Hmm. Idea for journalists. Next interviewee talking about 'the team' / 'the studio', ask yourself if the interviewee is the only one publicly promoted as part of those efforts. If so, press them with follow-up questions about individual contributors, not dropping until given names. Boom! Solved. - ThreadSky

gregbuchananwriter.com • 14 days ago

Hmm. Idea for journalists.
Next interviewee talking about 'the team' / 'the studio', ask yourself if the interviewee is the only one publicly promoted as part of those efforts. If so, press them with follow-up questions about individual contributors, not dropping until given names. Boom! Solved.

Reposted from Greg R. Buchanan

I’ve seen some really weird parasocial idealisation of solo devs in the last few years who are anything but, often needing good sized teams, who are only ever “the team”, never named, not even once, because that would distract from the glorious glow of the solo credit. And we idolize them too!

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mrhands31.bsky.social•14 days ago

Humans abstract groups into single individuals, not for nefarious purposes, but because you very quickly run into a hard limit for how much an audience *can* care about individual contributors (Dunbar's Number)

gregbuchananwriter.com•14 days ago

Oh yeah totally - I think any solution is imperfect but at the least a beachhead against the notion with -some- variation would be useful

gregbuchananwriter.com•14 days ago

I don't think this is something bad for many -- just an oversight or too many names to mention etc -- but it definitely contributes to this problem and takes away advancement/discoverability from crucial team members whose work is elided under that person's glamour instead, TLOU and beyond.

nadescape.bsky.social•14 days ago

I feel like it’s a big part of the storytelling of media and marketing, unfortunately. Some of this is undoubtedly born from Western storytelling specifically, but the idea that people empathize more with individuals applies to PR, journalism, etc holds weight.

gregbuchananwriter.com•14 days ago

Oh yeah - but I think whenever we have 1-2 other people thrown in to biopics even, like The Founder or Social Network, it’s super compelling to see a team vs just one. Probably in those cases because it’s all about denying credit in part though! And hard for whole team - but -some- name checking plz

nadescape.bsky.social•13 days ago

Yeah for sure. Especially for small teams, there’s no reason not to credit individual contributors, even if it’s just a mention when discussing their direct contributions (score, art, etc), even if the main focus of a piece is on a singular creative.

gregbuchananwriter.com•14 days ago

Which, if we're being cynical, could be part of it. Why promote someone publicly if it increases their value / the amount you have to pay / competition for their services elsewhere?

Why threaten the power dynamic where you're the only gateway to providing paid employment?

gregbuchananwriter.com•14 days ago

Beyond this, as we've seen with CEOs of big and small tech companies alike, many of these people genuinely believe that it was all them, or want to perpetuate that narrative not even for money but just the sake of ego / acclaim.

An Iron Man suit could never be built by just Tony Stark.

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