ystrickler

FWIW I think (but not 100%) that it was us at Kickstarter who first used the word "creator" the way it's used now.

At the time we were trying to decide how to describe all the different kinds of people who would be making projects -- artists, writers, filmmakers, coders, chefs. What do you call all of these people? There was no clear term, but in the course of brainstorming "Creator" really stood out as being the best at encompassing many different kinds of creative people. We launched with that as our term in 2009.

A year later I remember YouTube starting to use it too. I can't say for sure we were the absolute first, but I do remember when we decided to use it that it wasn't being used elsewhere.

The Creative Independent is an example: https://thecreativeindependent.com/

My newsletter archive is here: https://tinyletter.com/ystrickler/letters/the-dark-forest-th...

I cut some of this out before hitting publish, but I had originally included more about the emotional and status anxiety of posting publicly, reputation management, and the risks to self posed by the way these platforms work. I ultimately cut those things because I thought they distracted from the overall idea and it's something we already hear so much of. I definitely wouldn't say this analogy is 1:1 with Liu Cixin's original, but I do think there is a real fear to poking your head out online that isn't that far from the original dark forest concept.