Why collaborative storytelling is a meaningless phrase

[Max_Killjoy]

You are misquoting.

If you are alive and breathing you are creating a story. You aren’t telling a story. Storytelling requires the telling part. A story can exist without the telling. And you can tell something that isn’t a story. “Storytelling” requires both parts.

Creating, telling, whatever, it still rests on the notion that any sequence of events is a "story"... or worse, the notion that our lives are somehow narrative in nature.

With an rpg you are “telling” by communicating with your fellow players. And the thing you are “telling” is what characters are doing in a series of events. i.e. a story.

And there's the core problem.

Sure, it's what you're doing... it is not however what some others are doing.