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THE AFFINITY 100: THE MOST IMPACTFUL CREATORS OF 2026 · The Media Odyssey

• Marion Ranchet: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Media Odyssey podcast. This is my guest, Evan Shapiro. Evan Shapiro: And this is our host, Marion Ranchet. Marion Ranchet: Shira Lazar, so awesome having you here, and I'm gonna have a bit of fun interviewing you for once. Shira Lazar: Oh. Marion Ranchet: You're gonna talk even more than you [00:00:15] always talk, but, so let's get ready. Evan Shapiro: How does that work? Marion Ranchet: It is what it is. Evan Shapiro: All right.[00:00:30] Marion Ranchet: We are live at IBC. By the time this comes out, we'll be back safely at home, rested. But we've had amazing couple of days, and you guys did something [00:00:45] amazing this weekend. We, you actually released a brand-new piece of data. Do you wanna tell us about it? Evan Shapiro: Sure. it's called the Affinity Quotient, and we released the Affinity 100, the list of 100 most impactful [00:01:00] creators from 2026. Shira and I collaborated. We collaborated on a creator ecosphere map last year. This year, we collaborated on this list on our way to a new map. And we have partners at Whalar and FOAM, who powered [00:01:15] the list. Shira Lazar: Yeah, Whalar Group. Evan Shapiro: Sorry. Thank you. Shira Lazar: FYI. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Thank you. Shira Lazar: But yeah, what's cool is that we really looked at the data intelligence, created a new quotient, a way to look at influence and trust and engagement, especially in this world where [00:01:30] all of that is changing, right? I think we're going from followers and vanity metrics to figuring out how do we really figure out what influences is this day and age, right? As we have MrBeasts that are becoming bigger media [00:01:45] studios, and then newer voices pop up. What does that mean to the advertising industry and media at large? And this really does that, we think. Evan Shapiro: And, in this day and age, when most media consumption is on a phone, and a good percentage, maybe even half of that, [00:02:00] is AI, right? This measures actual engagement, actual actions taken. It weighs, the affinity quotient is a math problem. It is likes and comments- Shira Lazar: And shares. Evan Shapiro: added [00:02:15] to shares at double weight for shares, and then divided by views. And so it's not engagements per post, it's engagements per views. So we do look at scale and reach, and then we look at the power of that reach in reaction time. [00:02:30] Marion Ranchet: So it's less about who's the biggest, but who has the most impact. And what came out? Who's top of that list? What have you seen? Shira Lazar: Now that it's out, yes. Blair Imani, it, which is amazing [00:02:45] because if you look at even the rest of the list and who's lower on the list, that, those folks like Druski or MrBeast have more followers. But Blair, who's an educator, historian, who talks about the news and social issues, and who [00:03:00] actually has a million followers on one of her platforms, but not even on the others, yet is number one on our list, which really shows, I think, where the creator economy is going. As we say, it's being replaced by the affinity economy, and that it's more about the [00:03:15] depth of engagement and, the content and the expertise of the content that we're moving into that trend versus just being an influencer this day and age. Evan Shapiro: So just to be clear, MrBeast, biggest creator in the world without question, right? Half a billion [00:03:30] followers. Number whatever on the Forbes list. He's on- Shira Lazar: Number one. He was the number one. Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Was he? Okay. Shira Lazar: He was. Evan Shapiro: I don't pay attention to money. No, I'm kidding. But actually, by the way, there, we [00:03:45] can get into the pre-qualifiers of this. Yes, he is on the list, but he's at 85 because at that point, when you were, Mark Rober is on the list, in the '80s as well. Druski's on the list, in the middle of the list at, in the 50s. And that's really impressive because when you [00:04:00] get to be that big, when you have that large an audience, managing to keep passion and engagement at that scale is impressive. But your business is scale. They're not really creators anymore. They're industries, they're studios, right? And when the biggest creators are actually [00:04:15] studios, who are the next indie creators? Who are the ones that are actually having impact every day, meaningful impact with a meaningful number of people? 'Cause you have to be a top 50 creator on one of the platforms to be considered in this list. And on a quality [00:04:30] level, you have to also have been on one of the Webbys, Rolling Stone, Time 100, Shira's on Time 100 list. Marion Ranchet: You had a Webby. Evan Shapiro: I was in the Webbys, but neither of us is a top 50 creator on any platform, maybe, anyway. Shira Lazar: Yet. Hey, you never know. Evan Shapiro: Yeah, we'll see. [00:04:45] but the, but this really does explain the micro creator that most brands would prefer to work with. It's a different ecosphere, and I coined them as brand name creators and indie creators. And so this list is really great at [00:05:00] identifying the indie creators who are having great impact, and are gonna be the voices that really influence culture, I think most strongly over the next five years. Marion Ranchet: So speaking of having the list, awesome having that, what's the, what are we supposed to do with it? Evan Shapiro: Sure. Marion Ranchet: Who are you [00:05:15] trying to influence so to say, with that list? Shira Lazar: I think when you see a list like that it really influences, the money being spent on who, right? So on the brand level, the media level if you're talking about deals happening from the Disney and Foxes right now and [00:05:30] they're ordering now, verticals and all that. Who are they doing those deals with? Who are they syndicating content of? What maybe IP is being acquired or looked at seriously? And then ultimately, I would say money, where the, we say you could see where the future is, where you see the [00:05:45] attention and money moving. But now when we highlight this type of list, it says you're ignoring a whole part of the economy that's actually creating a ton of influence and maybe that will look at how you make your deals in a different way. Evan Shapiro: I also [00:06:00] think, for me, we are all three creators, right? We are not on this list. Surprise. Spoiler alert. Marion Ranchet: I'm, very surprised. I wanted to ask you guys about that. Shira Lazar: Awkward. Marion Ranchet: What's going on, right? Evan Shapiro: There are some on the scale. Marion Ranchet: I'm Miss [00:06:15] Europe. I'm sorry but anyway. Evan Shapiro: You are Miss Europe. But I did, it is about demonstrating to new creators that you do not have to have a half a billion creators in any way, shape, or form. Blair Imani is a perfect example. She [00:06:30] has about less than a, fewer than a million total followers across all her platforms. Her biggest platform is TikTok. And that's or Instagram, sorry. Shira Lazar: Instagram. Evan Shapiro: Instagram. Shira Lazar: Has almost a million so yeah, she probably has, yeah. Evan Shapiro: Total about a million. Yeah. But not 10 million. Shira Lazar: No. Evan Shapiro: Not [00:06:45] 20 million. I like to use, not on this list but Curry Barker, who produced and directed the film, Obsession. Shira Lazar: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube, not 15 million, not 10 million, not five million, But 1.5. But the pass along [00:07:00] factor on his content is why he was able to fill theaters to the highest grossing film in cinema history for, made for less than a million dollars. So there, there is, a reason we're, to measure this. For me, though, it is about the creators and telling [00:07:15] them, "You can have 50,000, you can have 100,000 fans, you can have 10,000 fans, you can have 20,000 fans and actually make a living at it." Shira Lazar: So yeah, for me it's both sides. So yeah, I was talking about what it it does for the media and brand side. And I think totally what you doubled [00:07:30] down on, Evan, is it shows to a lot of the creators that are now hustling and doing the work that their content matters that they don't need to just be the 1% to make a dent on the industry and that there's a, a new barometer for success out there which I think is really important, [00:07:45] because we've gotten to a place in the creator economy where it feels like and with clipping and with AI that you need to literally suck at every piece of everything from yourself and fill the feed at every second to make it. And I think this proves that there's some sustainability [00:08:00] that's possible by posting quality content, being an expert, sharing your lived experience and going deep with your audience and it doesn't need to be 100 times a day. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. And that ties into something that you've done and you spoke about it on the pod earlier this year which is the Creator Bill of [00:08:15] Rights. And we've spoken about mental health and all of that and I think it's a great way of saying as a new creator or a recent creator so to say No need to look at MrBeast as the goal, right? It shouldn't be the golden standard. You can [00:08:30] actually look up to, there are people right? Shira Lazar: Yes. The new, there's other people doing it and it's like we said MrBeast is like the Michael Bay. Imagine everyone wanted to be Michael Bay or Tom Cruise. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. Exactly. Shira Lazar: The industry wouldn't be what it is. Evan Shapiro: And I would, I wanna point out here, we're outside at IBC which is why you hear the suitcases [00:08:45] rolling by and the people outside and it's great here. But Marion, you and I did a case study here in the creator economy earlier this week about you where you went on stage and talked about your creator journey and how you changed your business from one that was focused on consulting to one that is now [00:09:00] being a creator full-time, a writer, a podcaster. You hosted a great event here, an amazing event here, packed. We've, we just recorded a podcast as listeners of the show and watchers of the show will know there, with really impressive guests. So there [00:09:15] are lots of great case studies and the top 10, on this list which are highlighted on my Substack newsletter, Media War and Peace, which you can subscribe to right now, is a great array of businesses. None of them are doing [00:09:30] programmatic clickbait. Do you know what I mean? They are selling cookbooks. They are doing speaking engagements. They are selling merchandise. They are eyewear CEOs. They're fashion icons and it is, you have to really, yo be [00:09:45] successful with a indie creator community, you have to be innovative as well. Shira Lazar: Yeah. Marion Ranchet: I love that you're showing different flywheels Because not everyone has Shira Lazar: Totally, yeah... Marion Ranchet: To the point of MrBeast, half a billion followers, the ability to buy a [00:10:00] fintech, an MVNO, geared to Gen Z or do Feastables, any of those. So it's about showing the different playbooks. There's not one size fits all. I love it. Shira Lazar: Yeah. And a lot of them are small to medium sized businesses, right? And that is really the [00:10:15] future of this space. I think we look at the big creators, the macro stars and then the micro actually. I feel like from my perspective, I think those two get the most attention. It's the middle class that I feel people forget about. And [00:10:30] in the middle class, we, there's a bit of a fear of the middle class everywhere dying, you know dying off but I actually think what we showcase is these aren't the... Necessarily not all of them are the 1% but they still have huge and viable businesses and they're making huge impact. Marion Ranchet: There's one thing, though. I [00:10:45] will say that I love the approach but I do think that despite the fact you're saying that we're in the affinity economy and that we should stop thinking about the vanity metrics, this is actually very hard to do. Even I when I tell myself, [00:11:00] "Oh, only 10 likes," or X views, it's okay. I've, I've grown into that. But on the other side of the table, people you work with are still highly focused on those. Shira Lazar: It's, alright, what do you wanna say? Evan Shapiro: I wanna say that but I think you are a [00:11:15] great proof of... So you just did an event where there were a bunch of people who paid a decent amount of money to sit for six hours right? Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: And you programmed it really well and it [00:11:30] shows that it doesn't have to be huge. No one there, no one who bought a ticket there and nobody who sponsored and there were six sponsors? Marion Ranchet: Seven. Evan Shapiro: Seven sponsors in year two. None, including Bango right there. Our friend [00:11:45] Giles. The, you have to build your model around the scale that you have. But passion is why that worked for you. It's why people continue to sponsor our podcast. Like Bango and Bedrock come [00:12:00] back and we have a high s recidivism rate. Marion Ranchet: Agreed. I think there's one thing is that there's, aside from the affinity economy, it's are you in the scale game or are you in the trust game? Shira Lazar: Yeah and so this is real because a and I am happy you said that 'cause [00:12:15] brands, despite everyone saying, "It's about quality, not quantity," still, in their briefs it'll say, we're looking for 250K-plus follower accounts or creators. We're looking for this many followers. We're looking for that." And I do think the experts, the knowledge creators, [00:12:30] the B2B creators are changing that model. But then also even, I did a deep dive and I'm starting to do more on my accounts and ChatGPT was saying, what's interesting about my accounts is the quality, the people following. You're the influencer for the [00:12:45] influencers. And I go, "That is such an interesting angle." And it's the same thing you say with when we're looking at selling a brand. You're like, "The people that follow me are making the decisions. You wanna be in front of those people?" It matters, right? And so Evan Shapiro: She's doing my pitch on the podcast.[00:13:00] Thank you. Marion Ranchet: Sorry. Yeah. And you did mine. We should do something together, guys. Shira Lazar: Yeah. Marion Ranchet: There's something there. Shira Lazar: It's happening. Oh, we are. Yeah. We're starting here. But what I was gonna say is that is really important because there's different types of influencers depending on your need or your goal and we need to look at that nuance. But still, [00:13:15] despite us saying that by the way, it still doesn't happen. It's gonna be a bit of time. And then also, I think the next version of our list will probably look at offline influence. Because the people Evan Shapiro: True. Shira Lazar: that bring people offline, whether it be, it could be a huge stadium Evan Shapiro: Your event. Shira Lazar: Or it could be. Evan Shapiro: One of my many appearances here at IBC, yeah Shira Lazar: 10 [00:13:30] or 100 or hundreds. I have events with a few hundred people but they think that just because maybe I'm not as huge as some of the other people but I might bring more people together offline. That's real. Evan Shapiro: Let me touch on two trends that you mentioned which is trust. Yeah. That was the unifying factor, from [00:13:45] MrBeast and Druski to Blair Imani and the rest of the top 10 folks, to Bob the Drag Queen, who's number 19. Very high trust factor. Very high trust and then very high [00:14:00] engagement on that trust. The other thing that you mentioned which is, creators for creators' sake, influencers who are just there to be, look shiny and happy that's actually flatlining. What's being replaced by is the expert economy. You are a great example of that. Yeah. But [00:14:15] so are a lot of the people on this list. There's Shira Lazar: Vivian Hsu. Finance, guru. Evan Shapiro: Yeah. That's exactly right, who's on the list. Yeah. The man in the straw hat, who reviews films and is a film influencer. This is [00:14:30] really becoming, a huge part of the affinity economy. Shira Lazar: Also, Gloria, like I would say that even the makeup influencer's on this. They're not just doing get ready with me. She's now a shade expert, right? She's now collaborating with companies to make sure they're inclusive. This is a next [00:14:45] level of influence happening right now. Evan Shapiro: And the, the array of humans. Shira Lazar: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It's a really interesting collection of human beings. It really is. Marion Ranchet: Much more diverse than Shira Lazar: That's what I was gonna say, yeah... Marion Ranchet: If you're looking at that top 100 list just from a [00:15:00] follower count perspective. Evan Shapiro: In every single possible way. Yeah. It in every meaning of the word: Economic, racial, belief systems, gender, the whole spectrum. Shira Lazar: Age, everything. Evan Shapiro: It is, yeah, age. It's a very diverse range of people by age. So I [00:15:15] yeah, I think it's, I think it's, I'm very proud of this list. I think it's a great representation of the most important voices coming up in our culture right now. Marion Ranchet: And so what's coming up next? 'Cause you've mentioned the map, right? You've done a map at the top of the year. You're gonna present a second version during an [00:15:30] upcoming event. Evan Shapiro: So the second season of the Creator Ecosphere Map is happening, on October 8th, at Jupiter Festival in Miami. YouTube just announced that they're sponsoring the first ever Jupiter Festival which is really cool. Marion Ranchet: Lots of good guests. Evan Shapiro: We've got a lot of other folks there. We've got Brian [00:15:45] Albert on stage with me, there. We will be on stage with Neil Lawler. Shira Lazar: Yes from the Whalar Group and who owns now Foam. But yeah, so who was nice enough to support this and bring it to life with us. So we'll be diving into it [00:16:00] there and yeah, releasing the second edition. And you know what? From last year, it's really evolved. A lot of changes, a lot of new tools. Evan Shapiro: This AQ, the, affinity quotient, is at the center of it. So this is the top 100 AQ across all platforms, regardless [00:16:15] of where the creator's main platform is. We're gonna do all the big platforms and the top 50 for each platform. So with the AQ, not just the scale of followers. That will be there, but so will the affinity quotient. The other thing I wanna mention is that [00:16:30] all of this data is publicly available. Marion Ranchet: Yeah. Evan Shapiro: You can recreate this methodology. You can validate all the findings and the rankings that you have out there. But we would, Shira and I are not data scientists. We, there's no way we could have done this. FOAM which is this next level, next [00:16:45] generation insights platform, with their compute, we were able to put together this list and then cover all of, I think, it's 800 creators that'll be on the ultimate map, with AQ and rankings by followers as well. Marion Ranchet: How did you welcome the [00:17:00] news of YouTube changing kinds of the rules of the game, about the view counts? Is that gonna be impacting what you guys have been working on or? Shira Lazar: I think the few things that I pay attention to because I'm, again, looking at how do we [00:17:15] make sure the space stays equitable and inclusive and protecting it for the next generation and making it a sustainable space, is the two things that stood out from YouTube's end is the increase of hours to be allowed to monetize.[00:17:30] That was a game changer, not necessarily a good way because it's gonna cut out a lot of people. So what does that mean for the next voices and who can be part of this? And then the second was the view count of it's gonna count. But I do think it's important to have a system that is the same across all [00:17:45] the platforms. It makes it really confusing when each platform is counting it in a different way. Yeah. So I think in that way it was good because if TikTok and Instagram are counting the first frame as a view and YouTube isn't, it makes it harder for everyone. So that's a good thing. And then, but they [00:18:00] are saying the way they're counting it from the past, they're looking at it as an engaged view. Which is interesting and that will now be a new thing. Maybe advertisers go, I don't want just their, the view. I want the engaged view." Evan Shapiro: Yeah. And I think anybody who's [00:18:15] selling wants to prove that the ad is being seen but I go back to views are the denominator. It's the common denominator, regardless of how, where the view starts. Yeah. The real measure is what is the engagement? What is the reaction? What is the outcome [00:18:30] rate per view? And I think as a, from an advertiser's standpoint, if you're a brand, do you wanna work with a creator who has 500 million fans and only 1% of them is gonna react? Or do you wanna h work with a [00:18:45] culinary creator who has a million really engaged fans and 10%? And I think, you start to make those decisions as you're doing your cost-benefit analysis. But the return per impression here is much higher. Marion Ranchet: [00:19:00] I say we meet again in a year's time and we see how you guys have been able to make creators and agencies evolve around this new affinity list. So this is it for the Media Odyssey podcast. Evan Shapiro: You're a [00:19:15] real host. Shira Lazar: Well Talent booker, producer, everything... Marion Ranchet: This is, episode number 80. I'm actually happy that Evan Shapiro: Is it Episode 80? Marion Ranchet: This is episode 80. I'm really hap- oh, 81, actually. This is 81. I'm happy he finally says that I'm good at this. [00:19:30] Oh, Shira Lazar: Damn. Evan Shapiro: No, you were the host this episode. Marion Ranchet: No, I know it. Shira Lazar: And you were the best. Evan Shapiro: You were doing a good job. It was a callback. Now I feel bad. Marion Ranchet: Have you guys taken any breaks? Shira Lazar: I love making you feel bad. Evan Shapiro: I know you do. Shira Lazar: I love the dynamic and chemistry. Have you guys taken any breaks? Evan Shapiro: The Jewish mom. [00:19:45] Marion Ranchet: We did this summer, actually. We've just released an episode last week. We, yeah, this is season three. Shira Lazar: Good for you. That's good. Marion Ranchet: So we did take a break. Shira Lazar: You need that. Marion Ranchet: I'm French. I just don't wanna do anything in August. He was working. I was on the beach. Shira Lazar: Good for you. Marion Ranchet: Guys, thank you [00:20:00] so much. That was another episode of the Media Odyssey podcast. That is Evan Shapiro. Evan Shapiro: And that is Marion Ranchet. Marion Ranchet: Yes thank you. Thank you so much. We'll see you next [00:20:15] time.