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Can Software Developers Achieve Rock Star Status?

May 1, 2003

As my self-promoting career into software quickly approaches, I was wondering what it takes for a software personality to become a celebrity. Will I ever be a household name? Will people buy my CD's full of applications, including some #1 hits? Will they swap my files on KaZaA?

Certain careers lend themselves to fandom - musicians, authors, actors, Iraqi ministers of information. And some don't - software engineering fits into this category. But not all science professions to. Astronauts, for example, enjoy a certain degree of stardom - but only a select few of them.

Some software types, like Bill Gates, are known more for their business savvy than their software skill. I'm not interested in that style of notoriety. What would it take for a developer to become a star based on development skill alone?

Maybe it depends on the software - maybe entertainment titles have more of a following than application titles. But I don't think the type of software is a deciding factor in the stardom of its authors (and certainly, some software developers become known within the software development community).

In software, it seems that people go more for the product than the author. That's not true in music and books, although I guess it's also not true for some software, like the early Apogee games. I played all of them because I liked Duke Nukem and Commander Keen so much.

But lately in software, no one says, "I liked Balder's Gate so much, I've got to get the other BioWare games!" Part of this might be because so many companies contribute to various games. But certainly, people don't identify a game with its authoring company as much as they identify a song or book with its artist or author.

What makes a rock star? Stardom probably involves a few things: words and emotions, sounds and music, and charisma. None of these are enough by themselves (if words made a hit, Kylie Minogue would not have blazed the European charts with "Can't Get You Out of My Head" [woah - a lyrics page with no popups!]). Brtiney Spears would probably not be as big as she is (regarding her star status, of course) if it weren't for her charisma.

Music stars go on tour. As a programmer, I would hate to go on tour. My audience would call to me, "Hey dude, that algorithm you implemented was righteous! Do it again!" Like poor Rod Stewart playing "Maggie" for the one billionth time, or Lou Bega singing "Mambo #5" endlessly, I'd be compelled to re-write code I had written thousands of times before. This is my nightmare.

Why are there no popular or famous programmers with mononyms (like "Prince" or "Madonna" or "Bono", or even "Pele")? And wouldn't you imagine that a programmer with a mononym would be considered a geek, whereas a musician with a mononym is über-cool? (Particularly if they chose a computer-oriented name like 'Devnull' or 'Segfault'). Finally, wouldn't "Mononym" be a cool mononym?

Of course, Rockstar Games, authors of Grand Theft Auto, decided their company name based on the idea that software types can become - or can dream to become - rockstars. Unfortunately, I don't think any of those developers have become stars outside of game development circles.

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