How TIME Is Embracing the Age of Creators
· Time
As we publish the second annual edition of TIME100 Creators, I’ve been thinking about findings released in June by YouGov from its 2026 Trust in Media survey. The research firm polled Americans on how they viewed 65 U.S. news outlets. For the fifth year running, YouGov found TIME to be among the most trusted, by Americans across ideological viewpoints. At a period when Americans seem to agree on increasingly less, their trust in TIME endures.
A second poll, released in April, comes from Media Insight Project, a consortium of academic groups that surveyed Americans ages 13 and up. They found that independent creators, like the ones included in this year’s TIME100 Creators, have become sources of information across generations. Most Americans—57%—get at least some of their news from this group. Our competition is no longer only other magazines, but also individuals who function as media companies unto themselves.
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Taken together, the two surveys point to both a tension and an opportunity for TIME: our value has never been solely trust or reach, but also the belief that each enables the other. As a publisher, we’ve traveled across changes in how people want to access and receive information for 103 years, each time carrying your trust with us into new places and forms. Creators are poised to be that latest turn. Our answer isn’t to retreat from these personalities or the platforms on which they work, but to bring TIME’s editorial judgment to them, and their strengths to you. People-first storytelling shouldn’t come at the cost of trust.
—Photograph by David Brandon Geeting for TIMEWhat is being created by individuals like influencer Alix Earle, who is on the cover of this issue, is real—real audiences, real impact, real businesses. Earle is a fitting avatar for this list: she has built the architecture for the kind of media enterprise many legacy outlets have spent decades creating.
We set out in search of others like Earle, eager to find this year’s TIME100 Creators, listening to the platforms where these individuals make their living, talking with experts about who they see as most influential, and drawing on data from the creator agency Whalar for insights. Though we have limited ourselves to creators who post in English, the individuals come from more than a dozen countries, working across TikTok, Instagram, Threads, YouTube, Twitch, X, LinkedIn, Substack, Pinterest, Spotify, Snapchat, and more.
See the full list of the TIME100 Creators 2026 here
The list also captures the range of these digital voices across industries and categories, including British etiquette expert William Hanson; 10-year-old fashion designer Max Alexander; comedian Drew Desbordes, best known as Druski; commentator Brett Cooper; mathematician Hannah Fry; Shira Lazar, who is leading initiatives to support creators’ mental health; and Wharton professor Ethan Mollick, who is teaching people who want to learn more about AI. Nine top creators participated in our Class of 2026 shoot, from food creator Tini Younger, aka Chef Tini, known for her viral mac and cheese recipe, to pop-culture satirists Boman Martinez-Reid and Delaney Rowe to Twitch streamer Roberto Escanio, aka Fanum. The issue was edited and led by Lucy Feldman and Avery Stone.
TIME100 Creators on the Reality of Creator LifeFor our own work, we think of independent creators the way our predecessors thought about columnists: distinct voices with their own audiences who, when collaborating with TIME, improve the quality of what we offer you. We’re already putting that thinking into practice. Cat Quinn and Maura Higgins have worked as a red-carpet correspondent at our events; travel experts Yaya and Lloyd have been visiting TIME’s World’s Greatest Places for us on Instagram; and Nicolas Heller, better known as New York Nico, will cover soccer, pegged to the World Cup, for TIME. Later this year, along with TIME Studios, we’ll debut a new show with veteran interviewer Piers Morgan. The list of collaborators will continue to grow.
This effort also means embracing the kinds of direct communication many TIME100 Creators are pioneering. Often that happens in person, as TIME gathers with our communities more than 40 times in 2026. Throughout the year, we’ve done more to introduce you to our journalists—rolling out video series featuring TIME reporters and editors, and relaunching our newsletters to better connect readers with the humans whose work defines TIME today. That is the lesson of this moment: we can grow your trust by embracing new ways to strengthen the connection between you and us.
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