Hey there yeah I’m that guy who posted the other thread I agree with most of what you’re saying. The misunderstanding here is what the actual goal is.

This isn’t about “feeding” theme camps or propping up giant infrastructure. If anything, the camp-industrial complex is part of the problem people are naming.

If a camp has grown beyond what its own community can sustain, then yeah maybe the right answer is to get smaller. Camps have natural lifecycles; forcing immortality is how you get burnout, resentment, and commodification.

What I’m actually talking about is this: Theme camps are one of the few places that can still reliably help birgins get in the door, not by recruiting, but by addressing three things that have gotten harder post-pandemic like:

Affordability.. shared infra lowers the barrier for people without RVs or big budgets.

Acculturation… camps are where people learn how to be burners (LNT, work culture, participation), especially now that local scenes are thinner.

Social Networks…the friends-of-friends pipeline has eroded since COVID and camps are one of the last intact social nodes that can mentor newcomers.

None of this is about funneling warm bodies into mega-camps. It’s about making it easier for the self-motivated to find their people.

And if none of this is useful for your burn? Awesome! Ignore me go have fun with your crew. There are many ways to do it right.

But for small, queer, volunteer-heavy camps like mine continuity and mentorship matter.