We love to sort things. We put books and music in genres, products on bestseller lists, and people into categories. Categories help us organize, rank, and navigate the world.
But what happens when those categories define us more than we define them?
From business to culture, categories shape what gets attention, what gets rewarded, and what gets left behind. If you’re a creator, entrepreneur, or builder, understanding how sorting things works—who controls it and how it evolves—can help you find opportunities others overlook.
Let’s start at the top.
Why We Categorize Everything
We don’t sort things just for fun. We do it because categories serve a useful function. Because our brain is programmed to look for patterns, and create them when needed. Categories have helped us survive and evolve for thousands of years.
Here are five reasons we create them:
-
- To find things – Barcodes (UPC’s). Your kitchen drawer. Amazon’s product listings. Sorting helps us locate what we need faster.
-
- To rank things – We like knowing what’s “best.” Bestseller lists. Top 10 rankings. Best-in-category awards.
-
- To predict behavior – Birds fly. Fish swim. Categories give us reasonable confidence in how something will act based on where we place it.
-
- To understand the world around us – Science sorts elements into the periodic table. Biologists classify species. Astronomers label stars, and planets, and galaxies.
-
- To divide us – Political labels. Industry silos. The categories we create can reinforce biases and make us see “us” vs. “them.”
The Illusion
So what’s the problem? Well, categories aren’t neutral.
Whatever force creates and controls the categories in the first place, has enormous control of the narrative surrounding the people, things, and ideas in those categories.
-
- The New York Times Bestseller List isn’t just a pure reflection of what’s selling—it’s a curated list with rules that can be gamed, that shape who makes the cut.
-
- The Grammys once had a “Best Polka Album” award—until one artist won it 18 times, and they quietly retired the category.
-
- The Michelin Guide dictates which restaurants are “world-class.” A restaurant without a star might still serve extraordinary food, but if it’s not in the Michelin system, it doesn’t get the same recognition.
Categories often define what matters, what sells, and what people pay attention to in our modern culture. If something doesn’t fit neatly into an existing category, the system often ignores it.
Consider how film genres influence what gets made in Hollywood. If a film can’t be marketed as a “comic-hero action,” “drama,” or “kids movie,” it struggles to get funding. Filmmakers have to thoughtfully consider conforming to predefined genres, or find creative ways to position their work within an existing category, if their goal is to get their movie made and seen.
This same issue affects creators across industries. If your work doesn’t fit the traditional mold, the world isn’t necessarily built to make space for it. But understanding this shouldn’t be discouraging—seeing it is empowering because it means you can play the game differently.
How Creators Can Hack the System
If you don’t like the category, or don’t see a natural fit within a category–remix.
The biggest unlock for creators isn’t just breaking free from categories—it’s blending them in ways that haven’t been seen before. Innovation often happens at the edges, where two seemingly unrelated worlds collide to form something new.
-
- Hip-hop + Broadway = Hamilton. Lin-Manuel Miranda didn’t fight for space in traditional Broadway. He created a new lane by blending genres.
-
- Coffee + Tech = Starbucks Mobile Ordering. A simple app-based ordering system transformed how people experience coffee shops.
-
- Streaming + Personalization = Spotify’s Discover Weekly. Instead of relying on top-down curation, Spotify used AI and user behavior to create a new way to experience music.
-
- Power Metal + Mythology = Heroic Fantasy Pirate Metal. By blending the tempos and structure of classic power metal with pirate mythology, space was created for new types of bands to emerge and new types of fans to gather and connect.
The legend goes that the TV show Miami Vice was originally pitched to network executives as–MTV Cops. A police procedural collides with MTV culture. The best creators see the category structure in their space—and then intentionally cross-pollinate ideas to create something fresh.
Question the Categories
If your work doesn’t fit cleanly into a category, that’s not a flaw—it’s an opportunity.
-
- Are you trying to win in a rigged system? Bestseller lists, awards, algorithms—who controls what “success” looks like in your industry? If you go down this path, are you prepared to work within a system that’s designed to sort you in this particular way?
-
- What assumptions are baked into your category? If you’re a musician, are you following outdated industry thinking about how to release your work, and what groups you’re supposed to sit next to on the shelf? Or could you be releasing directly to fans that have tastes and interests slightly adjacent to yours?
-
- Can you blend categories to create something new? Just because something hasn’t existed before doesn’t mean there’s no demand for it. Could your primary work or art sit next to the coaching podcast or fan fiction you also create, to form a more interesting package as a whole?
Categories help us navigate the world. But they also limit it.
The real power lies in seeing them, understanding their purpose, knowing when, or when not to follow them—and when to remix them.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider sharing it with someone else who might too–the buttons below can help.
Thank you!
