Barbados’ pop princess Rihanna has yet another jewel to add to her crown in the form of securing a place on Time Magazine’s 25 Most Influential People on the Internet in 2017.
For its third annual roundup of everyone from bestselling authors to political activists, the magazine sized up contenders by looking at their global impact on social media and their overall ability to drive news.
Here’s what Time’s Cady Lang had to say about Rihanna on this year’s unranked list:
“The 29-year-old singer approaches social media with the same aplomb and fearlessness that has become her trademark across music, fashion and culture.
“In the past year alone, she has made headlines for Snapchatting herself feeding birds on the streets of New York while clad in a bright red, heart-shaped jacket, hitting back at body shamers with a Gucci Mane meme and personally jumping into her own Instagram comments to shout out fans and shut down haters (a phenomenon known as RIHplies).
“How fitting, then, that she’s set to star in a movie that is wholly inspired by a meme of herself.”
Also landing a spot on Time’s latest list were supermodel, bestselling cookbook author, TV host and Mrs John Legend, Chrissy Teigan; Drudge Report creator Matt Drudge, and Harry Potter author JK Rowling.
Carter Wilkerson, the Nevada teen who earned a year’s supply of free chicken nuggets; Chinese actress and activist Yao Chen; NPR host and S-Town creator Brian Reed; Korean boy band BTS, and Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny also made the cut.
Also listed were Twitter-happy US President Donald Trump; Pepe the Frog creator Matt Furie; Steven Pruitt (aka Ser Amantio di Nicolao); seven-year-old Syrian civil war victim Bana Alabed; Canadian trans woman model Gigi Gorgeous; empowering meme creator Jonathan Sun; and singer Katy Perry, who just became the first person to pass 100 million followers on Twitter.
Reality TV star and Mrs Kanye West, Kim Kardashian, was a given for the list, as were Branden Miller (aka Joanne the Scammer); Ezra Levin, Leah Greenberg, Angel Padilla, Sarah Dohl and Matt Traldi (founders of The Indivisible Guide), and Chance the Rapper.
Ariel Martin, (aka Baby Ariel) of Musical.ly fame, also found favour with Time, as did fitness queen Cassey Ho; beauty blogger Huda Kattan; gamer Mark Fischbach (aka Markiplier); and Skimm founders Danielle Weisberg and Carly Zakin. (Caribbean360.com)
