Vibecamp Retrospective
several days. many vibes. altogether too much camping.
This was supposed to be a twitter thread, but it got too long and ended up here.
Day 1
I got to Ramblewood just in time for opening ceremonies, which I dutifully attended (in the backmost corner, consistent with my nature) and subsequently tried and failed to get a name badge. Dinner was already over, so I immediately got into the swing of things by going to Dance the Bardo at the pavilion and obliterating my lungs with a vape pen - not a bad start honestly, but the cactus people declined to make an appearance. I’d been tense the entire day leading up to my arrival, and Ra’s set was really chill and soothing, so props there.
I met some people at the pavilion and ended up walking up to the teahouse kava bar, which was handing out bowls of a delightfully repulsive liquid that had the taste and texture of dirty water. It seemed to have a relaxing, disinhibitory effect though, and I spent the early hours of the morning in conversation with a girl I’d met at the pavilion before passing out beside her on a teahouse futon.
Day 2
We stayed in the teahouse until brunch opened at 11, making idle conversation about the Waco Siege. At brunch, I met a few of my friends from NYC, discussed plans for the day, and noted the oncoming rain. I spent much of the afternoon bouncing between various events and locations - talking to the trebuchet guys down by the pond, briefly attending a meeting on spiritual experiences, and thoroughly enjoying a chance to cool off at the pool party.
In anticipation of the incoming thunderstorm, I took an (unexpectedly effective) hallucinogen around 4pm in the hope that sufficient psychedelia would make wandering around in the rain a pleasant experience. This… almost worked, in that the effects resulted in me being waylaid somewhere sheltered for the next few hours.
After a slightly fractal dinner, I wandered the campsite for a while, eventually ending up at the pavilion for Loom Error, which was great - my only regret was being utterly exhausted by this point. Unfortunately, thanks to the aftereffects of tripping, I didn’t feel particularly sleepy either, so I made my way down to the pond in search of a fire to dry my old milsurp jacket.
Some other camper had (irresponsibly, but conveniently) left a pile of embers at one firepit, and a few friends I’d collected along the way helped me get a small fire going. Late as it was, the fire was the only significant light source at that part of the campsite, and it quickly attracted a few more people - one of whom, rather high, put a massive log across the existing pile. He seemed so pleased with himself that removing it felt cruel, so I resigned myself to watching the flames until it all burned out. A couple of hours later, volunteers arrived to check the firepits and delivered me from my vigil with a few well-placed jugs of water.
Day 3
I ended up crashing in the teahouse again, and I woke up to find that the same girl I’d spent much of Day 2 with had presumably found me and fallen asleep next to me. When I fell back asleep and subsequently awoke, she was gone, and I ended up running into her at brunch.
We had a commitment to keep that afternoon: Early on Day 2, I’d mentioned that I might stop by the various “Sprayed with a Hose” events at the pool, but I had no poetry memorized, and my “whole deal” was an unhelpful combination of overcomplicated, ephemeral, and not particularly interesting. This, of course, left only the competitive makeouts, and in the spirit of competition we’d gotten some much-needed practice time the day prior.
I was still exhausted from tripping, and I had two hours to kill in the meantime. After stopping by my campsite for some research-chem stimulants, I chatted with fellow campers at the teahouse bar for a bit, and before long, it was time for the competition. The poetry section was hilarious - “Jabberwocky” was oddly fit-for-purpose, as was a reworked version of a Kipling poem - and we definitely lost the makeout competition, not that I was complaining.
The hose-wielding host of the competition continued spraying people even after it ended, so I used a foam noodle and one of the pool jets to create a makeshift squirt gun that unfortunately fell just short of reaching its target. It worked fine on the unsuspecting bystanders in the pool, though.
That evening, I stood for a while drinking absinthe in front of a massive bonfire down by the lake, rotated idly between friends’ campsites, and caught my breath on the stairs of the barn while my makeout teammate howled at the moon.
Day 4
I woke up late on Day 4, having not even attempted to sleep until nearly 5am. I spent most of the morning returning various borrowed objects, scavenging abandoned s’more supplies while the trebuchet fired energetically backwards and eventually laid siege to the snapping turtles, and said my goodbyes. By 1 in the afternoon, I was in the jump-seat of my boyfriend’s pickup truck, already wistful about leaving. I never did get that name badge.
Discourse Lightning Round
The gender ratio was fine. It skewed male, but it really wasn’t that bad.
Most people’s social skills were fine; many were lacking but not egregious
The average man was painfully unfashionable, with none of the “anything but pants” mentality my boyfriend described from last year. I’d love to blame this on outdoorsy practicality, but…
There were a few exceptions - a Till Lindemann doppelganger in a three-piece suit and a man at the kava bar in some kind of awesome tunic thing both deserve specific mention
Plenty of women were serving ridiculously hard for being at a literal campground. Utmost respect, no notes, and I felt shabby for my “flecktarn parka over bathing suit” uniform. Special props to the lesbian couple with matching rainbow shibari at the pool.
The campground itself was a fairly even mix of nature and manmade spaces, which was a bit jarring at first - I was constantly covered in a mixture of bug spray and fine dust and my hair was a mess, but it wasn’t so outdoors that the dishevelment felt justified. A cabin would’ve helped, but by the end of the weekend I was entirely comfortable.
The “casual nudity” discourse was a bit of a nothingburger; I saw literally one woman going topless and that was it (unless I count the time I fell into the pool and the top half of my bathing suit became a necklace)
The communal showers for campers were a little odd, though. It wasn’t clear if the space was intended to have YMCA-style locker room nudity, and as a transsexual I didn’t feel like taking bets in that regard, so I used those spaces in a conservative fashion. Most people seemed fine though - I’ll just get a cabin next time.
Discourse Effortposting
The only real discourse-worthy surprise was the relationship between the community and the people in attendance. For an event that I’d seen discussed in tandem with phrases like “don’t lemur at the microcelebrities,” there were fairly few of them there, and even fewer that I recognized. I don’t think that’s a problem per se, but it did occasionally feel like a sort of “donut community” from which the highly-connected middle was missing. As a result, in the absence of unifying factors, the different groups of people present seemed a bit cliquey to a newcomer, if not insurmountably so. Vibecamp as a whole didn’t feel like it was dead or dying, but it did feel just slightly unsteady, like it was in the process of becoming something other than what it started as. I made my own fun, and made my own connections, but as a TPOT immersion experience it felt lacking. In the end, though, I enjoyed it so much that I’m not sure that’s what I actually wanted in the first place.