Inspired by Nick's POSER Manifesto and also this dumb tweet. Thanks Nick, for teaching me the importance of being shit.
1. Playing is like pooping: everyone knows how to do it, everyone does it different. Don't make it harder than it needs to be. Do what you gotta do.
2. This is a different space and time from the rest of your life. Drop all pretense and aspiration and conformity. Let yourself be gross, smelly, ignorant, cranky, bloated, uncomfortable, and relieved.
3. Don't play with people you wouldn't shit in front of.
4. Let yourself shit in front of more people.
5. Redefine shit. You are shit. Your work is shit. There will always be a gap between the ideal in your head and what you actually end up doing. There will always be something you forget or mess up or misinterpret completely. This is good. This is not failure. This is you. This is your work. What emerges in actuality is the honest creation of your own body. The gap between what you wanted to do and what you actually did is the space where transformation occurs; it is the difference between mere imitation (yes, even fulfilling what's in your own head would be mere plagiarism of yourself) and honest to god creation. Shit is transformative. Shit is creative. Shit is growth (literally, fertilizer; faeces are fecund).
6. FUCK ELVES. Elves are anti-shit. Graceful, hyper-competent, perfect, stagnant. An elf never has B.O., or farts, or gets gassy after a meal, or muffin tops in their favourite pants, or has body hair or even any bodily fluids. Elves eat kale salad without dressing every day. Elves eat that kale salad in juice form. Elves are what everyone tells you is sexy and good. FUCK THAT. Rejoice in scatological excess. The best parts of everything, eating, sleeping, shitting, fucking, are the grossest parts. Scratch your ass and eat a sandwich and lick your partner's armpit hair and admire the back rolls where the sweat collects and the acne because you guys drank too much last night! Let yourself be attracted to the grossness! The grossness is what makes us human. Fuck anyone who says otherwise, and fuck anyone who pretends they're not gross.
7. You know what a bad shit feels like. Do not let what you think, or what other people say you should think, trick you into disregarding what your body knows does not feel good for you.
8. Be shit at things. Play games you don't know the rules to. Write games you don't playtest or edit. Play games that you wrote but forget the rules that you wrote or ignore the rules that you wrote and play anyway.
9. Shit regularly.
10. Good manifestos might have ten points but this is a DUNG manifesto, it is shit, it is a heaping pile of stinking manure.
DUNG MANIFESTO
1. Playing is like pooping: everyone knows how to do it, everyone does it different. Don't make it harder than it needs to be. Do what you gotta do.
2. This is a different space and time from the rest of your life. Drop all pretense and aspiration and conformity. Let yourself be gross, smelly, ignorant, cranky, bloated, uncomfortable, and relieved.
3. Don't play with people you wouldn't shit in front of.
4. Let yourself shit in front of more people.
5. Redefine shit. You are shit. Your work is shit. There will always be a gap between the ideal in your head and what you actually end up doing. There will always be something you forget or mess up or misinterpret completely. This is good. This is not failure. This is you. This is your work. What emerges in actuality is the honest creation of your own body. The gap between what you wanted to do and what you actually did is the space where transformation occurs; it is the difference between mere imitation (yes, even fulfilling what's in your own head would be mere plagiarism of yourself) and honest to god creation. Shit is transformative. Shit is creative. Shit is growth (literally, fertilizer; faeces are fecund).
6. FUCK ELVES. Elves are anti-shit. Graceful, hyper-competent, perfect, stagnant. An elf never has B.O., or farts, or gets gassy after a meal, or muffin tops in their favourite pants, or has body hair or even any bodily fluids. Elves eat kale salad without dressing every day. Elves eat that kale salad in juice form. Elves are what everyone tells you is sexy and good. FUCK THAT. Rejoice in scatological excess. The best parts of everything, eating, sleeping, shitting, fucking, are the grossest parts. Scratch your ass and eat a sandwich and lick your partner's armpit hair and admire the back rolls where the sweat collects and the acne because you guys drank too much last night! Let yourself be attracted to the grossness! The grossness is what makes us human. Fuck anyone who says otherwise, and fuck anyone who pretends they're not gross.
7. You know what a bad shit feels like. Do not let what you think, or what other people say you should think, trick you into disregarding what your body knows does not feel good for you.
8. Be shit at things. Play games you don't know the rules to. Write games you don't playtest or edit. Play games that you wrote but forget the rules that you wrote or ignore the rules that you wrote and play anyway.
9. Shit regularly.
10. Good manifestos might have ten points but this is a DUNG manifesto, it is shit, it is a heaping pile of stinking manure.
