Novice Enthusiasm: The Cult of Creativity

Every creative movement begins with belief. An idea takes shape, a voice inspires, and before you know it, a small group of people are orbiting the same idea. They’re all chasing the same feeling. It’s what makes art and revolutions possible. Passion, shared vision, sacrifice, and belief. These are the ingredients that build culture. But if they go unchecked, they can just as easily build control.

This is where creative environments can start to resemble cults. The same fire that fuels innovation can also burn individuality. The line between dedication and control is nearly invisible until you’ve already crossed it.

The Creative Cult of Personality

People are drawn to visionaries. That’s natural. Big ideas need big voices. But there’s a difference between a leader who inspires belief and one who demands devotion.

Healthy creative leadership invites participation. It encourages individuality, frames the vision as shared, and sees critique as collaboration. Unhealthy leadership treats disagreement like betrayal. It keeps power centralized, and uses charisma or fear to maintain control.

The difference is reciprocity. In a healthy culture, admiration goes both ways. In a cultic one, it only moves upward.

Group Identity and the Loss of Self

Strong teams tend to develop their own language, humor, process, and rituals. That’s part of what makes belonging feel good. But when identity starts to replace individuality, culture turns into conformity.

Speaking from experience, a perfect example of this is when burnout gets mistaken for dedication, or when disagreement is rebranded as apostasy. The group becomes self-referential. They feed on their own mythology. They mistake exhaustion for proof of devotion.

You are made to believe that if you’re work makes you miserable, then you’re doing it right. This is one of the greatest lies told to creatives. New recruits are baptized in this filth. This isn’t culture. It’s the blueprint for a human spirit meat grinder.

Culture is meant to amplify creativity, not consume it.

The Startup Parallel

Startups and studios sometimes mirror spiritual movements. There’s usually a charismatic founder. A devoted inner circle. A mission that feels larger than life. That energy is electric, but it’s fragile. Remove reflection and belief becomes delusion.

A healthy studio says, “We believe in something, but we question everything.”
An unhealthy ones say, “We are the belief.”

I have no problem with integrating a belief system into creativity. But when the mission replaces the human beings driving it, exploitation is easy to justify. Burnout becomes sacrifice. Boundaries disappear in the name of purpose.

Creative Loyalty vs. Creative Captivity

Loyalty in creative work is a beautiful thing. It builds trust, consistency, and depth. But it should never require the loss of self.

Loyalty says, “I choose to stay because I believe in this.”
Captivity says, “If I stop believing, I lose everything.”

One strengthens identity. The other erases it.

True loyalty amplifies your voice. It doesn’t replace it.

Why Artists Are Especially Vulnerable

If it’s starting to sound like I have a chip on my shoulder, it’s because I do. I’ve seen the inner mechanics of high-control groups. I’ve been in the strangle hold of a “collaborator”. Does it work? Yes. But it often comes at a very high price and the quality of the work suffers.

Artists seek meaning. It’s in our DNA. We can’t help it. We feel deeply and crave connection. After long stretches of isolation, a sense of belonging is like oxygen. But that hunger for purpose can also make us susceptible to control.

Cults and cult-like environments offer what art already gives us: validation, clarity, and vision. The difference is freedom. Art gives it. Cults take it.

Self-awareness is the artist’s safeguard. You have to know what part of you is being nourished, and what part is being drained. Self-awareness should be a personal non-negotiable, never to be traded for a paycheck or worse yet, “work for exposure”.

Creative work can be tiring. Being tired is different from being drained. Being tired can be fixed with a nap or a meal. Being drained is an indication that you’ve fallen into the clutches of a vampiric system (or person) leaching off your spirit.

Building Healthy Creative Ecosystems

If you’re leading a team, steering a product, or even mentoring someone, you can keep the ecosystem clean by keeping people at the center.

Normalize disagreement.
Encourage rest.
Champion honesty over flattery.
Keep the mission in service of people, never the other way around.

The healthiest creative cultures are ones that allow people to walk away and still feel whole.

While appropriate boundaries should be in place to keep things on track, creativity thrives in freedom, not control. Belief is powerful, but it should never cost you yourself. Belief should never start to be replaced with fear. The best teams, the best leaders, and the best art all come from a place where love for the work doesn’t require losing who you are. It comes directly from respect and love of yourself and your fellow man.

That’s the kind of belonging worth building.