I finally bit the bullet and finished David Epstein’s Range. While I have already shared some of the insights from his book, Epstein packs his argument with great research and great points. But while the general thesis of the book is that we should be generalists, not specializing in one field but diversifying our experience and interests, he neglected to discuss the impact of the creator economy on this idea.
The creator economy has enabled a new world in which the ability to create art has been democratized and the types of art that you can create have expanded. With access to a worldwide audience, artists can now niche down to an incredibly specific intersection of topics and share their ideas with the world.
Yet, the fewer topics you cover, the more difficult it is to appeal to an audience. For example, say that you are trying to get into the productivity YouTube sphere. If productivity is the only topic you post about, you are forced to become the best productivity YouTuber to attain traffic. However, if you are a productivity YouTuber who also is a minimalist and has a brand as an experimenter, you don’t need to compete with the other productivity YouTubers as you have an approach to productivity that differs from everyone else’s. That’s how Matt D’Avella rose to popularity.
There is a paradox in being a creative. For some, tacking on another point of interest narrows your audience: you don’t appeal just to productivity but only to productive minimalists. But, that’s not the case. Adding another interest doesn’t narrow your audience: it expands it. For those that are familiar with statistics, to find the probability that two independent events occur, you multiply their probability. So, if there is a 50% chance a random person is interested in productivity and a 50% chance someone is interest in minimalism, there is a 25% (.5 * .5) chance that someone is both. But, with audiences, it is better modeled by an OR statement. The probability that someone is interested in productivity or they are interested in minimalism is 75% — you still only have those 25% that are interested in both but you have an extra 50% who are interested in only one. With each new identity and point of entry you add, the more people you appeal to. It’s like specializing in being a generalist — you appeal to a wide variety of interests since you, yourself, have a wide variety of interests. Of course, there is a limit to this — you can’t keep adding identities until you appeal to the world. I plan to write further on this topic in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.
