In my job I often deal with people who are in a small way or believe they are involved in the film or audio production industries. They are all unknown and likely will never be widely known. They often come to me for help with spyware removal or advise on software for their productions. From dealing with these people I have noted a few issues with their personality which I am now going to call “creative syndrome”. I understand everyone has a hobby but some people just take it too far.

Symptoms include:

• The belief they’re an artist even when they’re modifying copyrighted works to an extend that doesn’t justify a new copyright and in fact counts as copyright infringement
• The belief that some day they will be famous
• The belief that anybody famous is famous because they’re rich
• The belief they are better than everyone
• The belief they know better than everyone
• Obsession with "quality" which translates to shipping lossless audio to people who don’t want it or spending tens of thousand of dollars on renting super high definition cameras and their film even though their film will only ever be seen widely on YouTube
• Calls themself a producer, director, artist, photographer, actor or other titles even though professionally they operate a cash register at the nearest supermarket
• Getting offended when your real profession is pointed out to highlight your fictious title is fictious