling to impose change from outside. We have to generate change from the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[My own explanation? A plurality\u00a0of Burners come from Silicon Valley or the East Bay, plus some techies who live in San Francisco proper. <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.motherjones.com\/mojo\/2015\/07\/black-workers-google-facebook-twitter-silicon-valley-diversity\">Mother Jones<\/a><\/em> says that the Silicon Valley workforce is approximately 1.8 percent black. It should not be a surprise that Burning Man reflects the mixture of people you\u2019d find in Silicon Valley. If Silicon Valley employers ever decide to offer wages high enough to recruit and retain qualified black employees then presumably Burning Man will become less white\/Asian.]<\/p>\n<p>Related:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=CBVBHRD5lNU\">&#8220;Your Playa Name is &#8216;Moon Pony'&#8221;<\/a>\u00a0(&#8220;until next week, when you return to your desk job&#8221;)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/photos\/TspSgUbomzH6FuVT8\">my photos from Burning Man 2015<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/photos\/o3HTZ5NKb6EPAZkW8\">my photos from 2014<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following every Burning Man, the organization conducts a census. Here are some highlights from the 2014 numbers: the male\/female ratio is 58\/41 (plus 0.9% &#8220;fluid&#8221;) 69 percent of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Burning Man Demographics - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/17\/burning-man-demographics\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Burning Man Demographics - Philip Greenspun\u2019s Weblog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Following every Burning Man, the organization conducts a census. 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