My Superstars

We get superstars fed to us constantly—through competitions and viral moments and carefully managed brands. And I’ve chased enough of them to figure out it doesn’t matter. The people who actually change how I think and work are almost never the ones with the biggest platforms. They’re photographers I found by accident, musicians nobody’s heard of, designers solving problems sideways. That’s the group that matters.

As someone who makes things, I notice the difference pretty clearly. The superstars worth paying attention to aren’t famous because they won a competition or went viral—they matter because their work teaches me something. Maybe it’s how they use color. Maybe it’s the way they see space. Maybe it’s a solution to a problem I didn’t even know how to approach. These aren’t people I follow because everyone else is watching them. They’re people I follow because they’re actually doing something.

Most of them are complete strangers. Some are people I know personally. A few are probably dead. The common thread is they’re the ones whose work I’m actually thinking about when I’m working myself. The rest of it—the ones with the biggest numbers and the most polished brands—that’s just noise, even when they’re genuinely talented.

I stopped trying to figure out who the real superstars are a while back. I just pay attention to whoever’s making something that pulls at me. That’s the whole system right there.