Heavy rains poured in the desert of Black Rock City, Nevada, where the festival Burning Man is held annually. The overabundance of mud meant that attendees couldn't drive out and even hiking the 6 miles to the main road proved to be difficult.
Over the decades, the week-long community has been largely attended by artists and hippies, but in the past several years, long-time attendees argue it has become too commercialized with Silicon Valley tech-bros, a new crop of millionaire and billionaire technology moguls, The New York Times reported in a 2014 report. In 2018, such attendees were trashed as "sparkle ponies."
This year seemed to reach peak mainstream when the event described by the Times as "50,000 stoned, half-naked hippies doing sun salutations while techno music thumps through the air" welcomed a Fox network correspondent reporting live for the far-right network from the event.
Clad in a fur vest and a fur captain's hat, Claudia Cowan told the network, "We are fine."