Maitreya Festival And The Rise Of The Faux-Hippy

There is a new breed of raver in our midst. No longer satisfied with fist pumping to Avicii and wearing as little clothing as possible to garner maximum attention, these new age drug-fiends are bindi-wearing, kimono-donning, non-showering, "enlightened" children of the earth. And they are better than you; just ask them.

Why? Because they don’t just take drugs guys, they’re spiritual. They’re spiritual because they don’t take drugs in dingey clubs - no. That’s for poseurs. Clubs aren’t cool anymore because they are the embodiment of your fiercely capitalist upbringing that has lead to global warming and the overall decline of mother Earth.

Before you call me an asshole (I am, but that’s a discussion for another time) I don’t actually hate these new-age goog guzzlers. Rather, I think they hate me. Because while I was rocking out to Drake standing on a barstool at Future, these people were having a soul-searching ‘experience’ at Maitreya. What the fuck is Maitreya? Well:

“As the universe swirled into being, before time ticked its first tock, before the elves manned the machines, and before the great serpent gods blazed across the dark cosmos bringing Technicolor wonder to the space all around… there was a rhythm, a beat, and a melody, that gathered the great energies around the sacred space, for a ritual that continued through the eons to this day, to this place, to this Maitreya Festival!”

If you’re lost don’t fret, I’m not sure I understand what elves or serpent gods have to do with partying either - but that's okay, the story is part of the magic when it comes to raving in remote lands. But anyway. Maitreya is basically a bush doof: people dress like your regular street bum and paint their faces all 70s-like and do exactly what everyone else is doing at Future. Or in a nightclub. Or at a bar even, once you take away all the kooky props.

And this is where the problem lies. I’m not just an asshole beating up on taking drugs and partying on the weekends. I’m just here to say that it's literally the same shit many Maitreya-goers profess to hate; you’re just partying. It’s just a rave. It’s just another place to take drugs and get munted. You’ve just taken Future and abandoned it in the bush and gotten some seriously cooked Communications graduate to write a blurb about elves and gods and the “ritual” of it all. When you strip it down to its bare bones it’s the same thing everyone else is doing.

Full disclosure: I haven’t been. I have to say that right now. So it’s extremely easy for you to sit there and write me off as some fuckwit raving about something I know nothing about. I don’t blame you if that’s what you’re doing right now, in all honesty. But bear with me, because I just want to be a purveyor of the truth and I feel someone has to be the one to say it. There is a rising minority who, if we're not careful, will become the majority.

Sure, in the past bush doofs have been a spiritual escape for many, and there are of course events of this ilk that remain so. But the times they are a changing, and the type of people who frequent these events are no longer just chill-ravers looking to get weird amongst friends before they get back to the daily grind of running a hemp or smoking accessory shop.

The new breed of raver takes that Aussie music festival attitude out to middle earth to show how much better they are, then comes “back to reality” and writes a thousand-word Facebook status telling all their internet friends (are we seeing the slight irony yet?) that they are forever changed and so blessed to have been touched in ways they never were before at Maitreya. I mean, I was touched at Future too, but it wasn't the fun kind.

I think letting on like you’re some kind of pseudo-hippie wild-child who is in touch with the earth simply because you went to a bush rave for a couple of days is just a bit of a lie. You went, you partied, and as drugs tend to help you do, formed really close (see: cooked) bonds with the people you went with. Probably because you tripped so hard together you thought you might die but miraculously you didn’t. You’re fucking survivors. What a spiritual journey.

I’d like to quickly point out that a fair portoin of you band-wagoners fucking trashed Wooroonook Lake (where Maitreya was held) and that Mother Nature would shit on you if she could for shitting on her. It’s not exactly ‘in-touch with nature’ to haul a 30-year-old-couch that smells like dead people and moth balls that you picked up from the Salvation Army to the middle of the bush and just LEAVE IT THERE:

I know fads come and go. Your standard mediocre (thanks, Australia) music festival used to be the cool thing, and now it apparently is not. That I can deal with. Personally I still like to get drunk and stepped on 80 times just so I can watch the back of someone’s head while an international DJ plays.

But please, enough of the spiritual enlightenment stuff. Bush doofs are exactly that: “doofs”. In the bush. It’s a festival guys. Spare us your novel on self-discovery and spiritualism and just admit you’re coming down like a roided-up, fake-tanned bodybuilder who shelved 10 pingers while on the muzz to Afrojack. Leave the earth raves to those who began it, live it, and love it. Like this guy still does:

...And shout-out to the real heroes out of all of this, the local footy club volunteers:

Haarp Media weren't happy with this article, and wrote a nice rebuttal/article of their own about bush doof culture, read it HERE.

header image via The Guardian.