Which Famous A**holes are Going to Burning Man This Year?

Not going to Burning Man 2014? Congratulations! You will avoid the risk of personally encountering these a**holes. Many prominent a**holes from news, tech and entertainment have already articulated via social media or public commentary that they are inclined to attend the Burning Man festival in 2014. These famous people going to Burning Man will task out all of their costume, lodging plans and food prep to their personal assistants, pay tens of thousands to show up as plug-and-play attendees, and then force their personal assistants to sit home and take a week’s unpaid leave while the famous asshole in question parties it up at Burning Man. Who are these assholes? Let’s review the 2014 roster as we currently know it.

Technically, there is no way to know for sure which of these famous assholes will attend Burning Man 2014 a full month out from the event’s opening. Life happens. People can articulate a desire to attend Burning Man, but then life events, surprise weddings or other commitments can alter anyone’s calendar. But from social media commentary, public remarks and general histories of “going every year no matter what”, we can somewhat-accurately game out which of these assholes you would run the serious risk of running into at Burning Man 2014.

P. Diddy (2014 Status: Probably Going) – Diddy is such an asshole that he went to Burning Man last year and then came home and did a Fiat commercial based on Burning Man. (He said of the event “I’ll never be the same” on his Instagram and has no public appearances scheduled during Burning Man 2014). I actually attended the very Robot Heart sunrise event at which Diddy was present. The music sucked so much that even old school 90s music produced by Diddy would have been better.

I would rather hear Diddy at a party where Diddy was not there rather than not hear Diddy at a party where Diddy was there. But I’m probably the only person on earth who feels that way.

Grover Norquist (2014 Status: Definitely Going) – Americans for Tax Reform president and asshole Republican lobbyist Grover Norquist said on Twitter Monday that he was attending Burning Man 2014. “Its official. Samah and I are off to “Burning Man” this year. Scratch one from the Bucket List”, Norquist tweeted. (Scare quotes around the event name? Asshole.) This will surely lead to a rash of conservative asshole analysis that interest in Burning Man correlates with a resurgence of interest in states’ rights, decreased regulation and resentment against the federal BLM.

‘Naked drug unicorn fuck-rave signals a return to core Republican values’. I bet you anything some conservative asshole actually writes that article within the next month.

Mark Zuckerberg (2014 Status: Probably Going) – Asshole Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made a cameo last year at Burning Man as well as the year before. It’s a fair bet that one of his wealthy asshole employees will badger him into briefly helicoptering in to Burning Man again in 2014. Also of note, the Ivy League assholes who sued claiming they invented Facebook were at Burning Man last year.

Google CEOs (2014 Status: Definitely Going) – These assholes are fresh off paying almost zero taxes on $22 billion in revenue. Oh, I’m sure they and Grover Norquist will have a good laugh over at that one out at Dustfish.

Current Google CEO Larry Page religiously attends Burning Man, as does co-founder Sergey Brin and former CEO Eric Schmidt. Expect to see all three assholes at Burning Man 2014.

Elon Musk (2014 Status: Maybe Going) – Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk does not strike me as an asshole. But considering that he rents out 8 full-service RVs for his best friends and top salespeople at Burning Man, it’s reasonable to assume that the asshole-to-muggle ratio in that scenario is just off the charts.

The Versace Inheritees (2014 Status: Maybe Going) – Gazillionaire inheritee Francesca Versace is a burner, according to Du Jour, as are other born-on-third-base assholes Alexandra von Furstenberg and David de Rothschild.

Anne Hathaway (2014 Status: Probably Going) – Or as I call her, “Bitchy McDistant”. Ms. Hathaway flies into Burning Man on a private jet most years, and was spotted doing so again just this past year.

Is it unfair of me to call Anne Hathaway an asshole? I just don’t like her, based on some vague, personal subjective reasoning that I am not deep enough to explore therapeutically. Which brings us to our next asshole going to Burning Man…

Me (2014 Status: Definitely Going) – I’m that asshole who calls other people assholes for going to Burning Man. I’m not even a famous asshole. These famous assholes, admittedly, are some of the most creative and motivated people alive. They don’t have time to build their own cupcake muffin cars because they’re busy and they generally have more important things to do. But I will squat alongside them on federally managed lands for a week and have “Star Wars”-themed parties together, and in a way that’s kind of a beautiful thing.

But it will probably be a more beautiful thing for you if you can avoid me and these assholes.

(Image and Plagiarism Credits: The phrase ‘Definitely Going’ to Burning Man is taken from a 1998 Onion article that still cracks me up today. P. Diddy image courtesy MsBrittanyJade on Instagram. Sergey Brin image courtesy Steve Jurvetson via Flickr. Grover Norquist and Mark Zuckerberg images courtesy Wikipedia. Cat image from viral 2010 Burning Man video via Xtra Normal. Anne Hathaway image via “Princess Diaries 2” poster. Me being an asshole in a clown nose image via WhyTheNose.com.)