A New List Suggests the Most Influential Creators Aren’t the Ones You Expect

What if the most well-known creators aren’t the most influential?

A new creator Affinity List list from media executive turned “media cartographer” Evan Shapiro and What’s Trending founder Shira Lazar explore that very idea.

The 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.

While there are plenty of familiar names (MrBeast is 85, Charli D’Amelio is 100, Mark Rober is 90) the top of the list is filled with creators that have much smaller — but also much more engaged — audiences.

Author, educator and “Smarter In Seconds” 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’arra Taylor and Speedy Morman rounding out the top five.

“What frustrates creators with all these lists is that the same types of people are on these lists,” says Lazar in an interview. “For certain lists it’s about money, for other lists it’s 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.

“We can believe we can show why they’re impactful, and if you look at their various careers, how the monetization would look for what’s called a macro creator or a nano creator,” adds Shapiro. “Nano creators have three times the reaction, three times the response rate of macro creators. That’s 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.”

The 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’s a world where views and revenue are secondary to other metrics. Shapiro explains the list in a Substack post, with Lazar digging into it through her What’s Trending brand.

“Shira and my team worked together to create a rubric where shares and likes and comments are weighted and added together,” Shapiro explains, touting Foam’s data and compute power. “Shares are weighted twice because we believe that they have a higher propensity for fandom.”

“My hope for creators is that they see this list and they see that if I’m an emerging creator, there’s so much possibility and opportunity for me in this new and growing and evolving landscape,” Lazar says. “I do believe again that a lot of big creators look at these lists and it’s the same names, and I think there’s 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.”

At 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.

“If you have a brand that you’re 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’re going to wind up putting into this, and the amount of money you’re going to have to boost that content afterwards to get the reaction that you need,” says Shapiro. “We 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.

“I think for brands and media companies that are now coming into the space and putting on their creator mindset hat, I think it’s 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,” adds Lazar. “So those people should be getting more types of opportunities, not just the 1%. We can’t build this industry on the 1%, I’m just very passionate about that.”