What is a creative person to do to achieve their goals?
There have always been many paths. Most rely on craft, consistency, and the slow accumulation of reputation. Some iterate strategically to refine their output. Others are situated next to blue links, gaining early exposure to distribution, mentorship, and creative networks.
Yet no route guarantees success or failure: the ability to navigate structures, whether social, institutional, or informal, is as essential as the work itself. Social capital, in the form of networks, perception, and proximity to influence, shapes the creative journey as much as the act of creation.
To explore this idea we can turn to four illustrative cases: two fictional, two real. Frédéric Moreau from Sentimental Education, Julie from The Worst Person in the World, Eminem, and MrBeast. Their stories, drawn from different contexts, offer contrasting answers to the central question: how does someone become what they hope to be?
These examples are presented as sketches of different approximations. The author assumes that both Eminem and MrBeast would be flattered by the way they’ve been presented, while fictional characters allow us to examine success and failure at a personal scale and say that any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The following tables outline key aspects of our illustrative cases.
Artistic Aspirations
| Self-oriented | Audience-oriented |
|---|---|
| Frédéric Become a prestigious writer | MrBeast Build the most successful YouTube channel |
| Julie Find a meaningful creative life | Eminem Become a world-class rapper |
Everyone chases a different kind of success. Frédéric and Julie look inward: one seeks self-worth, the other meaning. Eminem and MrBeast look outward: one wants to be the best, the other the biggest.
Aspiration is never just about output — it’s about orientation. Some create to become whole; others, to be seen. The first question in the path is: Who am I trying to become?
Starting Points
| Open Doors | Forced Doors |
|---|---|
| Frédéric Upper middle-class Educated, socially connected Parisian elite salons | Eminem Working-class Dropped out of high school Detroit rap battles |
| Julie Middle-class Formally educated, culturally fluent Oslo creative scene | MrBeast Middle-class Dropped out of college Early YouTube |
The origins of Frédéric, Julie, Eminem, and MrBeast reflect contrasting forms of access. Frédéric and Julie begin with built-in advantages: formal education, cultural fluency, and proximity to influence. Eminem and MrBeast, by contrast, must construct their own networks from scratch.
These foundations don’t dictate outcomes, but they define the terrain. Each path continues with a different answer to the question: What do I already have, and what must I acquire?
Relationship with Institutions
| Institutional Orientation | Independent Orientation |
|---|---|
| Frédéric Institutions set the frame Mimic the gatekeepers | Julie Lateral to institutions Bypassed hierarchy through flexibility |
| MrBeast Institutions as infrastructure Operated strategically within the system | Eminem Institutions as tools Provocative toward authority |
Their interactions reveal their temperament toward institutionalized power.
Frédéric seeks validation from established structures—literary, political, romantic—yet remains deferential and inert, allowing institutions to define his limits.
Julie, meanwhile, sidesteps gatekeeping altogether, moving laterally through roles and relationships without ever confronting hierarchy directly.
Eminem takes the opposite tack: he confronts exclusion head-on, it turns his problem into their problem.
MrBeast doesn’t challenge authority but studies and exploits it. He treats YouTube not as a gatekeeper to be appeased, but as an engine to be reverse-engineered.
In each case, institutions aren’t just structures — they’re systems of power, shaping who gets to speak, be heard, and belong. How each person responds reveals character: whether they defer, drift, defy, or dissect.
Each response begins with a question: What do institutions ask of me — and what might I ask of them in return?
Approach to Rejection
| Rejection as Identity | Rejection as Iteration |
|---|---|
| Frédéric Responded with inertia or self-pity Saw rejection as defeat or personal failing | Julie Used failure for introspection and change Treated rejection as information |
| Eminem Turned marginalization into lyrical fuel and drive Transformed exclusion into motivation | MrBeast Used underperformance as data; iterated until breakout Treated failure as feedback loop |
How they respond to rejection reveals the internal architecture of their ambition.
Frédéric collapses inward. Rejection becomes not something to resist, but something to retreat into.
Julie absorbs rejection quietly, using it to adjust course. Her setbacks aren’t crises — they’re signals, prompting reflection and reinvention.
Eminem meets rejection head-on. Marginalization doesn’t shrink him; it sharpens him. Every dismissal becomes a challenge he answers loudly in public.
MrBeast, meanwhile, treats rejection not as judgment but as feedback. A low view count, a flat video — these aren’t failures of self but tactical failures. He doesn’t take it personally. He takes it iteratively.
Across all four, rejection acts less as a verdict than a mirror—reflecting who they are when the world says no.
And that becomes the most important question: What does failure mean to me — and what am I willing to do with it?
Outcomes
Though each figure engages with creativity, institutions, and rejection, they do so with different motivations, starting conditions, and internal logics. The contrast between self-oriented and audience-oriented aspirations, or between those who internalize failure and those who iterate on it, reveals that success depends on how and why one moves through the world to achieve creative success.
Everyone gets exactly (or almost exactly) what they pursue.
Frédéric’s failure comes not from lack of talent or access, but from a quiet refusal to act. Even with the best starting point, success depends on commitment. Access and proximity are opportunities, not outcomes.
Julie, though her path is meandering and uncertain, achieves a kind of peace; her success is internal, the reward of a self forged through experience rather than applause.
Eminem’s outcome is the most canonical: he turned his own life—flaws, failures, and all—into a spectacle of art. His voice is so fierce, so public, that the original dismissals are forgotten; only the response remains.
MrBeast, in contrast, constructs a new model of success, built not on expression but on optimization for mass appeal and visibility.
Taken together, their outcomes reflect not just what they made, but what they became in the making. So we must circle back to aspirations and rephrase the question: What kind of person does this path require me to become?