Time decrees Kanye West and Taylor Swift among the world’s most influential people
Time has released its annual “Time 100” issue, recognizing the 100 most influential people around the world with the extraordinary honor of being put in a numbered list. As it is every year, the list covers a wide realm of “influence,” everything from politics to science to being the Pope, but with a healthy dollop of celebrity, because Time would like to sell magazines. Two of the five separate covers belong to Kanye West and Bradley Cooper, while another belongs to Supreme Court cult hero Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Alongside the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, Hillary Clinton, and Benjamin Netanyahu are Amy Schumer, John Oliver, Emma Watson, Chris Pratt, Kevin Hart, Richard Linklater, and Julianne Moore. And throughout, these various Titans, Icons, Pioneers, Artists, and Leaders are paid tribute by the people most qualified to recognize their authority: other famous people.
“Mitch McConnell’s mind is a marvelous machine,” trills John Boehner, the orange, alliterative Oompa-Loompa of D.C. “Unlike many crony capitalists who troll the halls of Congress looking for favors, the Kochs have consistently lobbied against special-interest politics,” gushes Rand Paul of the Koch brothers, and their tireless fight against outsiders wielding undue influence over democracy who are not the Koch brothers. There are also some questionable entries. Like these:
“His eyes and ears are attuned to nuance”—Oprah Winfrey on Lee Daniels, director of nuanced movies like Precious and The Paperboy, and the creator of Empire, a show in which a man reacts to his son being gay by literally putting him in a garbage can.