The Sparkle Pony recession

Soaring numbers of "models" and influencers expected to be homeless at this year's Burn

“I’ve gotten fewer offers this year,” says Carli, a 27-year-old Instagram model, fitness influencer, and TikTok mental health advocate, who is slightly less attractive over Zoom than she is on any of the channels listed on her Linktree, as Zoom’s FaceApp integration is still in R&D. “Like yeah, it’s free, but I may have to fly commercial, and I’m literally sharing a single RV with two girls who I’ve only seen on TikTok–and they don’t even have as many followers as me.” Lingering supply chain issues, tech devaluations, and the end of crypto have dealt the broader Burning Man economy a number of blows the past two years, but they have landed the hardest on its most vulnerable commodity: Sparkle Ponies. 

“2022 was how it should be,” continues Carli. “I had two RVs at two different camps and a hepa filter AC yurt at another camp for my mushroom journeys.” Her phone vibrates. She opens it, raises a finger and types furiously. A full two minutes of silence pass. She lifts her head, rolls her eyes, and smiles briefly with only her mouth. “One of my sponsors,” she says, and makes a masturbatory gesture with her hand. “Anyway, people on the outside don’t get it. They think it’s just one big party, but like, it’s a job. I got paid to show up at each of the camps because my aesthetic helps build their brand and better compete with Robot Heart for IG exposure. Appropriate accommodations, cash compensation, an outfit budget, and private travel are what I expect. It’s a fair value exchange,” she says earnestly. “The Burn is more than just a festival, it’s a part of my livelihood, and 2023 is not looking good.” This dispirited sentiment is ubiquitous among younger, architecturally attractive, sort-of-single (mostly) women who therapeutically consume psychedelics and much older men, are never not showing midriff, and always expect to be hosted by the best camps at Burning Man (and everywhere else in the world).

For those of you who haven’t attended Burning Man (hi, grandma! RIP!), you may be unfamiliar with the term sparkle pony. 

A Burning Man sparkle pony is a younger-looking, typically (but not always) female person (but not always) whose fungible currency is her outer appearance, who travels to Blackrock City with nothing more than a toothbrush, a spare thong (but not always), and two exceptionally large aluminum wheeler suitcases stuffed with costumes that are almost too large for any means of conveyance but a cargo ship. Sparkle ponies emerged from primordial vibes when Burning Man commercialized, scaled and became an expensive, coveted experience that younger, architecturally attractive (mostly) women wanted to attend but did not want to pay for. Much in the same way that architecturally attractive (mostly) women are able to source complimentary food and beverages from unattractive strangers in restaurants and bars, they began showing up at Burning Man without practical supplies or any kind of skill, clad only in sequined fur bikinis, in the hopes of being taken in by a camp (which is sort of like a neighborhood, a cult, and a CPG brand all rolled into one) that wants to raise its vibe by increasing its population of architecturally attractive (mostly) women. 

More than any other component of the Burning Man ecosystem, sparkle ponies understand that Burning Man is a gift-based economy and expect everything at Burning Man to be gifted to them. 

Sparkle ponies exponentially increased in number and entitlement between 2018 and 2022 when the volume of dry powder in venture capital exploded and tech valuations became hilarious. Newly wealthy, early-middle aged men who wanted to be towered over and findomed by mostly naked, architecturally attractive (mostly) women in sequined fur bikinis and white, platform boots wearing the identical shiny Steampunk captains hat and mirrored heart sunglasses gifted to them by one of the aging 6’5 Robot Heart guys, who are never not just a bit frustrated by the quality of the sound at every DJ set and are perpetually tuning the speakers on their art car (“the Stradivarius”), began sponsoring multiple sparkle ponies in the hopes of winning the ephemeral physical affection of one or more of them. 

“It’s a funnel,” explained Tyler Kipperton, who founded a pre-revenue autonomous net-zero generative AI rocket company and achieved partial liquidity through a secondary offering that was completed in early September, 2022 with a family office in Europe and a holding company in China. “I figure if I fly in thirty sparkle ponies and put the best ten of them into an RV with an AC unit that doesn’t have a hepa filter, at least three of them will move in with me, and one of them will be into me when she sees me in black eyeliner and my Caravana Aztec poncho.” Tyler’s phone vibrates. He opens it, raises a finger and types furiously. A full three minutes of silence go by. He lifts his head, rolls his eyes, and smiles briefly with only his mouth. “One of my investors,” he says, and makes a masturbatory gesture with his hand. “I’m going to slay a whole herd of ponies at this Burn,” he says earnestly. “I am optimizing the shit out of my sparkle pony funnel.”

Tyler’s shrewd equation perfectly illustrates the economic problem: the number of viable sponsors has declined, but the number of sparkle ponies in a typical sponsor’s top of funnel has increased, which means that most sparkle ponies will be un-camped this year at Burning Man. 

“I get that people are upset about homeless - sorry, unhoused people in New York and California,” says a sparkle pony who–for the sake of anonymity–goes by her Playa name, Glittabug, “but the weather in these places is pretty chill, and there are homeless shelters. What’s going to happen to me at Burning Man if a camp can’t find me? There aren’t homeless shelters in Blackrock City, and it’s super hot and sunny during the day, and I’ve heard that the nights used to be really kind of cold,” she says with grave concern. “I think this is the most urgent housing crisis in the country right now. Why isn’t President Kennedy talking about this? Where’s our bailout?” 

“These young (mostly) women don’t have a firm enough grasp on basic economics,” observes Janet Yellin, secretary of the treasury for the United States of America, through a password protected Excel sheet. “Rather than trying to change the reality that there are fewer buyers in the economy, they should be focused on increasing their curb appeal so that the remaining buyers – Sergey Brin, Elon Musk and Eric Schmidt – select them during golden hour at Distrikt’s first set on the last build day, which is when sparkle ponies typically arrive.” 

Some of the more savvy sparkle ponies have taken the challenge and are upping their game by raising the height of their white platform boots, increasing the density of sequins on their bikinis, and adding extensions to their hair extensions. 

“We’re seeing a veritable sparkle pony arms race,” says Lloyd Austin, secretary of defense for the United States of America, via facsimile. “There is a run on glue guns at Blick Art Supplies in New York City, Miami, and California, and the crafting aisle is entirely empty at Walmart in Austin,” he said. “The nation’s sequin reserves are at their lowest since 1973.” 

“I’m going to outshine them all,” says Glittabug emphatically. “No one will sparkle more than me during golden hour on the last build day. The thing about Sergey is that he’s like, really smart, but he’s basically just a magpie,” she continues. “You know those birds that like, pick up shiny objects and bring them back to their nest? That’s what he does. Only he brings them to his boat.” Glittabug hasn’t looked up from her glue gun, which she is using to add sequins to the rear string of her thong that will be entirely swallowed by her ass cheeks. “I will blind that motherfucker into setting me up in an RV with a hepa filter AC unit.”

“Our satellites have already picked up light reflecting from the bikini tops that are currently being beta-tested by sparkle ponies in Venice Beach, Las Vegas and Williamsburg,” says Secretary Austin. “Given the increase of UFO activity, we are actively concerned that the light reflected off of sparkle ponies could attract non-Earth entities and spark – er, no pun intended – an interstellar conflict.” 

Some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs see the sparkle pony arms race as less of a threat and more of an opportunity. 

“I think every sparkle pony has the potential to be an energy source,” says Elon Musk. “We can convert them from a resource suck – er, no pun intended, who just lay around complaining about the absence of raw milk and asking people to take photos of them at golden hour, into a value add,” he says, squinting his eyes and looking up at the sky to showcase his enhanced jawline, the way he does when announcing The Next Big Thing and making excuses for the poor performance of one of his companies. “Power generation is an issue on the Playa. Those generators are fucking loud and filthy. We can turn sparkle ponies into a mobile, dynamic power grid, where each one is covered in tiny reflective Solar City solar panels and given a Tesla battery backpack to wear. When they go to bed at sunrise, everyone just plugs into a sparkle pony.” Elon smiles at his use of double entendre. “It’s a win-win-win,” he continues. “Sparkle ponies get space in an RV with a hepa filter AC unit, camps get clean energy generated by architecturally attractive (mostly) women, and Burning Man’s reputation among the 1% as a consumptive, filthy, hedonistic, drug-fueled orgy for the .01 percent is slightly mitigated.” At this point Elon looks even higher up into the sky, precariously stretching the skin on his protruding jawline. “Fuck–if we clustered them together as a solar array, we could literally make Burning Man a net zero event.” Elon abruptly ends our Zoom call. 

A notification pops up on Twitter–er, X from @elonmusk. 

“ATTENTION ALL #SPARKLEPONIES. I will fly you to #burningman from #teterboro, #vannuys or #haywardexecutive and set you up in an RV with a #hepafilter AC unit that is stocked with #rawmilk at a #turnkey camp with bottomless #belugacaviar. We need your sparkle to power the Burn!” 

Within seconds, Eric Schmidt re-posts Elon’s tweet (Xeet?), his first social media utterance in nearly a year, with the caption, “same offer + 24 hr hair and make-up staff and invite to my decompression party in LA. DM me.” 

Seconds after that, Barbie’s official IG channel posts the following:

“Attention younger-looking architecturally attractive (mostly) women who want to attend Burning Man but do not wish to pay for it! You are the true Barbies of the world, and we have dedicated 1% of the proceeds of the feature-length commercial that Mattel funded to create a homeless camp for sparkle ponies who have no Playa sponsor. Our camp, called Pink Plastica, will provide RVs with hepa filter AC units, all the raw milk you can consume, and unlimited bio-degradable glitter to every single younger-looking architecturally attractive (mostly) woman we select from our funnel of applicants. The only requirement is that, in addition to your white platform boots and heart-shaped Robot Heart sunglasses gifted to you by a very tall bald retired arms dealer, you wear the pink sugarpuss cowgirl outfit featured in Barbie, which we will gift you for your use during your time at Pink Plastica. To redeem this offer, simply scan the barcode on the inside of a new Barbie doll box and upload a selfie with your Instagram handle. If selected, we will DM you within 5 days with a tail number and the coordinates of Pink Plastica. Shine on, sparkle ponies!”

“We have not seen a bailout of this magnitude since 2008,” says Janet Yellin through morse code. “It seems we will narrowly avoid a sparkle pony recession thanks to predatory wealth and opportunistic consumer marketing,” she concludes. 

“I’m going to accept each of the three offers,” says Glittabug. “Burning Man wouldn’t feel right without three camps,” she says as she scans the barcode on the inside of the Barbie box she has torn open. She tousles her hair, turns on her ring light, makes a fish gape expression with her mouth, and takes a selfie. “And Pink Plastica sounds like a dope place for a mushroom journey.” She smiles briefly with only her mouth. “Will you hand me that glue gun?” she asks.

I hand her the glue gun and watch her add sequins on top of the sequins on her sequined Steampunk captains hat. I imagine what her life must be like: free food and illicit substances, constant adoration and coddling laced with only trace amounts of disdain, and absolutely no responsibilities other than her skin and fitness regimen. Relative to people who attend Burning Man and actually contribute their creativity, physical labor or financial resources, sparkle ponies, who contribute nothing but sparkle, have it pretty good for completely replaceable depreciating assets. I wonder for a moment what it would feel like to get a text with a time and a tail number from a doughy, elderly tech bro who would cart me around the Playa on his e-bike like a trinket and feed me and eight other sparkle ponies frozen grapes injected with molly water.

“Will you hand me the Barbie box with the barcode, and could I borrow your ring light?” I ask as I practice my fish gape. Sparkle ponies are mostly women, but not only women.

Is someone you love a sparkle pony or sparkle pony sponsor? Share this with them as a helpful resource:

Special thanks to CP for helping me channel the voice of sparkle ponies.