The World’s 10 Best Influencers
Discover the best of the world, from unforgettable stays and local flavours to inspiring experiences and so much more. Explore our growing collection of guides and find your next favourite.
MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson)
United States
Jimmy Donaldson, known professionally as MrBeast, creates filmed challenges, elaborate competitions and large-scale entertainment for digital audiences. His work centres on a clear premise, a group of participants and a sequence of escalating decisions, with editing that keeps the mechanics of each challenge easy to follow. The resulting videos combine game-show structure with the direct presentation of a creator speaking to his audience. That approach also informs Beast Games, his competition series for Prime Video. Across these formats, purpose-built sets, physical tasks and cash prizes provide the framework, while contestants’ reactions and choices shape the story. His productions are useful examples of how an online video concept can develop into a longer programme without losing its recognisable visual language or emphasis on participation. A separate strand of his public work is Beast Philanthropy, the charitable organisation he founded. Its videos document projects undertaken with communities and local partners, connecting online storytelling with practical aid. Taken together, the entertainment and charitable channels show the breadth of Donaldson’s professional output, from tightly constructed spectacles to filmed accounts of work beyond the studio.
Marques Brownlee (MKBHD)
United States
Marques Brownlee is the technology reviewer and video producer behind MKBHD. His work examines the devices people use in everyday life, with smartphones, headphones, computers and electric vehicles among the recurring subjects. Carefully lit product photography and a measured presentation give the channel a consistent identity, while demonstrations translate specifications into questions about how a product actually works. The focus extends beyond a first impression. Reviews consider design, features and practical compromises, giving viewers a way to compare technologies without needing specialist knowledge. Interviews and wider discussions bring manufacturers, product decisions and the direction of the industry into the conversation. Brownlee’s official platform also connects audiences with Auto Focus, which applies a similar interest in technology to vehicles. Waveform adds a conversational dimension through podcast discussions of consumer technology and related news. The Studio turns attention towards the people and production work behind the videos. Together, these projects provide several routes into the same subject, from a concise product review to a longer discussion or a look at the process of filming. The distinctive thread is an interest in clear explanation supported by precise visual presentation.
Dude Perfect
Frisco, United States
Dude Perfect is a sports and entertainment group whose films turn trick shots, friendly rivalry and comic timing into recognisable video formats. Tyler Toney, Cody Jones, Garrett Hilbert and twins Coby and Cory Cotton began making videos together as university friends. The group’s identity remains rooted in that shared enthusiasm, with ambitious shots and competitive tasks giving each member a part in the action. Basketballs, footballs and everyday objects become ingredients for carefully staged sequences, often filmed in settings that allow the scale of a challenge to unfold on screen. Alongside trick shots, the group produces competitions, sketches and recurring programmes such as Overtime. Guest appearances and collaborations widen the sporting reference points, while the presentation keeps the basic challenge straightforward for a broad audience. Based professionally in Frisco, Texas, Dude Perfect also develops live shows and other entertainment projects that bring its on-screen formats into different settings. The appeal lies in the combination of physical skill, repetition, teamwork and an evident willingness to make a game out of an ordinary idea. Viewers can explore both the compact trick-shot films and longer programmes through the group’s official channels.
Mark Rober
United States
Mark Rober uses engineering projects to turn a question into a visual story. A former NASA engineer, he makes science-led videos in which a build, experiment or apparently playful problem becomes a way to explain how things work. The presentation pairs workshop processes with the anticipation of a test, allowing viewers to follow both the idea and the result. His public projects have included elaborate squirrel mazes, inventive devices and carefully constructed pranks. These subjects provide a familiar point of entry before introducing principles of design, physics and problem solving. The emphasis on making and testing gives the films a practical character: the mechanism behind a surprising outcome is part of the entertainment, rather than a detail left off screen. Rober also founded CrunchLabs, which develops buildable projects and accompanying educational videos. Its engineering kits and robotics activities extend the same approach into hands-on learning for children, teenagers and adults. Across his videos and educational work, curiosity is treated as something to act on, through assembling, experimenting and reconsidering a design. His official channels suit viewers who enjoy accessible science with an evident connection to the workshop.
Zach King
Los Angeles, United States
Zach King is a filmmaker whose short videos use visual effects, carefully planned movement and editing to make everyday scenes behave unexpectedly. An object changes scale, a doorway leads somewhere improbable or an action resolves in a visual twist. These compact stories rely on clear staging, so the illusion can be understood quickly without a lengthy explanation. His Los Angeles-based team develops this approach through King Studio, combining filmmaking craft with the pace of social video. The work often begins with an ordinary setting or familiar task before introducing an impossible outcome. That contrast gives the films a playful quality, while their tightly controlled timing makes them useful examples of storytelling through images. Brand collaborations form another part of the studio’s professional output. King has also extended his interest in imaginative worlds into a children’s book series, with accompanying augmented-reality applications that add a digital element to the reading experience. Across books and films, the connecting theme is visual surprise. His official channels offer an introduction to short-form filmmaking for audiences interested in illusion, creative editing and the process of building a complete story around a single inventive idea.
Lilly Singh
Canada
Lilly Singh works across comedy, writing, acting and production, with a public career that developed from creating videos for an online audience. Her performance style brings character work and personal observation together, often using humour to explore identity, expectations and the experience of moving between different cultural settings. That combination has carried into television, books and longer narrative projects. Singh’s professional work includes presenting a late-night television programme and appearing in film and television productions. As an author, she has also used a more direct, reflective voice, extending the conversation beyond the pace of a comedy sketch. The range of formats gives audiences different ways to encounter the same interest in storytelling and the roles people are expected to perform. Through Unicorn Island, the company she founded, Singh develops projects with an emphasis on voices and perspectives that have received less space in mainstream entertainment. Its production and social-impact work reflects her wider interest in representation and gender equity. Her official platforms bring these strands together, offering a profile of a Canadian creator whose work now spans both performance and the development of stories behind the camera.
Nas Daily (Nuseir Yassin)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Nuseir Yassin created Nas Daily around the discipline of making a video every day while travelling. The original thousand-day project established a concise form of storytelling, with a presenter, a clearly framed subject and a fast-moving visual explanation. People, places and unexpected ideas became the material for films intended to make an unfamiliar subject immediately accessible. Nas Daily has since developed into a wider professional operation. Its current studio work covers areas including tourism, education, technology and sustainability, producing videos and social content for organisations as well as its own audience. The presentation often uses a specific person, invention or local detail as the starting point, then broadens the story to explain why it matters to the people involved. Yassin is also the founder of Nas Company, whose activities include creator education, community platforms and events. The business has established professional operations in Dubai and Singapore, reflecting the international scope of the work. For viewers interested in travel through short visual stories, Nas Daily offers a people-centred approach that sits alongside its commercial production work and wider projects supporting digital creators.
Huda Kattan (Huda Beauty)
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Huda Kattan combines the work of a make-up artist, digital creator and beauty entrepreneur. Her tutorials and demonstrations focus on the visible process of applying make-up, using close-up presentation to explain techniques, textures and the effect of different products. The approach makes experimentation central, with beauty treated as a form of personal expression as well as a practical skill. Her Dubai-based brand, Huda Beauty, grew from that relationship with an online audience. The current range includes foundations, concealers, powders, lip products and eye make-up, alongside tools and accessories. Product demonstrations connect these collections with her wider educational content, allowing viewers to see how colour, finish and application work together in a complete look. Kattan’s professional profile also includes speaking about the development of her business and the experience of building a beauty company from Dubai. Her official platforms bring the creative and commercial sides together, from short application tips to discussions of the thinking behind a product. For an audience interested in beauty and digital entrepreneurship, the distinctive element is the continuity between the person demonstrating a technique and the company developing the materials used to create it.
The Blonde Abroad (Kiersten Rich)
United States
Kiersten Rich, also known as Kiki, is the travel creator behind The Blonde Abroad. Her website combines destination guides with photography, packing advice and practical features, with solo female travel forming an important part of its identity. The perspective is personal, drawing on her own journeys while organising information around the questions readers face when planning a trip. The range of travel covered is deliberately broad. Adventure, budget travel, couples’ holidays and luxury experiences appear alongside food, style and photography. Detailed itineraries sit beside guidance on choosing equipment, preparing for a particular climate and shaping a trip around an interest. This gives the site a useful balance between visual inspiration and the everyday decisions that make an itinerary workable. Rich’s public story began with leaving a career in corporate finance to travel, and her professional platform continues to connect that experience with advice for other independent travellers. Her photography and editing resources add another dimension for readers interested in recording their own journeys. The Blonde Abroad is particularly suited to those who want a recognisable individual voice, clear planning categories and an emphasis on confidence when exploring somewhere unfamiliar.
Nomadic Matt (Matt Kepnes)
United States
Matt Kepnes writes as Nomadic Matt, with a focus on making independent travel more manageable and affordable. His website approaches a journey through the decisions that shape it: saving money, choosing a destination, finding flights, booking accommodation and understanding likely costs. The tone is practical and personal, drawing on the experience of travelling with the same constraints faced by many readers. Destination guides and planning features sit alongside discussions of hostels, transport, packing and life on the road. Detailed cost breakdowns help turn a broad travel idea into a workable budget, while interviews and accounts from other travellers widen the perspective. The emphasis is on understanding the choices available, whether someone is preparing for a short holiday or a longer journey through several countries. Kepnes began the website in 2008 and has also written books, including How to Travel the World on $75 a Day and the memoir Ten Years a Nomad. These extend the site’s two complementary strands: practical advice and reflection on the experience of travel itself. His official platform suits readers who value concrete planning information, an individual voice and attention to the ordinary details of moving between places.