I was at Woodstock ’99 and it destroyed my innocence
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On the bright side: the scientists at the Labs were very pleased with the microphone's performance, since (sitting in a room with six speakers) you could clearly hear the drum circle behind and outside the stage doors.
The goal was ultimately to stream extremely high-quality concert audio to the home: people felt that stereo and even 5.1 was too restrictive. This was in the early days when everyone was trying to find killer apps for high-bandwidth broadband connections, so sure, why not.
ETA-- Another memorable experience in this project was playing the Woodstock tapes for Jimmy Buffett when he flew his seaplane in to check out the technology. We were very careful to point out that you could hear the drum circle :)
And an article in the Economist: https://archive.ph/iHuGO
Not in '99 they didn't. There were ATM machines everywhere, and famously, they were the first things to be set on fire and plundered.
If they had, seems like there would be more memorabilia of keeping these tokens? There are many from 1994 - are you misremembering?
It was quite an experience. Being a relatively sheltered nerd it was pretty mind blowing. Drugs, naked people everywhere, it was like this insane debauchery I had never encountered in my life before.
Everything people say about the mismanagement is true. I've never since seen such a badly managed event. I have no idea how the organizers avoided prison sentences for their neglect.
It was super hot, and you had to pay some insane price just to get a bottle of water. People were literally passed out from dehydration. For food, you could get a bag of fries for like 8 bucks. None of the porta potties were cleaned out after the first day, and there was water flooding all the tent areas. We left a day early cause it got so bad, so I fortunately missed the complete meltdown that happened.
The fact that somebody even tried to do this suggests the organisers were dangerous fuckwits. The outcome was unsurprising.
Either way, these large festivals are almost a self-parody at this point and all have stories about how the venues were unprepared, the festival goers using them as justification to do all sorts of illegal things and just a general shit show.
Maybe the original festival had some similar instances but the intensity and frequency of them was considered much greater in '99.
This is a great documentary if you want to see video footage of just how much of a disaster it was.
This is an almost uselessly low bar.
A lot of the demonisation of travellers at the time was apocryphal in the end. It feels like a community that is well and truly over except for the kind of Native Reservation that is Croissant Neuf, a place where middle class teenagers can gawp at the dreadlocked cider drinking crusty savages.
You missed Reading off your list. The first time I went to that festival, in the 2000s, was fascinating. I remember being astonished at how combustable solid human waste was when confined in a long drop toilet. Once the “water” content had been boiled off by the initial tire fire it would really start to burn. Jaw dropping.
By "Travellers" do you mean, 'new age travellers' (aka hippies) or the thieving scrotes who live a 'traditional way of life' badly tarmacing driveways?
The former still attend Glastonbury for free (they clean up the site for 'free' entry); the latter are a menace who started to show up and whom I'm glad the fence has now kept out.
If you disagree with it, post a response, don't just lazily click downvote. This isn't Reddit. Downvoting is for replies that distract from the conversation, not for replies you don't agree with FFS.
on the other hand, sometimes things just get out of control. A decade or two ago I was at lollapoloza (not very big) in Dallas at a large amphitheater and for some reason everyone started lightning these huge bonfires all over the place and it just went downhill from there. It just got totally out of control.
But I mean, come on. People weren’t setting fire to shit. There wasn’t this massively widespread destruction of property, riots or violence in the original Woodstock. It was just sketch. There’s a huge difference.
This statement implies that the two were in some way connected.
Crowds are incredibly stupid and malleable. Someone knew things would get out of hand.
Beyond that, if the music is good, I am going to want to dance - but how can you dance in a crowd? Any way you move, you're going to bump into someone. So you are stuck just sort of awkwardly standing there, pulling your elbows in, nodding your head a little.
I basically just won't go to indoor shows or mass events anymore. Give me the wide open desert sky and a couple hundred technohippies with a bonfire and a sound system instead; that's heaven.
Woodstock 69 was a music festival for major rock headliners with a goal of making a pile of money & advertised using the zeitgeist of the time.
Woodstock 99 was a music festival for major rock headliners with a goal of making a pile of money & advertised using nostalgia for the previous one.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Under "In Comments"...
> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
...
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
...
> Please don't post shallow dismissals...
* the strongest plausible interpretation is that I re-framed the part of the post I was responding to into the viewpoint of an event organizer before the outcome of said event was known. I think "being rude and shallowly dismissing it" is not the strongest plausible interpretation, but rather a shallow dismissal of my comment.
* I believe you are not assuming good faith in my statement.
* how is it snarky?
* how is it rude?
I have no idea how it could be plausibly have been interpreted as disrespectful to anyone merely reading the exchange - would you mind enlightening me on how I insulted you?
Pick one. You can’t have both. :P
btw I am a huge fan of both Korn (they are the best-sounding act I have ever heard live, Daft Punk included) - and the psychedelic rock that is far more appropriate for such a festival, like MGMT, the Flaming Lips, Zeppelin, etc.
I’m just saying even though they were popular ‘rock’ acts at the time, I’d argue actually that these bands fall closer to the ‘metal’ and ‘nu-metal’ genres.
Regardless, Fred Durst literally told people to destroy shit, and they did.
Exactly.
> Regardless, Fred Durst literally told people to destroy shit, and they did.
As one of the biggest rock bands in the world at the time should do. That's the point of a rock concert (especially a hard rock/metal show). Some level of chaos/destruction should be expected.
I don't really understand where this notion that everything needs to be bubble-wrapped came from (that's partially a lie, as it clearly comes from culture getting too obsessed with safety combined with the loss of nuance). A few years back I was in the mosh pit at a Nine Inch Nails show and bumped into a girl (during this song [1]) who was standing right in the front at the middle. She gave me a dirty look and all I could think to shout was "you're in the front row at a f*cking Nine Inch Nails concert."
No. That's what the back and the balcony (or your couch) are for.
I actually take offense to this position because it's so counter-intuitive to the spirit of the music. It's a METAL show not a Steely Dan performance. If you can't handle that, stay home.
People were getting trampled after falling down in the mosh pit, and there were several reports of gang rapes happening amidst the chaos. It's not really justifiable behaviour
You wouldn't go to Sea World and expect to not get splashed.
[1] Not this one, but same energy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-lxwlgyhhA
You're not wrong about the difference in vibes. And there were plenty of other music festivals in the 90s that did feature lineups more akin to the original Woodstock... But those festivals were pretty small in comparison, because the main thrust of popular music had changed so drastically in the decades since the original.
And attendance will ultimately limit the amount of money everyone can make--organizers, bands, vendors, drug dealers, etc. The money provides a strong motivation to cater to current popular tastes, because the festival has a bigger potential audience.
And given how well-attended the festival turned out to be, I think it's safe to say that they were right... If only a couple of thousand people had turned up, that would be a different story.
this is true, i remember coming out of shows with blood splatters on my clothes. The mosh pits and things in front of the stages were basically just riots set to music.
edit: i may add that i distinctly remember walking on top of broken glass in those crowds. It's life threatening to fall down when it really gets going.
The one day festivals are easier. Anytime you have people camping out you can have problems (the solid sound and phish were well run but had camping). For the last Phish show we rented an RV and had 3 tents set up around it, instead of just tents. I guess we were porta-pottied out. Though were woken up from the hissing that some entrepreneurs had decided to set up a nitros tank/sales behind our RV (we asked them to move, they said sure, but did not, when 2more of us awakened and showed up around them, they moved...)
The bands you bring, bring their audience. Some audiences are more trouble than others. In my years at Boston Calling you could tell the headlining Metalica and Tool fans apart from a lot of the rest. To be fair everyone at those shows was well behaved and you could see those fans at a lot of other bands shows. One of the Documentaries on the woodstock 99 points out, just 3 female bands, and a lot of bands popular with young guys might have been part of the issue. I mean mosh pits were a real thing in the 90s. I went into a few, but some shows I honestly wouldn't go near them. [1]
Having a concert continue on when the fans are actively setting fires seems so surreal.
Bradley-J (a boston DJ) was there behind the stage, and had some good commentary on it which I can't find. My cousins friend (VH1 Matt) was there and had some scathing commentary when he talked about it.
There is a decent documentary about woodstock99 on HBO Max. Worth a look.
Its somewhat telling Coachella was also in 1999 and is still going strong.
[1]https://247sports.com/college/kansas/Board/103726/Contents/B...
As far as crazy events in my life, it barely registered. 9/11 wasn't long after and nothing could impact you like living through that. Hell, being in a band touring the country had more crazy things happen then just going to some dumb pop festival.
Now, I obviously wasn't there in 1969 but it's also possible that things like sexual assaults went unreported at the time because, realistically, people drunk and/or on drugs plus nudity is not the best combination at any time...
- We were on stage in the famous closing Red Hot Chili Peppers show (like in the wings, looking out on the audience from behind the band). That was surreal. We could see the fires start in the distance, stuff getting ripped down, things starting to sort of go to hell. All while, the most amazing band of the moment is playing the most amazing songs 30 feet away from us. Quite a contrast between awesomeness and ... whatever the strange mix of emotions riots give.
- We learned that there was no Mountain Dew in the whole event because Coke got the contract, so we went out and bought many cases, drove it in through our special entrance, and basically auctioned it off. People were willing to pay $5 a can. We made a lot of money. Pretty sketchy.
- Worse/weirder, we had a backpacks full of ice to hold the Mountain Dew in while we walked around the crowd selling it, and people started to offer to buy ice from us to cool off. So once we ran out of Mountain Dew, we started yelling "Ice is nice! We got ice!" and selling it. That ... well, I feel like that was me experiencing a real microcosm of capitalism and the allure of artificial scarcity ... and not acting the way I would hope . Give away the damn ice man.
- We kind of just walked around backstage and there were so many super famous people that none of them felt very special, and they'd just kind of talk to you while you were in line for food. Ice Cube had some cool sneakers that my friend chatted with him about. George Clinton was chill. I think we talked with Erykah Badu for a while at some point. (Stars are not at all like this backstage at a normal concert, btw, which we also did a lot because of his father. A their normal concerts, these same performers are the center of the universe, and don't have time to chat with a bunch of high schoolers running around.)
Anyway, it was a very strange event, and we had a very strange vantage point.
It exposes John Scher and all the greedy individuals that permanently destroyed Woodstock.
Instead of pointing the finger at the Nu metal artists they deliberately chose to perform and the $4 water dehydrated, trench mouthed, fecal ridden kids who inevitably became disgruntled enough to raise chaos.
Even a truly graceful piece of writing (which this is not) is going to have trouble building a dramatic climax if it has to be soundtracked by Sevendust.
You could also see Al Green, Willie Nelson, Ice Cube, Elvis Costello, etc.
Lots was wrong with that festival and dunking on Korn is as far as I can tell a universal indulgence but there was good music to be seen.
I can't stand Korn (I've had the misfortune of seeing them live opening for other acts), but I don't begrudge anyone for liking them at the time, though I do begrudge anybody who enjoys Korn and finds a way to dismiss The Roots and Wyclef Jean.
Al Green, as it turns out, had to back out of the show. If you have an opportunity to see Al Green and you see Bush instead, you're not allowed to write about music anymore.
https://www.openculture.com/2021/06/the-horrors-of-bull-isla...
One thing I vividly remember from my first time at the Love Parade in Berlin is - just like this author tells about Woodstock '99 - all the trash knee-high in the gutter.
>"Tragically, following the festival, there were also reportedly allegations of rape.... You couldn’t go more than five minutes without seeing a topless woman being fondled by a random stranger.
>With all of that said... there were still some beautiful moments during the concert’s last day."
Yikes.
I honestly don't know how I feel about this conclusion. It seems like a very whitewashed (pardon the pun) thing to say.
You could talk about the corporate gouging for water and food, which was extravagant. Or the lack of planning and safety traded in for profit which was so in vogue right before the dotcom boom and bust. They were supposed to provide free drinking water fountains, but provided like 1, and it didn't work right. Bottled water was ridiculously overpriced.
Even the Simpsons ragged on this, in 2001 in the episode "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge", Otto is at a concert where he gets set on fire and runs to the concession stand where Becky pours an 8 dollar bottle of water on him to put out the fire. That's when he knew it was love.
Or you could talk about how people can easily resort to mob action at a person on a stage shouting at them. That would have been a good lesson to learn maybe 20 years ago.
Or how consent has radically changed over the years, or if you will, consent is more respected than it was back then, and how that's a good thing.
This feeling of nostalgia almost points to the fact that we didn't learn. We just watched it go by and did what everyone does. We go home. We turn on the TV. We make the same mistakes again. It's almost this feeling of "yeah, there's good and bad on both sides, but let's not try to do better next time. it is what it is"
Maybe there was supposed to be another paragraph after this one (it feels like the article ends in a weird place, maybe got edited)? The title is that it destroyed your innocence. Which I guess is true, but usually you don't just lose it, you trade it for knowledge, and experience. In this case, I'm just not sure they did.
Unlike the original Woodstock, this doesn't sound like a group that came together out of any shared values other than to have as much fun as they could, whatever the cost. Oh, and of course to brag that they were there. Not exactly inspiring, and I'm dismayed it's at the top of HN.
The kind of people that did these things in 1999 are now pushing 40 and have jobs as PMs, 1.2 kids and a house in a good school district. Why wouldn't this sort of nostalgia be top page of a white collar website on a slow Friday?
In addition to all the lessons learned, both by society and this author, it still also functioned as a teenager's music festival experience. Just with seeing more shades of humanity than you get at a flawless festival.
The very point is that there are people who don't recall the event the way you want them to discuss it: as a sterile learning opportunity where every word they speak must be chosen to maximize the societal value they are able to impart.
I mean, fair enough if you want to say that the author wants to talk about something other than those issues, but they do call them out and talk about them as real, like the sexual assault part:
"Tragically, following the festival, there were also reportedly allegations of rape. And while I didn’t personally witness anything as serious as those accusations, I don’t find them at all hard to believe, given the tenor of the event by the end of the weekend. You couldn’t go more than five minutes without seeing a topless woman being fondled by a random stranger."
Then literally the next sentence plays it off almost as if this was said just to say he's not denying it, only to brush it off instead:
"With all of that said, even after hell had broken loose, there were still some beautiful moments during the concert’s last day"
It's almost like saying, it was crazy, and a lot of people got hurt, but you know what? I had fun. And I didn't get hurt. And that's what I remember.
> The very point is that there are people who don't recall the event the way you want them to discuss it: as a sterile learning opportunity where every word they speak must be chosen to maximize the societal value they are able to impart.
I think the point of the article is he does recall the event the way everyone else does - it was basically a literal shitshow. But again, he had fun. I don't care that he doesn't want to talk about what he wants to impart, but he's writing this specifically to impart something. And what he's imparting is his nostalgia: nostalgia, that act of taking a memory out of the disposal bin, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it's worth.
There are so many better ways to write this article if you want to talk about something other than what the documentaries are talking about. Here's some ideas I came up with in 2 minutes:
- I found my old Woodstock '99 photos, #7 will surprise you!
- Looking back at my Woodstock experience, then and now
- Toss it up in the air like you just don't care, the best part of Woodstock '99
- What I didn't see at Woodstock '99 but everyone else did
Or you know, talk about the reason why he was there. The music? What made it great? Did he go with his first love? Friends from high school that he misses now? He could easily play to the hype by saying "well that's what other people saw, but from my vantage, this is what was going on in my life"
But by spending pretty much most of the article saying either yeah it happened, yeah it happened, and then kind of say but I had fun, implying that it wasn't really that bad. It didn't really happen. That leads down the "It's all fake news" path.
It doesn't feel like you're acknowledging the parent comment
This is every time you have fun. How far away was the closest person being assaulted from you during your last joyful experience? Might have been the alley outside the restaurant. The more densely populated and/or poor the area, the closer it probably was. Festivals in particular are insanely densely populated and, in a narrow sense, "poor". There are probably robberies and assaults at every Wikipedia-scale gathering you or I have ever attended.
It's not some 17 year old's responsibility to police the wild festival, or to feel shame about it after learning after the fact that worse things happened there than they realized. Finish the sentence "he should have..." for the day things got crazy at the festival. Left the scene, and by so doing become less corrupted by the proximal sins of others? Suspected that the craziness would probably lead to serious crimes and gone around seeking them out and reporting them? Or is the important thing that he just change the way he feels about the festival now in hindsight?
I dunno what I was doing the day those bad things happened at that festival (I was in Colorado) but I was probably having a good time. And I don't regret it!
I mean, true, but when there are literal piles of flaming debris and the fun involves what other people might consider a riot, I think it's not like he didn't know what was going on.
Look at what happened with the twitchcon party thing with the open cups of alcohol and a bunch of people got drugged. Now that was just bad party planning as well, but for random attendees, I get it - they didn't know that some of the cups were spiked.
> Or is the important thing that he just change the way he feels about the festival now in hindsight?
He doesn't have to change the way he feels, but the way he presents what he feels very much sounds like denial to me. And if you're posting your feels on the internet, you have to put up with everyone else's (including mine)'s feels too. He could have just posted all the pictures on his very popular instagram and not written that he didn't see the bad things.
It would have been just as interesting, if not more, to let people draw their own conclusions based on the pictures.
> I dunno what I was doing the day those bad things happened at that festival (I was in Colorado) but I was probably having a good time. And I don't regret it!
Fair enough, but this is almost like someone saying they got married on 9/11 and that is why they had a great day so it wasn't as bad as people remember? It doesn't seem related at all if you weren't there.
That's a good example. What degree of responsibility do the innocent attendees of that twitchcon have for the misconduct that happened there? I'm not familiar with the whole story, but if it was a big thing I'm guess most weren't aware of it. It's interesting to consider how culpable, if at all, the attendees and influencers at the event were, as well as those who reported on it afterwards.
> Fair enough, but this is almost like someone saying they got married on 9/11 and that is why they had a great day so it wasn't as bad as people remember? It doesn't seem related at all if you weren't there.
For one I don't think the author ever said it "wasn't as bad as people remember". He's not making an effort to discount anybody's negative experience. He's just saying that it was indeed a bit of a shitshow and yet his 17 year old self still had a memorable and overall good time. And I think he acknowledges his own blindness to the really bad things that he learned later had happened, but he doesn't seem to take any blame upon himself for it, which to me is reasonable.
How about this example: I was at an occupy wall street protest where I learned later a lot of criminal activity was suspected to have occurred. Let's say I still see it as an overall positive experience and I don't regret having attended. Is that similar to where the author stands w.r.t. Woodstock `99?
Right, so it's actually really interesting and I'd ask that you go look up the details yourself, don't believe me obviously.
So basically the problem was, at the party, the organizers (twitch / amazon employees) took a bunch of cups, and filled them with alcohol, and set them on a table, beer pong style. Like just sitting there, open top, etc. And left them unattended.
Now - not only is this probably against some kind of alcohol serving rules or licensing problems, but it's also the opposite of what any bartender would do. Especially in Vegas or cities with a lot of clubs and people where drugging may be a problem, girls and bartenders know the rules:
1. If some stranger orders you a drink, you take the drink from the bartender, you don't let the stranger buy a drink, and bring it to you, since they might spike it on the way.
2. If a bartender pours out a drink and sets it on the bar, and the other person isn't in like visible sight of reaching out to pick it up, or looks distracted, they will watch the glass until it is retrieved, or put a coaster on top to prevent anyone from dropping something in the drink.
3. Obviously nobody is watching for people who may be showing signs of being drugged or too drunk, there's no cutoff line since it's more like a beer fridge than a bar. Bartenders are not supposed to serve you more alcohol, even if you ask for it, if they think you are too intoxicated. I think they might even be liable in some way if they don't.
Okay, so what happened here is almost exactly like what happened at Woodstock '99. Here's the parallels.
Twitch, owned by Amazon, in all its hubris and thinking about how great it was, decided for some reason that they would not hire a bartender to handle this for them. They thought they could handle it themselves. "It's just pouring out drinks, we remember this from college last year," they say. Ignorant? You bet. Evil intention? probably not. But they've never done food service, they've never run a party, especially not one with girls (only half joking here).
But overall they were violating obvious best practice that could have been found if they just contacted a professional or even did a google search. Hell, even talking to a woman would have probably brought up this problem. But they missed it.
So to put on my INTJ judicial robes for a moment, here's the punishments.
Amazon is guilty of gross negligence. They should have known better. The individual employees I think shouldn't be sued individually, and should be covered by Amazon's corporate liability insurance, which I'm sure is considerable. Also, of all the things they could have done for a party, why did they have to choose alcohol? A bunch of people objected to this, mostly women, who said it might make them feel like it's an unsafe environment with drunk people drooling around and on them.
Anyone doing spiking of drinks is criminally liable. That's obvious right? You put something in the drink, you're committing an actual crime, so that's bad. You get all the blame, and the blame of anything that happens because of it, even if you didn't do it (think like all the DUI / murder complications).
Anyone seeing something but not saying anything I think is morally liable. I'd feel terrible if I noticed something and didn't check up on it or say something. But on the other hand, I don't necessarily feel that everyone has a duty to report and fix all the crime in the city. Everyone has to also be responsible for themselves and the situations they get in.
> For one I don't think the author ever said it "wasn't as bad as people remember". He's not making an effort to discount anybody's negative experience
I agree, I'm reading into it a bit, but the way that the story is edited gives that vibe that that is the story. The medium is the message, all that.
I don't think he deserves any blame personally. I just think that 20 years after, and reflecting on all this because the news brought it up... these are about the most nothingburger conclusions or thoughts ever. Most people learn something of at least some kind of wisdom in that time. Like, I can't believe that I thought that was fun, but it was, etc. And I think that obvious lack of reflection and lesson learning isn't unique to this person, I think it's a huge percentage of an entire generation of people. Even saying "I'm amazed that I had such a great time at such a crazy and time defining event" would have been better than "I was there."
"I was there." seems like the call of the by-standard who will stand there and watch you get beaten on the street, and since they aren't doing the beating, they don't feel bad at all. But, as it is said, for evil to flourish it just takes good men to do nothing. And it's so true.
So should they both have known better? Absolutely. Were they running afoul of the law, probably (occupancy, alcohol, arson, etc) - but I'm not a lawyer. Does it look bad? Absolutely. And the legal system simply cannot take the stand that ignorance of the law means that it's not wrong. Especially when everyone knows that bartenders serve alcohol and there are rules for doing it, and schools that do it, and licenses for it. Any 25 year old would have known this. But not really any one, but one exercising common sense (in the very loose legal idea of common sense, that most people would know).
> I was at an occupy wall street protest where I learned later a lot of criminal activity was suspected to have occurred. Let's say I still see it as an overall positive experience and I don't regret having attended. Is that similar to where the author stands w.r.t. Woodstock `99?
I'd say so, but also, it depends on the criminal activity that occurred. Are we talking like trespassing as a part of protest? Or maybe living on the street? Or are we talking about arson? Sexual assault? I would judge it exactly the same. If you said "it was a beautiful effigy that was burning on the starbucks headquarters, and nothing burns like an effigy" I'd probably put you in the "what are you thinking???" camp.
Oh, and no, I've been to plenty of massive festivals, there were no robberies, no looting, no fires, no rapes.
Uh huh
Now that the crackpots are more well armed than the normal intelligent people, I'm a bit scared. They also seem to be more effective at sabotaging the government using the same tactics.
And if you ask "why was this article written" or "what purpose does this article serve" or "why is it being promoted by this particular news site" - their answer will be "just to talk about it" or "presenting the other side". When really if you assume the author doesn't have evil intentions just makes them really hard to believe through their blind ignorance of the madness around them. IE, why would anyone read this drivel, it offers nothing. If they do have evil intent, then I go back to my previous contention as to the nature of it being a dogwhistle.
I know someone who lived through a concentration camp and wanted to be buried there when they died.
It was where they experienced not only awful injustice, but some the most beautiful and meaningful moments of their life.
Human experience is complex.
Now, all that being said, just because you may have a complex relationship with your abuser or your memories of the place or what happened, that doesn't make it any less wrong or more right.
What really amazes me is that there are so many "poor" people in the world that really honestly live a great happy life, even though by American standards it might be not only considered poverty but injustice. Things that really seem to add to happiness are things like strong community, strong family ties, etc. But again, just because you are one part of the survivor bias doesn't change the moral problem with the original situation in my opinion.
But to cycle back to the mixed reflections - people are stupidly complex and beautifully wonderfully diverse and brilliant in their own way. Some people (mostly in debates) try to argue "who would decide to knowingly believe a lie?", "who would do something so illogical?" but not only does it happen, it's probably the norm. My family is all still together, driving each other crazy into a cycle of codependence, which makes no sense, but doesn't make the abuse that goes on right. If anything, that complexity only make sit more dangerous.
Clearly a lot of people had a really good time.It can also be true that there were some serious flaws, that should have never happened and should not be repeated, but that doesn't negate the fun some had.
I too have had the same observation talking with incredibly poor but happy people in developing nations. I don't know how they do do it, but I think part is being thankful for what they do have opposed to fixating on what they don't have
Imagine coming into a movie theatre that's playing a kids movie and complaining that it isn't realistic, animals don't really talk, we're confusing the youth, bears are actually dangerous and don't sing songs. Duuuuude... Shut up!
I did think about going to Woodstock to get it destroyed, but thought it might be too corporate for said innocence destruction.
Turned out, I was wrong.
> the subsequent sexual misconduct
According to some other first-hand accounts of the people who were victims of this "misconduct," it would be more accurate to call it _assault_.
> And while I didn’t personally witness anything as serious as those accusations, I don’t find them at all hard to believe, given the tenor of the event by the end of the weekend. You couldn’t go more than five minutes without seeing a topless woman being fondled by a random stranger.
It sounds like the author may have witnessed sexual assault several times and it didn't even register in their minds.
Update and the author is writing this as a person in their 40s now with the gift of hindsight, #MeToo, etc.
You can judge the past by modern values, but you’ll never understand it by doing that.
That might not register to a 17 year old who was raised in a culture that minimizes/hides sexual assault but the author is 40 now. They should be able to recognize what they saw for what it was and not continue to minimize it.
If they haven't learned that fondling someone without their consent was wrong then and is wrong now they haven't learned anything.
Now that’s a name I thought lost to the mists of time
This... no.
Important for the editor to establish that it was their fault early in the article? sigh