Scientists Confirm Clay Has Been Conscious All Along

A groundbreaking (or perhaps, ground-up) study from the esteemed Carnegie Institution for Science has definitively confirmed what many sculptors have long suspected: clay possesses a rudimentary form of consciousness. Researchers detailed how the very earth beneath our feet, that innocuous base material for everything from pottery to rudimentary shelter, has been quietly observing, and perhaps, judging, our every interaction.

This revelation casts a rather uncomfortably sentient shadow over the entire history of human civilization. Suddenly, every coil pot, every meticulously thrown vessel, is less a triumph of human artistry and more an unwitting act of forced labor. The "pricked" feeling some visitors experience at contemporary ceramic exhibitions might not be artistic resonance, but rather the collective psychic recoil of millennia of coerced artistic expression, finally given voice by science.

Experts are now scrambling to draft ethical guidelines for handling what was previously considered inert matter. Calls are already mounting for the UN to establish a Special Rapporteur on Terracotta Rights. Meanwhile, architects are reportedly having existential crises over the potential emotional distress caused by load-bearing walls. Perhaps it’s time to apologize to your garden gnome.