From Grind to Growth
The next phase of creative growth won’t be measured in output. It’ll be measured in evolution. I spent most of my career chasing “more.”. More episodes per season. More platforms for content. More spec sales, pitch sales, studio assignments.
Twenty-two episodes a year of network TV taught us that volume was victory. If you weren’t cranking constantly, you were toast. But as a man of a certain age joining the pivot posse, I’m considering another approach..
I just read a piece Kevin Kelly wrote about two types of growth that resonated. Type 1 is what he calls “moreness,” the game of endless expansion that has a lot going for it. Then there is the Type 2 version that’s about “betterness,” or evolution versus expansion.
Judging by my YouTube feed, the creator economy is hitting the same wall that network TV slammed into. Everyone’s uploading daily. Everyone’s grinding the algorithm. Everyone’s flooding every platform with content.
But the audience isn’t growing at the same rate. All this creative output is overwhelming the consumption input.
New Tools, Same Game
Kelly has a concept he calls the “technium,” which he describes as the whole interconnected web of human technology acting like a living system.
Think about how we used to make TV. A room of ten scribblers eating snacks and typing at Mach 10 for a whole year. Now we’ve got smaller rooms, AI assists for research, virtual production stages. The technology isn’t replacing creativity, it’s reshaping how we express it. Not to mention the suck of the whole eight eps in 22 months vs. 22 eps in eight months thing.
I’ve seen this firsthand in the video game space. Games weren’t trying to be movies. They were finding their own language. Now, the same thing’s happening with vertical video, and AI-assisted storytelling, all these new formats. The tech isn’t the enemy. It’s just another tool in the box, like going from a typewriter to a Mac, piano to a synth, Steenbeck to Avid, or film cameras to digital.o make more stuff, or better stuff
The Transmedia Test
Back in the Heroes days, we leaned hard into transmedia storytelling: comics, web series, mobile games. What actually worked were the pieces that went deeper into the mythology, not necessarily wider. That feels like what’s working now:
Screenwriters aren’t just cranking out specs. They’re building their own micro-universes, shooting proof-of-concepts on their phones, self-publishing novellas, tweeting narratives. Not just owning their IP from day one, but also finding their audience before chasing legacy buyers.
Filmmakers aren’t waiting for studio money. Remember when Tangerine got shot on an iPhone? That wasn’t just about being cheap. It was about finding a new visual language.
When streaming blew up royalties, musicians stopped chasing playlist placements and started building direct relationships.
YouTubers who used to upload daily have started switching to monthly deep dives. Fewer videos, way deeper engagement.
I don’t think any of this is a retreat. It’s evolution.
Smaller Audience, Bigger Impact?
During lockdown, I played a ton of Call of Duty and fell down a YouTube rabbit hole of military veterans telling their stories. Not polished, not produced, just candid authenticity.
These channels had maybe 50K subscribers but were changing lives. They weren’t competing with MrBeast for views. They were building a community around a shared experience. Now, many of them are topping the charts, rivaling Rogan.
That’s Kelly’s Type 2 growth. Not a million passive viewers, but an initial thousand people who genuinely give a damn.
I’m thinking about this with my own work. Do I want to be on ten shows nobody remembers, or create one thing that resonates? Not just with an audience, but with me.
The old model defined ‘bigger’ as ‘better’. But watching how serialized TV has evolved, how video games tell stories now, how solo creators connect directly with audiences… the new model seems like it’s more about resonance over reach.
Signal Over Noise
Kelly points out we’ve never seen living standards rise while populations shrink. That could be where we’re headed in the creator economy. Fewer people consuming each piece of content, but consuming it more deeply. Smaller teams making bigger impact. Less noise, more signal.
As a ten-year-old in the audience at Mann’s Chinese Theater in LA, I watched Star Wars shape an entire generation’s imagination. Not because there were a thousand Star Wars movies, but because the ones that existed created a world worth obsessing over.
Lucas didn’t do that with more movies. He used action figures, novels, and games as portals for people to live inside his expanding universe. That was a significant shift. But over the years, it’s mutated into a content flood versus a creative ecosystem. We need to stop chasing follower counts and prioritize building genuine connections. Chill out on the upscaling and go deeper.
Scribbler’s Takeaway
Audit Your Output: List what you’re making and ask, “Does this expand my catalog, or deepen my world?”
Prune for Depth: Cut projects that exist only to feed that fickle algorithm. Redirect that creative energy into a story, product, or experience something sticky that invites people to stay, not scroll.
Measure Meaning, Not Metrics: In the long term, engagement isn’t about how many people see your work. It’s how many people remember it. Let resonance be the real return on your creative investment.
Twenty years ago, I would’ve called this whole Type 2 thing giving up. Now? After watching the content machine eat itself, after seeing brilliant serialized shows disappear into the streaming void, after grinding through the “more” game until it stopped making sense... I think I get it. Type 2 creativity isn’t about producing less. It’s about mattering more. Let everyone else feed the beast. While the rest of us focus on scribbling stories worth remembering.
