I love this bit from Robin Sloan’s About Me page:
What’s a media inventor, anyway? I think it’s someone primarily interested in content—words, pictures, ideas—who also experiments with new formats, new tools, and new technology. Allen Lane was a media inventor. Early bloggers were media inventors. The indie video game scene is full of media inventors.
Media inventors aren’t satisfied with the suite of formats available to them by default. Novel, novella, or short story; album, EP, or single; RPG, RTS, or FPS—media inventors don’t like those options.
Media inventors feel compelled to make the content and the container.
If this sounds familiar, I invite you to use the label, too. And more generally, I’m on a mission to bring back the word inventor with all its connotations: protean lightning-crackle and occasional crackpot-itude alike.
Preach it, Brother Sloan! Can I get an a-men?