FINDING MY CREATIVE TRIBE

Reflections On “Groupcore” And The Power Of Collective Creation

Inspired by Yancey Strickler and Metalabel’s work on “groupcore”

Every so often, you encounter a thinker whose words feel like they’ve been waiting for you—someone who doesn’t just inspire you, but gives shape to ideas you’ve been carrying quietly for years. For me, that person is Yancey Strickler, co-founder of Kickstarter and co-founder of Metalabel. His recent writing on a concept he calls “groupcore” unlocked something I’ve been trying to articulate in my own journey of building a creative community.

You know that experience of discovering someone whose work feels like a frequency match? Where every new post, interview, podcast, or publication feels like it plugs directly into your own internal dialogue? That’s what Yancey’s work does for me. It feels familiar—almost spiritual in a way—like he’s distilling the language I’ve been searching for but hadn’t yet put into words.

What “Groupcore” Sparked in Me

Yancey describes “groupcore” as a new kind of labor—something akin to open-source collaboration—where people co-create meaning, identity, and value by building together. It’s not hierarchical. It’s not transactional. It’s something deeper and more emergent. It has its own physics.

And the moment I read this, I felt it instantly.

Because this is exactly what I’ve been witnessing inside Westfield Creative Collective and in the early roots of Rock Studios. When people gather with a shared purpose, when each person brings their piece of the puzzle, something transformational happens. Something that doesn’t belong to any one person, but is held by the group.

This is the work that fuels creative ecosystems.

This is the energy behind collaboration that actually moves culture, not just projects.

Why This Matters for Creative Communities

As I built WCC and Rock Studios, I’ve become convinced that creativity doesn’t scale through isolated effort—it scales through connected creative labor. Through people being part of something larger than themselves. Through networks, shared identity, and collective purpose.

Yancey’s framework gave me language for what I’ve been experiencing in real time:

• the power of shared consciousness

• the spark that happens when creatives stop competing and start co-building

• the way meaning grows when distributed among many people, not centralized in one

• the momentum that emerges when communities move in alignment

It is, in every sense, groupcore—a group becoming more than the sum of its parts.

How This Shapes My Work Moving Forward

Reading Yancey’s post felt less like discovering a new idea and more like recognizing something I’ve been practicing intuitively. It reaffirmed the vision behind WCC: that collaboration is not a luxury—it’s an engine for creative economies and community transformation.

This is the work happening in Westfield.

It’s the heartbeat of our creative ecosystem.

And it is only the beginning.

Yancey’s thinking helped articulate what I feel every day: that when one person thrives, the whole community gets stronger.

And when we build together with intention, we create something none of us could have built alone.