Chrissy Teigen, Donald Trump top list of TIME 25 most influential people on the internet
Time magazine has released it’s third-annual list of the 25 most influential people on the internet. Chrissy Teigen, model and wife of John Legend was unsurprisingly on the list, US President Donald Trump made the list, Chance The Rapper, J.K. Rowling and the maker of Pepe the Frog, one of the most widely used memes online also made it.
The editors of Time said they ‘sized up contenders by looking at their global impact on social media and their overall ability to drive news’.
In other words, when these people tweet, they’re not just weighing in on the news – they’re making it. See the full list below:
Katy Perry, recently passed 100 million followers on Twitter.
Chrissy Teigen, nearly 20 million followers between Twitter and Instagram.
Rihanna, one of the most followed celebs on Facebook with 76 million. Kim Kardashian West, over 100 million followers on Instagram alone!
Chance The Rapper, almost 10 million followers across all platforms, the first artist to win a Grammy for a streaming-only album.
J.K. Rowling, almost 11 million Twitter followers. J.K. Rowling is famous around the world for her intensely popular Harry Potter series. But following the Brexit vote in England and the election of Trump in the U.S., she has been using her platform to critique nationalist movements.
Donald Trump, commands 32 million Twitter followers.
Gigi Gorgeous – Is a transgender activist who spent a decade chronicling her transition from male to female. She now has over 5 million followers across her social media platforms — and her own documentary.
Matt Drudge – Is the founder of The Druge Report. His site gets well over a billion monthly page views.
Carter Wilkinson – The nugget-loving teen just wanted to know how many re-tweets he needed for Wendy’s to give him a year’s supply of free chicken nuggets. What came with his order, however, was instant internet fame and more retweets than Ellen DeGeneres‘ Oscar selfie. Don’t worry — he got the nugs, too.
BTS – This beloved Korean boy band has a massive cult social media army.
Matt Furie – The 37-year-old artist created what became the internet’s most controversial meme, Pepe the Frog. After the character he created for a 2005 web comic ended up being hijacked by right-winged extremists as a hate mascot, Furie had no choice but to kill off his creation.
Steven Pruitt (a.k.a. Ser Amantio di Nicolao) – The 33-year-old U.S. Customs contractor works by night as a prolific editor for Wikipedia. Since 2006, he’s made about 2 million site edits and has personally written articles on 212 influential women.
Jonathan Sun – The artist has earned a big Twitter following for being a pioneer in the “wholesome memes” movement.
Bana Alabed – The 7-year-old Syrian refugee rose to internet fame after tweeting about her fears of dying in a bomb strike. She’s since been evacuated to Turkey and recently signed a book deal.
Founders of The Indivisible Guide – Ezra Levin, Leah Greenberg, Angel Padilla, Sarah Dohl and Matt Traldi used their time as congressional staffers to create a how-to guide on effecting political change — which has been downloaded almost 4 million times.
Ariel Martin (a.k.a. Baby Ariel) – Musical.ly star, 30 million followers on the lip-syncing site.
Cassey Ho – Fitness Vlogger, founder of multi-million dollar fitness empire, Blogilates.
Huda Katta – Beauty Blogger with 20 million followers.
Mark Fischbach (a.k.a. Markiplier) – Video gamer with over 17 million subscribers.
Branden Miller (a.k.a. Joanne the Scammer) – His hilarious “scammer” character has racked up 3 million viewers across platforms.
Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin – Founders of The Skimm, with over 5 million subscribers.
Yao Chen – The vocal actress is the most popular person on Weibo, with 79 million followers.
Brian Reed – NPR host whose podcast S-Town has reached tens of millions of listeners.
Alexei Navalny – The Russian opposition activist garnered millions of followers after using YouTube to break through the Kremlin’s information blockade.
