My character at Sherwood Forest Faire is a villager named Iago. Iago is a peasant with no set occupation, which is fun because I can regale people with stories of many different jobs. Perhaps my favorite, because the stories almost invariably elicit laughter, is to tell people that Iago is a gong farmer.
What’s a gong farmer? Here’s what Meta AI has to say:
A gong farmer was a sanitation worker in medieval England responsible for removing human excrement from privies, cesspits, and toilets. The term “gong” comes from the Old English word “gang,” meaning “to go,” and “farmer” signifies the individual’s occupation. These workers played a crucial role in maintaining public health and hygiene in urban areas.
Key Responsibilities:
- Privy Cleaning: Emptying cesspits and privies, often using shovels, buckets, and wooden poles.
- Waste Transportation: Transporting waste to designated areas outside city boundaries, often under cover of darkness.
- Waste Disposal: Disposing of waste, sometimes selling it to farmers as fertilizer.
Working Conditions:
- Physically demanding and hazardous, with risks of asphyxiation from toxic gases and accidents in cesspits.
- Poor ventilation and foul odors added to the challenges.
- Often required to work at night, earning them the nickname “nightmen.”
Compensation and Social Status:
- Relatively well-paid, with some gong farmers earning what others would make in a week.
- Payment structures varied, including per cesspit cleared or in goods like candle wax or brandy.
- Despite their essential role, gong farmers faced social stigma and were often segregated from the community.
That’s all correct, or close enough. Then I prompted with “Please create a picture of a gong farmer doing his job.”
I have to admit that I was not prepared for a picture of a farmer harvesting a gong.
This is a curious result. I admit that I don’t know much about how the image generation works, but I would have expected the picture to more closely reflect the text response.