\n\tWhat if the most well-known creators aren\u2019t the most influential?<\/p>\n
\n\tA new creator Affinity List list from media executive turned \u201cmedia cartographer\u201d Evan Shapiro and What\u2019s Trending founder Shira Lazar explore that very idea.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe list, which was sponsored by global creator company Whalar Group and its digital operating system Foam, was previewed by Shapiro and Lazar over the weekend at IBC 2026 in Amsterdam, but The Hollywood Reporter has the full list below.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhile there are plenty of familiar names (MrBeast is 85, Charli D\u2019Amelio is 100, Mark Rober is 90) the top of the list is filled with creators that have much smaller \u2014\u00a0but also much more engaged \u2014 audiences.<\/p>\n
\n\tAuthor, educator and \u201cSmarter In Seconds\u201d creator Blair Imani is No. 1, while baker and cookbook author B. Dylan Hollis is No. 2. Another baker, Ash Baber, is No. 3, with De\u2019arra Taylor and Speedy Morman rounding out the top five.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWhat frustrates creators with all these lists is that the same types of people are on these lists,\u201d says Lazar in an interview. \u201cFor certain lists it\u2019s about money, for other lists it\u2019s about followers. But we know influence comes in so many different ways. And so the idea of going deeper versus wider in terms of our affinity quotient and really being able to gauge influence in a different way was important to look at the ecosystem in a different way.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe can believe we can show why they\u2019re impactful, and if you look at their various careers, how the monetization would look for what\u2019s called a macro creator or a nano creator,\u201d adds Shapiro. \u201cNano creators have three times the reaction, three times the response rate of macro creators. That\u2019s why three quarters of brands and agencies now prefer to work with nano and micro creators versus the macro creators because the impact, the reaction, and the response is great.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe goal is to demonstrate how scale and size are not necessarily the best indicator of influence at a moment when the creator ecosystem is being disrupted alongside legacy media. It\u2019s a world where views and revenue are secondary to other metrics. Shapiro explains the list<\/a> in a Substack post, with Lazar digging into it through her What\u2019s Trending<\/a> brand.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cShira and my team worked together to create a rubric where shares and likes and comments are weighted and added together,\u201d Shapiro explains, touting Foam\u2019s data and compute power. \u201cShares are weighted twice because we believe that they have a higher propensity for fandom.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cMy hope for creators is that they see this list and they see that if I\u2019m an emerging creator, there\u2019s so much possibility and opportunity for me in this new and growing and evolving landscape,\u201d Lazar says. \u201cI do believe again that a lot of big creators look at these lists and it\u2019s the same names, and I think there\u2019s going to be a really big respect and understanding that we looked at it in the way that I think creators look at their work and careers.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tAt the end of the day, of course, the list is for brands, marketers, creator businesses and other media professionals looking to understand the current landscape.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cIf you have a brand that you\u2019re looking to get out there, I think look at the engagement of the creators on this list, and look at the cost per impression that you\u2019re going to wind up putting into this, and the amount of money you\u2019re going to have to boost that content afterwards to get the reaction that you need,\u201d says Shapiro. \u201cWe do want to help these folks find new brand partnerships, but we also want to help agencies and brand partners do their homework, and we think this is a better way to gauge success.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI think for brands and media companies that are now coming into the space and putting on their creator mindset hat, I think it\u2019s important for them to see the the spectrum of creators and all the different types of creators that they can work with and that have power and influence in a different way than maybe they thought,\u201d adds Lazar. \u201cSo those people should be getting more types of opportunities, not just the 1%. We can\u2019t build this industry on the 1%, I\u2019m just very passionate about that.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tYou can see the full list below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What if the most well-known creators aren\u2019t the most influential? A new creator Affinity List list from media…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":891904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,54713,134],"class_list":["post-891903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-creator-economy","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=891903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/891903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/891904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=891903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=891903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=891903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}