Striver, Seeker, Icon, Leader

The 16 types of creators and the metamorphic impulse

Lately on Substack, there’s been an enthusiastic conversation around defining and growing into a writerly identity while also negotiating/rationalizing a comfortable presence on a platform that is, for better or worse, beginning to redefine what it means to be a writer.

(Warning: This is a rare inside-baseball newsletter issue. I almost never “write about writing.” So don’t subscribe expecting to see more of the same. Regular readers: You might enjoy this as a look inside the sausage factory, and it might offer some insight on how to tune your filters, but feel free to ignore otherwise)

I find the current conversation about and on Substack (mostly in the Notes section, which most readers don’t read) curiously boring. Like it is by/for/about a somewhat annoying subculture I happen to be adjacent to, but am not part of, and don’t want to join. But I also think it can be leveled up to be more broadly interesting, and this essay is my contribution towards that end.

I think I find the current conversation boring because though I write a lot, and fairly successfully, I don’t primarily identify as a writer. Or even as a blogger. But it goes deeper than that. Regardless of whether or not I identify as a writer or blogger, I also don’t identify with a particular instrumental approach to writing, the behavior. Substack is in some ways friendliest to writers who identify as writers, and approach it in an instrumental mode.

In thinking through the nature of instrumentality, it struck me that the opposite of an instrumental mode is a metamorphic mode. As in metamorphosis; not to be confused with metaphoric. Instrumental words try to change the world in predictable ways, while acquiring some sort of legible extrinsic reward. Conventionally, esteem and money, but it can be any sort of extrinsic reward. Metamorphic words on the other hand, attempt to change the author in unpredictable ways, which you can think of as an intrinsic reward of sorts. They may also have a metamorphic (think “pilling”) effect on readers, but this is not their defining quality.

If you don’t like, or are bored with, who you are right now, whether as a writer, or more generally as a person, you can write yourself into an unpredictable new version. It’s a kind of disruptive self-authorship lottery. That’s metamorphic writing. You can achieve metamorphic effects with other media too, but writing is particularly good for it.

There are two more important dimensions to consider. First, whether you’re more comfortable in your skin as an institutional insider or an outsider. This is the sensibility dimension, which has little to do with where you’re actually situated, but will determine how comfortable or uncomfortable you’ll feel with wherever you are. Second, there is also the maturity dimension of whether you’re a beginner, or established within whatever mode, and in whatever circumstances, you write in. Motivations change as you evolve from beginner to established, assuming you enjoy enough success to stay in the game.

These 4 dimensions: identity, sensibility, mode, and maturity, lead naturally to a typology of 16 types of creators of any sort, not just writers. They also fit neatly into a set of 4 nested 2x2s that fit into an outer 2x2, creating a kind of Myers-Briggs scheme for creators.

I’ve illustrated the scheme below.

The outer 2x2 — the 4-colored political-compass-looking one — is sensibility vs. identity. The inner 2x2 (repeated 4 times in the quadrants of the outer 2x2) is mode vs. maturity.

Of the four, the dimension that interests me most is the inner x-axis, the mode of writing. Identity and sensibility, the outer dimensions, are about finding your place in the world. The inner y-axis, maturity, is about making your way in the world in time, by growing old doing whatever you do. But the mode, instrumental vs. metamorphic, is the most interesting and lively dimension.

Tour of the 16 Types

But let me provide a quick tour of the typology before diving into that. Tag yourself before continuing. Try to pick a primary type and maybe a couple of secondary ones.

• Insider-Creators (“Creator” Creators)

  • Auditioner: Beginner/Instrumental: Looking for a publishing or record deal or equivalent.

  • Contender: Beginner/Metamorphic: Trying to find and establish a unique “voice” (a significant metamorphic evolution for any writer).

  • Competitor: Established/Instrumental: Trying to win prizes.

  • Legend: Established/Metamorphic: Trying to transcend the “anxiety of influence” in the sense of Harold Bloom.

• Insider-Non-Creators (Normie Creators)

  • Careerist: Beginner/Instrumental: Looking to build wealth, acquire titles (not in writing), get promotions, and using writing/creation as part of the strategy.

  • Grinder: Beginner/Metamorphic: Working hard to be seen as “normal” and “fitting in.” (yes you can write/create your way into “fitting in” within some institutional landscape)

  • Authority: Established/Instrumental: Focused on individual legacy and reputation laundering. The impulse to be an authority is a sovereignty impulse in the sense of Hannah Arendt. In its dark form, it’s the monarchial/sociopath/totalitarian instinct. At the risk of Godwinning this post, think about why Hitler might have been driven to write Mein Kampf.

  • Free citizen: Established/Metamorphic: Wanting to be seen as a “pillar of society,” driven by the need to “appear in public” in the sense of Hannah Arendt among other free citizens, and deeply and sincerely involved in a particular “discourse.” But seeing the value in other equal-but-different voices and the poverty of creating in isolation as opposed to within a pluralist discourse.

• Outsider-Creators (Scenester Creators)

  • Groupie: Beginner/Instrumental: Driven by notice-me senpai drives within a subcultural scene.

  • Social Nomad: Beginner/Metamorphic: Trying to find yourself on the map of the scene (or even the right scene to make a home in, which might never happen).

  • Big Man: Established/Instrumental: Motivated by being the recognized senpai of a scene. The term Big Man refers to the anthropological concept of an influential leader with real but not ascriptive authority, and need not be a man.

  • Conscience: Established/Metamorphic: Motivated by serving as the conscience of a scene.

• Outsider-Non-Creators (Frontier Creators)

  • Growth Hacker: Beginner/Instrumental: Motivated by finding a formula for engagement farming/growth hacking. Often seen as the worst archetype, but in my estimation, not actually that bad.

  • Frame Breaker: Beginner/Metamorphic: Looking for non-formulaic viral resonance, or “proof of vibes” through creation, as a way to probe the nature of the world.

  • Influencer: Established/Instrumental: Motivated by accumulating money or political influence (extra-institutional) within a particular scene.

  • Seer: Established/Metamorphic: Motivated by the possibility of expanding the space of human experience.

By the logic of the inner 2x2, we also have 4 Keirsey-style Myers-Briggs creator “temperaments” here.

• Striver Archetypes: Auditioners, Careerists, Groupies, and Growth Hackers

• Seeker Archetypes: Contender, Grinder, Social Nomad, and Frame Breakers

• Leader Archetypes: Competitor, Authority, Big Man, Influencer

• Icon Archetypes: Legend, Free Citizen, Conscience, Seer

Most people mature vertically, rarely crossing over from instrumental to metamorphic or vice-versa. So the two vertical halfs of all 4 inner 2x2s can also be seen as “swim lanes” people stay in (though they may pick up a few tricks from the other lane — for example, a bit of metamorphosis can make striving more efficient and effective, and a bit of striving can trigger some metamorphosis). Strivers become Leaders if they do well. Seekers become Icons if they do well.

Obviously, the Outsider-Non-Writer outer quadrant is best, and within that the Icon quadrant of Seer is the best. The worst people in the universe are the auditioners.

Kidding. Just kidding. It’s my 2x2s so I get to orient it the way I want. But yes, I think my career in writing has been in the outsider non-writer outer quadrant, and has been about trying to mature from frame-breaker seeker mode to seer icon mode.

That said, there are no pure cases of course. I’ve mostly blogged and self-published, but I’ve had a few things published in gatekept creator media as well. I mostly don’t identify as a writer, but on very rare occasions, with specific pieces, I do. In the inner 2x2, I mostly don’t care about the instrumental side of any of the four regimes in my public writing, but in my non-public consulting-related writing, I do.

This typology is a bit on-the-nose, so it doesn’t really call for a subtle personality-test questionnaire. You just have to take an honest look at what you’re doing and why to figure it out.

Instrumental vs. Metamorphic

Instrumental vs. metamorphic (inner x-axis) is the most interesting, liveliest dimension. It’s the live rail through which the current is flowing. It is also the one most closely tied to innate personality I think.

Instrumental/metamorphic is to some extent a function of the producer or consumer, and there’s a good deal of serendipity and path dependence involved in the metamorphic effects of words. For a mind in the right state, reading (or even writing) some banal, instrumental signage on the street such as “stop for pedestrians at crosswalk,” might trigger a deep metamorphic transformation; one they might even experience as “enlightenment.” For a sufficiently aged and experienced mind on the other hand, a cathartic piece of confessional writing in a spiritual idiom, which was deeply transformational and entirely unpredictable for the (likely young) writer and their close friends, might come across as a tedious, embarrassing, and entirely predictable sophomoric growth spasm.

That said, there is an objective dimension to the instrumental/metamorphic distinction. Wonkish reports, Supreme Court judgements, sales pitches, how-to guides, explainers, genre fiction, MFA “program lit,” business books, Hollywood screenplays, news reports, op eds, work emails — these rarely have metamorphic effects on either writer or reader. They may take great skill to produce, but are essentially instrumental kinds of writing. If they have metamorphic effects, it’s some accident of path-dependent circumstances, age/maturity, and randomness. On the other hand, poetry, private journals, confessionals, memoirs, wilder literary works, indie screenplays, research writing, spiritual texts, cultural commentary — these usually have at least some metamorphic effect on the writer, even if they’re objectively terrible and cringe works in terms of both ideas and craftsmanship. And if they’re any good, they will also have a metamorphic effect on some non-trivial subset of readers in the right state.

I suspect the metamorphic “Force” is strongest in the outsider-non-writer quadrant of the outer 2x2.

To first order then, we can say that works intended to be metamorphic or instrumental usually have the corresponding kinds of effects, which means the two economies are approximately separable, and can be considered separately. Personally, I do a lot of both kinds of writing, and they do feel very distinct for me. If I’m blocked on one kind of writing, I can usually still do the other kind. But the kind of writing that feels satisfying, and which I’d continue to do whether or not I made money at it, is all metamorphic.

The Creator Economy is 99% Instrumental

I suspect, in terms of volume, there is 10x more instrumental than metamorphic writing in the world, and it is also way easier to build an economy around. But the rare bits of metamorphic writing that truly tap into something special can radically reshape that economy from time to time. One measure of that: While most metamorphic writing never leaves private journals, the most successful pieces that make a public debut go insanely viral in a long-term, enduring way. On the other hand, all instrumental writing is seen by people besides the writer, but it rarely endures or explodes memetically. But it tends to be comfortably profitable for a while.

So it makes sense that most economic organization around creating — the “creator economy,” is instrumental. The metamorphic words economy is too unpredictable, temperamental, and hard to financialize. The rare huge economy-reshaping metamorphic hits can’t be planned for and could emerge in any of the four outer quadrants. At most you can leave the door open to getting lucky. The creator economy is necessarily 99% instrumental.

A closing comment on Substack.

Substack has been productively messing with the boundaries and gatekeeping of “writing” in consequential ways. Including continuing the democratization of writing that began with blogging, a trend that has been progressively drawing in more and more people who don’t primarily identify as writers, and getting them writing at professional levels. It’s a bit like how typing went from specialist skill and identity to something everybody did pretty well. Except few people had an identity attached to being a good professional typist. It was a job, not a calling.

This seems to be a particular cause for angst among Substackers who identify as “writers” in relatively traditional “insider” ways (red quadrant), and whom Substack has been courting aggressively for years. The money you can make on Substack is attractive to all, but is particularly angst-causing for those who are attached to traditional writerly identities but haven’t yet established a successful one. The ones from the red quadrant who succeed are the ones with somewhat mercenary instrumental sensibilities (and ideally, are bringing a legacy audience from a traditional media platform to Substack).

Therein lies the tension of the platform. Substack wants to democratize writing and get everybody to write, while keeping the “writer” identity exclusive-feeling, and monetizing the whales bringing in both the old-media fossil fuel and the exclusive senpai main-character energy. I don’t blame Substack for trying to have this cake and eat it too.

And it wants to have a non-instrumental brand,¹ one that avoids the perception of engagement farming and cynical hustling. But it is dependent on writers using the well-understood techniques of the instrumental mode for success. I do blame them for that a little bit.

One notable sign of the tension is the schizophrenia of the “Notes” feature. Initially billed as both a Twitter competitor and a place to build an audience, it’s now clear it’s neither. But it’s still been successful in an unexpected and somewhat annoying way.

Notes is more LinkedIn than Twitter, and it’s mostly a place to network and commiserate with other writers about the problems of the writing world. Barely any readers seem to hang out there. Most of the activity is people without audiences or publishing deals looking in the wrong place to find them, just as LinkedIn is mostly the wrong place to look for jobs (it’s a good place for some in-demand people to be head-hunted and offered jobs of course; I’m guessing there are opportunities being offered in the DMs — I’ve been offered one I wasn’t interested in).

In a way, the failure of Notes to function as advertised has created an accidental opportunity for Substack to create a writer’s network of a sort that does not prima facie, seem like a good business idea. Unlike hungry recruiters trying to land in-demand programmers on LinkedIn, a set of networking writers is not a natural money-making scene. There is a slight chance that richer writerly conversations will emerge, across the whole 16-sector map, but finding a way to make it make money will take work.

But figuring out and fixing/doubling down on all that is Substack’s challenge, not yours or mine, so enough said about that. If they navigate it well, we’ll all hang around. If they don’t we’ll go somewhere else or complain loudly. I wish them well, but am hedging my bets as always. That’s why I still have a WordPress blog and a non-Substack email list.

For creators in general, whatever platform you use, whether walled gardens like Substack, TikTok, YouTube, or Instagram, or more open-commons type places like WordPress, the typology will hopefully help you think about what you’re doing and why.

For readers and “content consumers” in general (and all creators are also consumers of course), I hope the typology helps you refine your filters and decide better what to consumer versus ignore/tune out.

1. All writing platforms do. Medium had an initial branding of “authentic” metamorphic writing and featured a lot of transformation confessional stories, but at some point it became a parody of itself in a way that struck me as instrumental — there was a “formula” to telling a metamorphic story on Medium, and a distinct space of extrinsic rewards being sought. Patreon took the metamorphic angle too seriously and ended up being an audience-capture zone. Another instrumental result.