This week, we focus on one of our longtime customers at Everyone Loves Buttons. He is a distinguished author and photographer, who took up a new cause in the early 2000’s… to help create a safer environment for the thousands of people who attend Burning Man.
Burning Man is an event that occurs once a year in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. The cultural phenomenon was started in San Francisco in 1986 as a means to celebrate community, art and self-expression before being moved to Nevada in 1990. Since then, it has expanded into a city of its own known as Black Rock City for the crazed fans that have come to be known as “burners.”
Russell Atkinson, aka Dr. Placebo by fellow “burners,” has attended the event since 1999. A few years later, Atkinson took it upon himself to help found the Bureau of Erotic Discourse, a team of volunteers that provides information and education about the importance of sexual consent at Burning Man in hopes to help create an overall safer environment for everyone at the event.
The B.E.D. has since extended its outreach beyond the annual event in Black Rock City. The group has used workshops, forums, posters, public service announcements and of course, buttons to help spread their message.
We are proud to help support such an important cause by providing Russell and his team with buttons to continue spreading the word about the importance of consent at Burning Man and elsewhere across the country.
The annual event starts on August 28, 2016 and runs through September 5, 2016. For all the “burners” who will be in attendance; don’t forget to grab a button, wear it proud and support the B.E.D.’s cause to stop sexual misconduct.