Abstract: Popular narratives often oversimplify the origins of major innovations, attributing them to a few "heroic" figures. While scholarly literature challenges this myth, it often emphasizes the role of innovators themselves, overlooking how audiences actively shape recognition. This oversight leaves an incomplete understanding of the process by which innovators are socially recognized – a critical gap given the profound implications for those attributed with innovation. To advance our understanding of this social recognition process, we investigate events and narratives of the French Revolution (circa 1788–1792) through a microhistorical analysis of the guillotine – a beheading machine widely attributed to and named after Dr Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a politician and humanist. We link this device to the historical debate on capital punishment and the reform of penal law in revolutionary France, which introduced a societal shift by controversially pioneering the concept of equality in jurisprudence. We theorize a spiraling process in which audiences, influenced by cognitive biases, contextual conditions, and polarized narratives, progressively channel recognition toward specific individuals while marginalizing other potential candidates. By reframing recognition as an audience-driven process, this study sheds light on how innovations and their significance are socially constructed, advancing research on the origins, acceptance, and attribution of innovation.