WHEN DID NETWORKING REPLACE MAKING FRIENDS?

Everyone wants to know the right people. Almost nobody talks about what happens when knowing people becomes more important than KNOWING them.

You meet someone at an exhibition. A panel. A party. A launch.

You talk.

Then comes the question; “What do you do?”

Fair enough.

Then: “Who do you work with?”

Then: “Do you know?”

And somewhere along the way, we stopped asking who are you? We started asking: What can knowing you do for me? (Internally of course)

Networking isn't new. Creative industries have always run on relationships. A filmmaker knows a producer. A stylist knows a photographer. A photographer knows an editor. An editor knows a brand manager. That's how things move.

The strange part is what happens when the relationship itself becomes the product. We don't just meet people anymore. We collect them.

The person with the famous client. The person who works at the big agency.

The person who knows the artist. The person who can get you backstage. The person whose Instagram following makes their name useful in a room.

And suddenly, someone can become valuable without necessarily becoming known. Causing us to not pursue deep relationships as we can get what we want nonetheless because the relationship was always transactional.

THE TROPHY CONTACT

There is a particular kind of relationship that exists mostly for the social capital it provides. Let's call it the "trophy contact."

You don't necessarily speak often. You might not even know each other particularly well.

But their name sitting in your phone feels important.

Their face appearing in your Instagram stories feels important.

Being able to say “that's my guy” feels important.

The relationship is real enough to display, but sometimes too fragile to actually rely on.

And the interesting part is that nobody necessarily decided to become transactional. It just happened.

The industry rewarded access and that access became status, status became visibility and visibility became opportunity.

And eventually, people started looking at people through the same lens. Useful✅ Not useful❌ Connected✅ Not connected❌

WE HAVE STARTED MEASURING PEOPLE BY PROXIMITY

Social media has made this even stranger. A person isn't simply a person anymore. They're a follower count. A job title. A blue tick. A surname. A mutual follower.

You can walk into a room and know exactly who matters before anyone has said a word.

THAT'S USEFUL

It's also a slightly disturbing.

Because there's a difference between "social capital" and " social connection."

One is what your relationships can unlock. The other is what your relationship actually means.

And the line between the two has become skewed.

THE CREATIVE INDUSTRY IS VULNERABLE TO THIS

Creative work is particularly vulnerable to this because relationships genuinely matter. Jobs come through referrals. Collaborations come through friendships. Ideas move through communities. People get opportunities because someone remembered them when a brief landed.

So networking isn't the villain here. In fact, networks are part of how creative ecosystems function.

The problem begins when every interaction starts looking like a future opportunity. A party becomes a room full of leads. An exhibition becomes a prospecting session. A mutual becomes an introduction. A friendship becomes a potential collaboration.

And eventually you have to wonder:

"When was the last time you met someone simply because you liked them?" Not because they could put you on. Just because they were interesting.

I then hear a lot of professionals in the industry complain about not having any friends within it cause everyone wants something.

This isn't an argument against networking. We need networks. We need weak ties. We need introductions. We need people outside our immediate circles who can open doors we didn't know existed. But maybe there is something worth protecting underneath all of that.

FRIENDSHIP

The kind where nobody is keeping score. Where you send someone an opportunity without calculating what comes back. Where you check on someone after a bad project. Where you can spend three hours talking absolute nonsense and nobody has asked for a referral. Where someone can lose the job, the followers, the access and the impressive title and you would still want them around. That's a different kind of value.

THE PERSON IS NOT THE CONNECTION

Maybe that's the distinction we're missing. A connection is useful because of where it can take you. A person is interesting because of who they are.

Sometimes they're both. But they don't have to be.

You can admire someone's work without needing their number.

You can become friends before becoming collaborators.

You can know somebody without needing to introduce them to anybody.

And perhaps most importantly: "Someone doesn't have to be useful (to your career) to be worth knowing."

This situation reminds me of Charles Barkley; (the basketball Hall of Famer) who became friends with a random Chinese fan who was a "cat litter specialist" ( yes, you read that right).They met at a diner and had a genuine connection and stayed in touch till the fan's passing in 2018. This would shock most people cause today people only think of friendships as transactional.

SO HERE'S OUR SIGNAL

Don't stop networking. Just don't let networking become the only way you know how to meet people.

Build the relationship before you need the favour. Know the person, not just their position.

And maybe leave a little room in your creative life for relationships that produce absolutely nothing. No introduction. No opportunity. Just friendship.

Because the strongest creative communities aren't made entirely of people asking: “Who do you know?”

They're made of people who can also say: “I know you.”

And actually mean it.