--- title: Meet the Time Most 100 List description: When I set out to create the 100 Most Influential People to the Most Influential Demographic, I contacted many experts on the 18-to-34 year olds... canonical: https://time.com/75390/time-most-100/ author: Joel Stein article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-04-24T11:47:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-07-21T07:12:59.793Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Meet the Time Most 100 List og:description: When I set out to create the 100 Most Influential People to the Most Influential Demographic, I contacted many experts on the 18-to-34 year olds... og:url: https://time.com/75390/time-most-100/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte543754f221694e2/69868c3b3617604a6590ba69/470589571.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The BRIT Awards 2014 - Show og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Meet the Time Most 100 List twitter:description: When I set out to create the 100 Most Influential People to the Most Influential Demographic, I contacted many experts on the 18-to-34 year olds... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte543754f221694e2/69868c3b3617604a6590ba69/470589571.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Forget the TIME 100, Meet the Most 100 by [Joel Stein](/author/joel-stein/) ## Joel Stein Apr 24, 2014 11:47 AM CUT  LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 19: Beyonce performs at The BRIT Awards 2014 at 02 Arena on February 19, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage) LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 19: Beyonce performs at The BRIT Awards 2014 at 02 Arena on February 19, 2014 in London, England. (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage)Karwai Tang—WireImage by [Joel Stein](/author/joel-stein/) ## Joel Stein Apr 24, 2014 11:47 AM CUT When I set out to create the [_100 Most Influential People to the Most Influential Demographic_](http://time.com/75195/joel-stein-meet-the-most-100/ "undefined"), I contacted many experts on the 18-to-34 year olds that large companies are trying to appeal to. That’s because it’s so hard to get to 100\. I mean, 100 doesn’t sound like a lot, but try counting to 100 and see how long it takes you. Probably 100 seconds. Point is: you don’t have to read all of this. 1) Beyonce Knowles Everyone thinks she’s sexy and classy and smart and feminist, and she doesn’t have to prove any of those things ever. 2) Jay Z He’s married to Beyoncé. 3) Lena Dunham She is authentic. You can tell because she doesn’t wear too much makeup. 4) Amy Schumer Also authentic, despite wearing a lot more makeup. 5) Amy Poehler In between, makeup wise. 6) Jenji Kohan She created Orange is the New Black which is the first filmed performance with sexy lesbian stuff that you can watch and feel smart about without subtitles.  The Olsen twins. Kevin Mazur—Getty Images 7) Olsen Twins Have no idea what they’re up to, but I was told that they’re important. I’m guessing fashion. Or dating celebrities. 8) Leandra Medine She writes a fashion blog called The Man Repeller, since that’s, after all, what fashion does. She was on Fast Company’s 2013 In 2013, “100 Most Creative People” list, and that’s the kind of 100-people list cred that makes me feel less insecure about picking someone. 9) Tavi Gevinson “Rookie does less bitching about things than blogs tend to do. It’s the only one that has staying power because it has an aesthetic. It’s not just yelling about something else. Her little stable of writers largely drawn from her peer group is the first platform that is not just a bunch of quasi-youth and paid-for-youth talking to actual youth.” — Thomas “Baby Balls” Morton, Vice editor 10) Kim Kardashian She has a butt. 11) Other Kardashians They are related to Kim Kardashian. 12) Stephen Colbert When #CancelColbert was launched, he turned it into the funniest explanation of the difference between text and subtext that the Earnest Generation has heard. Then he canceled anyway. 13) Jimmy Fallon King of the Earnest generation. 14) Justin Timberlake The entertainer in chief. 15) Sophia Amoruso The founder of CEO of Nasty Gal she makes clothes for gals who, in my opinion, aren’t really that nasty. 16) Cara DeLevigne When Kara Buettner, a 25-year-old media strategist at OMD Worldwide, told me to put her on the list, I wrote it down as “Tara Day Levine.” I have no idea who she is. To which Kara said, “You don’t know who that is. Oh my gosh? She has like 4 million instagram followers. Google her.” I did. She was named by the Evening Standard as one of “London’s 1,000 Most Influential of 2011”, in the category of “Most Invited” and by The Sunday Times Magazine as one of the “100 Makers of the 21st Century” list of influential British people. Still have no idea who she is. 17) Sean Rad and Justin Mateen They created Tinder, without which young people would not have sex since it would require going outside and talking to strangers in public, and our race would end. 18) Karlie Kloss Women like models a lot. This one made a cookie for Momofuku Milk Bar called the Perfect 10 Kookie because it contains dark chocolate and no gluten, which is how women justify eating crap. She is on the Top 50 Models Women list by Models.com and Vogue Paris’ 30 models of the 2000s. Time needs to make a list of models pronto. 19) Kate Upton I wondered if women liked her when they put her in that new chick flick. They do. Surprising. 20) Miley Cyrus She does her own thing and is her own person, as long as those things and that person are totally different from who you thought she was five years ago. 21) Ellie Goulding It’s got a good beat and you can dance to it. 22) Lorde The first pop singer to call the culture on its materialism and shallowness in a cool way since Bob Dylan. 23) Michelle Phan A YouTube celebrity who teaches people how to put on makeup. Why anyone goes to law school when there are this many career options is beyond me. 24) James Franco If the Renaissance had Renaissance Men, the Millennials have James Franco. 25) Zooey Deschanel Influencing preciousness across the globe.  A new artwork, "Crayon Foreclosure," attributed to guerrilla graffiti artist Banksy Jason LaVeris—FilmMagic 26) Banksy How lazy are 18-34 year olds? Too lazy to go to museums or galleries. They want their art on walls they’re walking by. 27) Mindy Kaling She’s authentic and honest and on TV. 28) Tina Fey The original Mindy Kaling. 29) Louis CK He’s the only person who gets to do exactly what he wants on TV except Jimmy Fallon, who happens to want exactly what network executives want. 30) Kanye West He really doesn’t care. 31) Mark Zuckerberg If not for him, young people couldn’t brag about quitting Facebook. 32) Kate Middleton Just a normal civilian who got to be a princess. Even in 2014, that’s all it takes to get on a list of people influential to young women. 33) Michele Obama All the importance of a politician, without politics. 34) Shonda Rhymes She made that Scandal show. 35) Malala Yousafzai By campaigning for education for girls in Pakistan, she was shot. As she recovered, the Taliban vowed to kill her. She is like Tupac, only with a purpose. 36) Jon Stewart The Walter Cronkite of young people. 37) Nina Dobrev An actress on The Vampire Diaries, a show on the CW, a network whose senior vice president, Joanna Klein, helped make this list. You do the math. 38) Pope Francis He’s the pope, but he’s also like one of us. Young people don’t like when even the pope acts like he’s better than them, even though he was chosen by God and they, less so. 39) Arianna Huffington. The Huffington Post attracts a lot of young readers for a new site. But not for a site that is mostly photos of side boob. 40) Jen Selter Queen of the butt selfies.  Edward Snowden Gary Miller—FilmMagic 41) Edward Snowden He flipped of The Man, told the truth, became an outlaw and had a girlfriend who had some really hot Instagram shots. He should be on this list five times. 42) Taylor Swift She breaks up with guys and sings about it. 43) Anna Wintour Still in charge of what women wear or want to wear. 44) Rachel Zoe Or maybe she’s in charge of what women wear or want to wear. There’s probably a whole lot of people in charge of that, come to think of it. 45) Sheryl Sandberg Telling young women to lean in was something they could understand without having to read a whole book. 46) Harvey Levin If not for him, no one would know what inane chatter cameramen try to make with celebrities outside restaurants. 46) Veronica Roth The 25-year-old author of the Divergent trilogy, a young adult science fiction series, she’s kind of like the Hunger Games woman. I should add the Hunger Games woman. 47) Suzanne Collins She’s the Hunger Games woman. 48) Jenna Marbles She’s funny, she’s pretty, she obviously can’t act or she’d be in movies by now. But since her 2011 YouTube video “How To Trick People Into Thinking You’re Good Looking” she has amassed 13 million subscribers to her YouTube channel and marketed dog toys called Kermie Worm & Mr. Marbles named after her dogs. That’s kind of like being a movie star nowadays. 49) iJustine Perhaps the greatest lifecaster on the web, depending on what “lifecaster” means. You may have noticed I’ve included a lot of social media stars. That’s because I’m hoping they share this list and it goes viral and makes Time rich. That’s how the economy works now. 50) Avicii DJ are the new rock stars and this the only one since Moby who wrote a song I know. 51) Skrillex This Corey Feldman lookalike is the first person in my entire lifetime to become famous for making a type of music that adults think is awful noise. 52) Armin Van Buuren It was a tough choice between Danish DJ Tiesto and Dutch DJ Armin Van Buuren, but in the end, Van Buuren’s Wikipedia page looked longer when I quickly scrolled down them both. 53) Nadezhda Tolokonnikova Not only did the Pussy Riot member free people everywhere to say the word “pussy” everywhere in a way that even the Sopranos failed to do, she also took a great stand for freedom. “I scoffed at the Pussy Riot thing but going through with the jail terms changed my mind. Did you read that letter from jail? It’s like some Solzhenitsyn shit. It upped her game a little.” –Thomas “Baby Balls” Morton, Vice magazine editor  Lady Gaga Kevin Mazur—2014 Kevin Mazur 54) Lady Gaga She has empowered feminists, the LGBT community, fashionistas and monsters. She is also the most famous person in the world who no one knows what she looks like. 55) Nikki Minaj She’s the Lady Gaga of rap. 56) Evan Spiegel The inventor and CEO of SnapChat created a way that young people could send photos of their junk to each other without a permanent record. But instead young people sent photos of themselves making silly faces. Stupid young people. 57) Paul Tollett The Coachella music festival is weirdly important to young people out West, who seem to think its Woodstock. The founder and booker of the festival also books the country equivalent, L.A.’s Stagecoach festival for country music which is attended by people who don’t want it to be Woodstock at all. 58) Ben Silbermann The CEO of Pinterest must know, by now, way too much about what handbags women want. 59) Chad Dickerson The Etsy CEO must know way too much about what handbags women would want if they had to make them themselves. 60) Kevin Systrom The former CEO and co-founder of Instagram before he sold it to Facebook, he was the first frat boy with enough engineering skill to put a filter on everyone so they look better. 61) Seth McFarlane Now for the ones for dudes. Seth McFaralane is beloved by 18-34 year olds for hosting the Oscars. No. It’s for his album of standards. No. It’s for remaking Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series. No. It’s because he makes cartoons with race jokes. 62) Dana White Preside of the UFC which is the sport of choice for young men. Not to participate in; just to watch. The sport of choice, participation-wise is videogame playing. 63) Freddie Wong A professional video game competitor turned YouTube filmmaker, Wong is all up in it and stuff. 64) Shane Smith The CEO of Vice, which does some of the best reportage from dangerous international locations and the very best reportage of what it’s like to be wasted on various drugs. 65) Mike Farah The head of Funny or Die knows every celebrity and how to appeal to their vanity to get them to do dumb things – the most valuable skill of the 21st century. 66) Young Chop This 20-year old rap producer from Chicago, he produced a lot of his high school friend Chief Keef’s hit songs. He’s in charge of a collective called BandKamp that includes Paris Bueller, CTC Reaper, 12 Hunna, C-Sick, Smylez and Poo Mack. Baby Balls Morton says his music, “shares a lot of similarities to the birth of Oi! music or hardcore. It’s full of anger. It’s good listening.” I cannot figure out if I prefer Poo Mack or C-Sick as a name. Depends on my mood, I think. When I’m feeling high-brow, it’s C-Sick; when I’m just chillin, it’s Poo Mack. 67) Kevin Hart The most popular stand up comic in America shows that success is 99 percent perspiration, and 1 percent shiny clothing. 68) Robert Kirkman The creator of The Walking Dead comic books, he tapped into the fact that dudes love zombies. 69) Judd Apatow The launcher of Lena Dunham, Seth Rogen, James Franco, Kristin Wiig the movie star and dick jokes as we know them today, which is with a touch of sadness. 70) Questlove Making things cools in every medium, especially hair. 71) Daniel Tosh Making cruelty okay through charm weekly. 72) Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman The founders of Reddit, the front page of the internet, have allowed us to see what frustrated young men think about when they’re alone at their computer. For some reason famous people decided that would be a good place to let people ask them anything. 73) Nathan Fielder Replacing Jimmy Kimmel as our prankster-in-chief. 74) Jonah Peretti The founder of Buzzfeed developed an algorithm that figured out that human beings digest information best in list featuring photos of cats. 75) Perry Chen Thanks to the CEO and co-founder of Kickstarter, everyone feels way too comfortable asking their friends for money. 76) Kendrick Lamar No one will destroy this rapper’s climb to the top of the rap world unless some bitch comes and kills his vibe. He’s very, very vulnerable to this. Vibe-killing bitches are like his kryptonite. 77) Adrian Peterson Dudes like sports. Especially inspirational sports figures. It’s what they cry over. That and bitches killing their vibes. 78) Dan Okrent Former Time Inc editor who also happened to invent fantasy sports and thereby has taken up 3-4 hours of most men’s day. 79) Roger Goodell Keeping football footballing. 80) LeBron James One cannot overestimate how much young men love sports. The only equivalent is how much old men love sports. 81) Johnny Manziel Johnny Football does not care what you think of him. As long as you think he’s cool. This is the new version of cool. 82) Kevin Durant The world’s best basketball player, nicest guy in the NBA and actor in the film Thunderstruck. Being boring is totally important in an athlete. 83) Bill Simmons He’s the modern Howard Cosell. Actually, he’s nothing like Howard Cosell. Man, I’m getting tired of trying to get to 100 people. 84) José Mujica The world’s poorest President, Mujica drives a Volkswagon Beetle and lives on a small chrysanthemum farm in Uruguay. He’s an atheist vegetarian. You will not be surprised to learn that he legalized pot in Uruguay. 85) Tao Lin “Tao Lin runs a publishing house. They’re all druggy but also Asperger’s kids. He’s the Jay McInerney of that scene. He’s the crown prince. And he’s not an asshole. He’s very circumspect about his own writing and what his role is. In addition to his little cultivated crowd he’s got tons of shitty imitators too.” — Thomas “Baby Balls” Morton, Vice editor 86) Chris Hardwick The Nerdist is a really good-looking guy who happens to like comic books and has created a media empire based on that. This is the guy who hosted Singled Out with Jenny McCarthy! He claims he came out as a nerd, but it sure seemed convenient to do that right when nerd culture was exploding. 87) Sam and Dan Houser The heads of Rock Star Games invented Grand Theft Auto which was considered offensive in quainter times. 88) Robert Kotick The CEO of Activision is responsible for Call of Duty. Sounds like a dream job until you realize just how freaked out he is about being asked to explain himself every time there’s a school shooting.  Not Dov Charney Bloomberg—Bloomberg via Getty Images 89) Dov Charney The American Apparel CEO, with one well placed mannequin, brought female pubic hair back. For like a day. 90) Eddie Huang He makes dumplings in New York, but more importantly he makes little punk short movies about food on YouTube and wrote a book about it. He’s the culinary equivalent of a graffiti artist desperate for a sitcom deal. 91) Harley Morenstein The host of YouTube’s Epic Meal Time is like an angry frat boy who raped your food and made a cooking show out of it. 92) Peter Shukoff and Lloyd Ahlquist The hosts of Epic Rap Battles of History explain great moments in history through rap, although history in this case include Adolph Hitler versus Darth Vader. It is the closest thing young people have to education. 93) Stan Lee Bros see a lot of super hero movies. 94) Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope The FBI declared the horror-rap band The Insane Clown Posse as a national gang. In actuality, by keeping the Juggalos busy traveling around the country like Deadheads, they are shielding us from a lot of angry young poor white kids who would otherwise be robbing our liquor stores, gas stations and whatever happens to be next door to the meth lab. 95) Drake So cool, so collected, so Canadian, so Degrassi, so half-Jewish, and yet tough enough to fight Chris Brown over Rhianna. 96) Mark Gonzales He’s 45, but the Gonz is still the coolest skateboarder in the world. And because he writes poetry, that also makes him the coolest poet in the world 97) Shaun White He is the most influential red-headed man since Thomas Jefferson. 98) Dale Earnhardt Jr. So influential there is a band called Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. 99) Elon Musk He cares about the environment, cars and breaking the rules. 100) Dr. Dre For the headphones. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/75390/time-most-100/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/75390/time-most-100/"},"headline":"Forget the TIME 100, Meet the Most 100","datePublished":"2014-04-24T11:47:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-07-21T07:12:59.793Z","description":"When I set out to create the 100 Most Influential People to the Most Influential Demographic, I contacted many experts on the 18-to-34 year olds...","url":"https://time.com/75390/time-most-100/","keywords":["Humor","Lists","celebrity","TIME 100"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte543754f221694e2/69868c3b3617604a6590ba69/470589571.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Joel Stein","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/joel-stein/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte543754f221694e2/69868c3b3617604a6590ba69/470589571.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The BRIT Awards 2014 - Show","caption":"The BRIT Awards 2014 - Show","creditText":"Karwai Tang—WireImage","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/humor/","name":"Humor"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/75390/time-most-100/","name":"Forget the TIME 100, Meet the Most 100"}}]}] ```