How We Chose the 2025 TIME100 Creators

Over the past decade, we’ve seen a significant shift in how people view institutions and established gatekeepers. The media industry has been no exception, and while our business has been challenged, others have seen increased attention and relevance. Led by changes in consumer behavior that accelerated during the pandemic, digital creators, the entrepreneurs who have built businesses through significant online followings, have emerged to shape our culture. They are changing what we watch, how we spend our time, what we buy, and how we vote. Recently, we’ve expanded the TIME100, the world’s most influential community, to include individuals who work in fields that we believe are shaping the future. Today, we release the inaugural TIME100 Creators list, in recognition of how significantly these individuals are changing the way people inform themselves. The signs of growth are everywhere. In 2024, internet users spent nearly 2½ hours a day on social media. Much of that time was given over to individuals like those on TIME100 Creators. They are among the 67 million content creators globally, forming a multi-hundred-billion-dollar industry where social media creator revenues are growing five times faster than those of traditional media. You don’t need to be in our business to recognize these changes. Just ask any 16-year-old when was the last time they watched something on television. While they scratch their head, throw in a question about Kai Cenat. Like many creators, the 23-year-old streamer with 18 million followers on Amazon-owned Twitch has powerful relationships with millions of people, especially young ones. (It is the nature of our digital world that many others can spend much of their day online without hearing of him.) [video id=yLflZFVy autostart="viewable"] As we often say, influence comes in many forms, and it can be for better or for worse. And if any of us can say the wrong thing, for creators the hazard may be made more likely by the constancy with which they communicate. Most of the people on our list face pressure to respond to news, and criticism comes when their comments don’t match audiences’ expectations. Some of them are polarizing; some of them are delightful—at least for now, until the day they inevitably say something to inflame their followers or those who don’t follow them at all. And they feel that pressure. “Something that I’m noticing within myself, that I just discovered, is I have anxiety,” Cenat told Andrew R. Chow for our new cover story. “I’m always worrying, ‘Oh God, what if things don’t go right?’ I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared.” This comes from someone regarded as one of the most successful creators on the planet. Cenat joins individuals from 15 different countries as part of the 2025 TIME100 Creators. They make a living and reach billions across platforms like YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok where people, especially members of Gen Z, spend huge chunks of time. We also looked at leaders on platforms attracting other audiences, including Instagram, X, LinkedIn, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Substack. We focused primarily on English-language creators. We also selected those who built careers for themselves natively through these digital platforms, rather than carrying them there through success in a previous medium like television or journalism. Led by Lucy Feldman, we polled our correspondents, editors, and contributors, who surveyed sources around the world. We also consulted with our data and insights partner #paid, a creator marketplace, to better analyze the reach, engagement, and businesses these individuals have built. And, to introduce the inaugural list of creators, earlier this summer, we gathered nine of them—Alix Earle, Sean Evans, Charli D’Amelio, Hannah Berner, Paige DeSorbo, Tefi Pessoa, Devon Rodriguez, Vivian Tu, and Cyrus Veyssi—at a studio in New York City to create videos for TIME. “We came away with a better understanding about how each of them thinks,” Feldman says. “They showed us what it takes to break through the noise.” Data and insights powered by #paid Buy a copy of the TIME100 Creators issue here