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Why is Disneyland always used when someone wants to diss BM?
What negative traits do Burning Man and Disneyland have in common?
or
What Disneyland traits are people are afraid of the Burning Man festival acquiring?
At present Disneyland is/has:
-A large attendance
-A vacation away from "jobs"
-Mostly spectators (not very many participants)
-Very commercial (to the extreme)
-Represents a much larger company that sells products and services
-Trademarked and Logoed (and licenses these for money)
-Has shareholders (via The Walt Disney Company symbol:DIS)
-Is a business
-A fragmented community (very weak social bonds and ties between people who vacation at Disneyland other than the families that arrive together)
-Has a founder (a leader)
-The "art" is very repetitive
-There are lots of "rides" (or interactive art installations)
-It is expensive to "attend"
-It would appear that Disneyland discourages independent thought
-Customers are mostly kids
So... how many of those are intrinsically negative?
Which ones are negative in context?
Which ones are true for BM and Disneyland?
Which ones are becoming true (or are threatening to become true) for BM?
I'm not an expert on Disneyland, but from what I can tell there is nothing wrong with Burning Man taking on some of the more positive traits of Disneyland. The idea of a business creating a large playground for "mostly kids" is not intrinsically wrong. It's just the implementation that I dislike. Moreover, there is nothing wrong with taking something we hate and making it amazing... in fact that's one of the things I LOVE about BM. If there are few (or zero) negative traits in common, I think calling Burning Man an "Alterna-Disney" is unfair. It's just a standard trick for creating backlash or a counter-meme.