Gotta keep the air flowing up through the logs, and put fuel on the hot spots...

The person doing it is often the person who started the fire, or the one who most wants it to keep going. It is the way.

It's an opportunity to play with fire and do something positive. Why wouldn't I be that guy?

Don't worry guy, we appreciate you

Last time I went out on a trip with the extended family (we're roughly 20 people, give or take), it was in a rented big structure with a sleeping area, a dining area, and a kitchen, and a yard outside with a place to make a fire. We started a fire, but come dinner time they all wanted to leave the fire going and eat at the table.

I absolutely refused. No way in the world in leaving a fire unattended like that. I said we either stop the fire altogether (and restart it later), or I'll stay watching it until someone comes to replace me.

In the end I took a plate of food and ate it by the fire alone, until someone indeed came to replace me and I went to finish the meal at the table. It turned out fine, but it really annoyed me how no one in my family saw sense. They kept trying to convince me to just come and eat dinner.... as if the social togetherness somehow makes the risk of starting a forest fire unimportant?! There's some smart people in my family, but some days I don't understand how they can all be so blind to the obvious reality.

What’s skin colour got to do with it?

Well of course I know him, he's me!

We northern ethnics relied on fire probably a bit more due to colder climate, shorter days in winter.

Nothing.

The black men who do this know they are the white guys of their family.

Americans make everything racially charged.

Personally it sounds like bliss eating a good meal alone by the fire.

If you insist on being the person to play with the fire, please, for fuck's sake, know what you're doing.

Understand that the 2ft wide wet uncured stump you found in the woods will not burn no matter how hard you try. Smoke is not a sign of success.

Every time I go camping I think about all the knowledge we have lost now that this is further and further from our every day experiences and even just being a less common recreational activity.

I recently learned that the outdoor recreation curriculum was being cut from the school board I attended 30 years ago and that's a big loss. I lived in a big city with > 50% of the population being born elsewhere and programs like these are sometimes the first opportunities these kids get to learn outdoor skills relevant to their new home.

Sure, it was alright, but I do love my family too ❤️

Boy Scouts taught me the rule that if you are leaving and you had a fire, that it needs to be put out to the extent that you'd willingly stick your hand into the middle.

Scared it might be hot? Put it out more.

It'll burn, you just need more other fire to do it.

I remember a time we melted an aluminum pan in a fire... that was a good fire.

Idk it's probably cultural. Most non white people in the US have very little experience with stuff like camping and bonfires(there will of course always be exceptions). So usually if you are at a fire and there's a mixed race group hanging out, 90% of the time the guy fiddling with the fire will be white.

You're right. It's a known issue. It's predominantly white people going out and enjoying nature, for multiple reasons.

Public forests offer a variety of outdoor recreation activities that enhance participants’ well-being, yet participation remains low among ethnic minorities in the United States. These groups face multiple barriers, including limited information, transportation and financial constraints, safety concerns, fear of discrimination, and wildlife-related anxieties, which are often shaped by broader structural and cultural contexts.

Source

n a t i v e a m e r i c a n s ... o. O

Once a couple friends and I decided to take some acid and camp out in one of the friend's back yards. He had a metal tow-behind trailer that he had put up some plywood walls on and draped a tarp over the top. This was in Florida but during the 2 weeks of winter we get so it was actually pretty cold at night.

The plan was for us to all sleep in the trailer, and we even had a little space heater going, but I was closest to the back of the trailer and the cold air was coming in more than the heater was warming me, so I couldn't sleep (the acid didn't help either, it had been several hours but I was still feeling it for sure).

To stay warm, I got up and re-lit the fire which was in a circular cinderblock about a foot tall and a foot wide. Throughout the rest of the night and the morning I continuously tended the fire, only occasionally stepping away to grab more sticks from the woods.

It was one of the most peaceful nights of my life. It did fully kill any enthusiasm I had for tending fires though. The smell of smoke didn't come off of me for days afterwards. Ever since then I've had no problem letting other people take over the fire whenever possible.

I generally try to avoid "this" style comments but, almost word for word, this is what I was here to say.

It's me

Just look it that thing. It need to be poked with a stick.

Trick question people used to ask, after a heavy rain where can you find dry wood? Split the wet wood and in the middle will be dry wood!

That's me.

But I'm really just kind of mesmerized and considering how cleansed my soul would be if I dove in. Gotta burn the sin out.

I am that white guy. You're welcome.

Thanks for sharing. I think it's funny that anecdotes of my lived experience as a brown person gets downvotes, but you sharing an academic paper supporting my lived experience gets up votes.

It makes me feel weird about people that barely start a fire, and don't tend to it. Like I'm holding someone else's baby. Then feeding it. Then sending it to school. It's my baby now, but it still has your name. Ugh.

What’s skin colour got to do with it?

I think this post is just observing stereotypes about camping overall that are really just a reflection of the historical cultural imagination about who camping is for. It's not really as true as we think it is, because this tendency has been present among black folks and hispanic folks, and asian folks and women and everyone else who have been camping all along, they're just not featured in film and TV often.

What's with the trend of mentioning that people are white and connecting it with things they do? I also see live streamers do this a lot (including in reference to themselves) and it's strange to me

At least they haven't taken garlic bread and sitting in chairs weird away from bisexuals!

People desperately want to associate aesthetic acts and preferences with demographics. I assume it has something to do with cultural desires to place people in neatly ordered boxes.

You're the dad who stepped up.

My sister and I are both the girl version of that guy

........why would I thank you for fucking with the fire going? I'd want someone who helps it keep going instead of fucking with it.

It makes me feel weird about people that barely see babies as property, the name attached is the value not the person who didn't ask to be born and needs help.

(To be clear I'm not saying you do this specifically, it's more a cultural thing where people will see other people as unworthy unless their name is on it)

Your comment didn't read like own experience fyi, it reads like some random claim

Not that comments explicit about experiences don't get downvoted still

I definitely do not respect this. I respect someone who helps keep it going, not the dude fucking with it, and giving the fire swirlies.

Thanks

I'm not that guy but I'm the other that guy

You that onion tho

You didn't really campfire if you don't smell like campfire

Lucky you.

The fire cleanses all

That's me. Just not white? Is being white a mandate for this role?

I don't want to stick my hand in the lukewarm piss-mud. How long do I keep going?

Always some white guy in the comments going on about how white people doing white people things is not something worth mentioning.

o/

I don't think it's outrage bait because again, often the context is someone talking about themselves, and no arguments are started. But this didn't used to be a thing, so what changed?

I too, am of the order of fire watchers. May the flame keep you warm.

Goes camping, sits around campfire, phone in her face.

*facepalm

Because the post uses "fuck with" in the sense of "man I fuck with peanut butter cookies, they're the best" vs. "I would love some but peanut butter cookies fuck with my stomach"