The world we live in is a cracked facsimile of human achievement, one caked in the refuse of commodified creation. Each new idea is the regurgitation of the safe and market-tested impressions of superannuated eyes. Yet to reject this mandated, passéist, reality plays into the insular and self-congratulatory system of moderated creativity.

To write, you must have an agent. To create you must forfeit your future to bask in the etiolated glory of those beaten down by the machinery of corporatized art.

The Neo-Decadent rails against this tired, monotonous existence not through concerning themself with direct rebellion but through the audacity to live in uninhibited kaleidoscopic joy. There's little reason to operate within a system that is fundamentally antagonistic to work that isn't designed for it, and the Neo-Decadent should take, repurpose, destroy, and reanimate with reckless abandon.

To me, this is the core of the unrelenting literary world I have emersed myself in. Years ago when I realized my decadent leanings and reinvented this blog to nurture those pursuits I did so aware I'd likely plonk away into obscurity. The desire to simply create on my own terms overrode my understanding of what was expected of a 21st-century successful author.

And just as abruptly as my passion took root, so to did my involvement with Justin Isis, one of the leading voices and recalcitrant guides of the Neo-Decadent movement. He swoops into view with an incalculable grace and irresistible passion to uplift voices he believes need a little push or editorial glance to realize themselves. It's thanks to Justin's undeniable charisma that I contributed to Neo-Decadence: 12 Manifestos, despite my self-doubt and hesitation to add to an endless sea of manifestos within the movement.

I was combative on the issue of more manifestos than work, of continuously spiraling and sometimes conflicting concepts of what Neo-Decadence seeks to achieve. Yet the more I read, and the more I interacted with the much more accomplished writers connected to these projects, I realized this literary deluge is the point.

The mad genius within Neo-Decadence permeates this collection, bringing seemingly incongruent voices together in an atonal yet tantalizing chorus. Justin describes 12 Manifestos as a guide, a self-help book on the road to the destruction of neo-passéist oppression. Despite my quarrelsome nature, I get it now, and arriving here required me to reject the ingrained "propriety" neo-passéism uses to grind down nonconformity.

You may not agree with every passage or vision of Neo-Decadence within this collection and the point isn't to blindly follow a path laid down for you. Existing in a Neo-Decadent reality is reveling in the decay of threadbare constructs and assembling yourself in juxtaposition to them. Create yourself and your work with an awareness of the world, of undeniable, universal beauty and celestial ruination.

Neo-Decadence is the frame of the 21st-century decline and the salvation of eternal invention.

Alongside Colby Smith (previously mentioned in my roundup of books from 2020) and Arturo Calderon, I contributed to the manifesto on electronic gaming. Something about jettisoning the professional writing path I had been on and repurposing it under the umbrella of Neo-Decadence broke through the years of writer’s block I’d suffered since my unceremonious exit from game journalism. I’d lost myself to the machine and felt I’d lost my voice, particularly as Colby and Arturo write so freely and passionately as I stare into the abyss of an inverted word processor.

It’s humbling to appear alongside them, as well as Damian Murphy, Justin Isis, Brendan Connell, Jeremy Reed, and so many more startlingly more accomplished authors and powerhouses of unhindered creation. Despite contributing to this volume I continue to feel like an outsider, like someone who turned up to a party in full swing and desperately trying to catch up. But I also think that feeling is part of my drive to hone my craft and further silence that obnoxious inner critic that has kept me from doing the work I’ve always adored.

You can purchase 12 Manifestos directly from the publisher Snuggly Books, and as part of their current decadence bundle. For transparency, I was asked to write about the book, and the direction it took surprises me. Neo-Decadence squirms beneath the skin, distorting your appraisal of yourself and the world around you. Surrender to it, drown in beauty and bask in plastic violet infinity.