Of all the eye-popping artwork dotting Black Rock City — the ad hoc Nevada desert home of the legendary Burning Man festival — as well as this year’s massive sandstorms, which caused a temporary gate closure, and the triumphant return of the festival’s Orgy Dome, there’s one story that has towered above all others coming out of the wild desert festival this year: reality TV star Bethenny Frankel’s unexpected and very expensive foray into Burnerland.
The entrepreneur, philanthropist and former “golden era” castmember of The Real Housewives of New York — and since then, the deeply entertaining center of multiple reality shows from producers who recognize this woman is always the main character — has been posting her experience on the famed playa to her TikTok page. Possibly defying the festival’s rules around posting to sponsored personal pages, Frankel is documenting her brave walk among tens of thousands of Burners — a subculture that has apparently declined in numbers, as inflation crept in and the scene morphed into a “sausage fest of aging Millennials” and solipsistic influencers.
Frankel’s arrival at Burning Man comes, depending on your perspective, a few years after the event was unofficially “over,” culturally speaking, or amid a transition into a psychedelic playground for the ultra-wealthy — revelers who parachute in from the much-bemoaned worlds of tech or entertainment, or from new money, or from the dreaded influencer class. In Frankel’s case, it’s close to all of the above.
