You Won’t Be a Successful Creator if You Are a Drifter
How do you make people choose you in a world of endless options?
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During the golden age of magazines in the 70s, only so many of them could fit into the newsstand. Then, everyone started to walk with smartphones and iPads.
And the golden age was over.
Cause now the newsstand turned into a dopamine-hitting, infinite scroll of choice coming out of a blue-lighted screen, and the reader had to face a problem: endless choice.
The newsstand of creators has also blown up to infinity and beyond lately.
Now everyone has a blog, a YouTube channel, a podcast, a newsletter and a Patreon. There’s too many of us trying to make it. We talk of the market being “saturated,” but this is not a problem of space — there’s space for absolutely everyone.
And that’s the problem. Everyone’s here.
So why should anyone pick you?
The short answer is, “because you’re not a drifter.”
A drifter is someone who still thinks in big hits. The movie Alien is a hit. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody is a hit. Hits are big and noisy one-off events.
Creators that think in hits chase the viral article or video, the best-selling course, the most downloaded lead magnet and the highest-converting landing page.
But here’s the problem.
If you think in hits, you will naturally drift towards whatever’s most popular and universally appealing. Drifters chase the hit with the biggest net, designed for the widest audience. They don’t niche down; they dumb down and average things out so no one feels alienated.
But the drifter mindset is going obsolete
Newsstands are not the only ones that have gone virtual. We don’t buy DVD movies or CD albums anymore. A lot of things that had to be manufactured are just “uploaded” now.
Manufacturing stuff is costly and risky. That is why, if you wanted to be a professional musician back in the day, you had to sign an exploitative contract with a record label that could market and distribute your work.
That was a gamble for labels, so they naturally went with the safest, most commercially appealing artists. But now that has changed.
Now you can foam your bedroom, record a song, upload it to SoundCloud, and with a bit of luck, make it big like Billie Eilish. Or take a $30 sample and $20 worth of studio time and drop Old Town Road like Lil Nas X.
Look closer: those two artists are not your typical, formulaic, commercially viable musical product. They’re weird.
Now we can afford to choose weird
And people always wanted weird. We just couldn’t afford it until now.
So it makes sense that 70% of Google’s traffic and 57% of Amazon sales come from long-tail keywords.
That means people are actively looking for the weird, unique, niche stuff. Consumers don’t drift with the mainstream, because in a world of choice abundance, no one wants to be everyone. So why would you?
Appealing to everyone made sense when producing and distributing creations was costly and expensive. Now, most of us will do fine with a Substack newsletter, a Medium publication, or a Gumroad landing page because most of the stuff creators ship is virtual.
To avoid being a drifter, make the choices yourself
Take the YouTuber Airrack. The guy started on the platform in 2020 (read: not an early bird) but he made all the choices for you in advance.
The titles of his videos make it immediately clear what kind of content he’s shipping. He delivered food using a helicopter. He stole MrBeast’s $800,000 island. He sneaked into Jeff Wittek’s barbershop and bought Logan Paul’s couches for $90,000.
If you don’t know who any of these people are, that’s the point. Airrack didn’t just drift toward what was popular, hoping you’ll find something you like about him yourself.
He made all the choices for you. He knows what kind of content he ships, and who is it for. Then, he alienates everyone else. And for that reason, he could enter the most saturated newsstand on the internet and still reach 1 million subscribers in less than a year.
So stop drifting and start deciding
Don’t be the vanilla version of whatever creator you’re trying to be.
Don’t be just “a designer.” Instead, reach solopreneurs and tell them you’ll design their Twitter header. Make a name for that. Next time someone needs a Twitter header, your name will pop up.
That’s how you stop drifting: make people have no choice but to think about you.
If you’re a writer, write about whatever hits your fancy — but double down on your quirks. Write about how to survive the creator economy as a boomer. Give self-help advice from the point of view of a war veteran.
Inject your quirks, be unapologetically you, and give me no choice but to either love you or hate you.
In the beginning, it will feel like it’s the wrong thing to do
Why would I intentionally trim down my audience size?
As a creator, I’ve felt the urge to drift — and I’ve succumbed to it more than once. I’ve composed the songs that had the best chances of sounding on the radio while ignoring the ones I was truly invested in.
I’ve edited articles to make them appealing. I’m trying to be appealing now.
But as a consumer, I’m not interested in appealing. Appealing is boring. What I want is compelling.
So I’m slowly working my way to a compelling style. A style that will alienate most of you. That’s the point. “If you build it, they will come” is not true for a market saturated with choices — unless you build it specifically for them, and them only.
Who’s them? Well, that’s what we, as creators, have to figure out.
Why would anyone pick you? The choice is yours to make
My only complaint about this is the extinction of the physical newsstand. That was always the place in spy movies where the fugitive protagonist was recognised. How do you get Jason Bourne in trouble when everyone’s looking down at their phones?
But for the most part, I think it’s a good thing that we have so many choices available. Choice abundance doesn’t take away success from anyone. It just takes away access to everyone.
And this will finally allow creators to let out their quirks and traits, weirding people away until they’re only left with their true, committed fans.
