People ask us this a lot.
Why the duck?
The short answer is simple: Claudio has a duck.
The longer answer is that the question itself got us thinking.
Not about ducks, necessarily, but about why we feel the need to explain so many of the things we like.
I've been thinking about play recently.
Not games, exactly, but about playfulness and the role it has in our lives. More specifically, why it seems to disappear as we get older.
There's a strange expectation that adulthood should make us more practical. We should have practical hobbies, practical interests and practical lives. If we spend time making something, there should probably be a good reason for it. If we collect objects, wear unusual clothes or spend hours learning a skill, it's almost expected that we'll eventually explain why.
The funny thing is that this feels particularly true in creative industries.
We spend so much time talking about concepts, narratives and meaning that sometimes it feels like making something because it's beautiful, funny or interesting isn't enough anymore. Every creative decision needs a backstory. Every object needs a statement. Every collection needs a concept.
A duck, apparently, can't simply be a duck.
I recently went back to Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens, and one idea stayed with me. He argues that play isn't just something culture produces; it's one of the conditions that make culture possible (HUIZINGA, 1938).
Art, music, language, rituals, festivals and fashion all contain an element of play. Not because they're trivial, but because experimentation, imagination and curiosity are fundamental parts of being human. Culture doesn't emerge despite playfulness. In many ways, it emerges through it.
I think we've forgotten that.
Somewhere along the way, play became associated with childhood. Growing up came to mean becoming productive, efficient and sensible. Leisure became something that should be earned, and hobbies became things we were expected to monetize or master. Even creativity started to feel like something that should eventually become useful.
Maybe that's why social media feels so exhausting sometimes.
It's easy to blame Instagram or TikTok for all of this, but the story is probably older than that. Erving Goffman (1956) observed that social life already involved a degree of performance. We naturally present different versions of ourselves depending on context. The person we are at work isn't exactly the same person we are with friends, and that's not necessarily a sign of inauthenticity. It's part of living with other people.
Social media didn't invent performance. It simply expanded the audience.
Byung-Chul Han (2015) takes this a step further. He argues that contemporary culture increasingly rewards visibility and constant self-presentation. The pressure to optimize extends beyond work and into leisure, relationships and identity itself. It's no longer enough to simply have experiences; we're encouraged to document them, curate them and make them understandable to other people.
It's hard not to wonder whether creativity gets caught up in that logic too.
Why did you make this?
What does it mean?
What's the story behind it?
Sometimes the honest answer is surprisingly simple.
Because I liked it.
Because it made me laugh.
Because it felt right.
Not everything needs to become a statement. Not every object needs to carry a hidden message. Not every creative decision needs to justify itself through strategy or symbolism.
Some things become meaningful because they become part of our lives, not because they were designed to represent something larger.
The duck didn't come from a branding exercise.
Claudio has a duck.
That's it.
We could invent a better story. We could connect it to mythology or folklore or write a clever paragraph about symbolism.
But we like the real story better.
Maybe that's because we spend so much time trying to explain ourselves.
Our interests.
Our work.
Our style.
The strange little objects we become attached to.
Maybe not everything needs a reason.
Maybe not everything needs to perform.
Maybe some things are worth keeping simply because they make life more interesting.
And maybe a duck can just be a duck.
GOFFMAN, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre, 1956.
HAN, Byung-Chul. The Burnout Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015.
HAN, Byung-Chul. The Transparency Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2015.
HUIZINGA, Johan. Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.