Bee

The 2012 Burning Man theme, "Fertility 2.0," explored what it means to create in the digital age — a riff on the tech term "Web 2.0," it asked whether the internet was fertile ground, whether digital connectivity could generate culture, community, and meaning the way organic systems generate life. The theme pressed on a question many were beginning to feel acutely in 2012: was technology enriching human creativity, or beginning to replace it?

The bee is an almost irresistible symbol for Burning Man: a highly organized cooperative community that builds complex structures through collective labor, operates without centralized command, and exists in service of the hive's collective survival. Bees are also the essential agents of biological fertility — pollinators without whom most flowering plants cannot reproduce. Placing the bee at the center of a "Fertility 2.0" sticker ties these threads together: the organic and the social, the biological and the communal.

This sticker was contributed by Steven Fritz for the 2012 event year.