Cooking? Sure. Makeup? Of course. Minecraft? We can think of a few hate follows.
But when it comes to tech and science, “influencer” isn’t necessarily the job that flies into our minds. That’s a mistake — not only because tech and science are defining our future, but because there’s a slew of personalities with tons of followers who are worth paying attention to, creators who are explaining, and in many cases shaping, what our lives will soon look like.
When VidCon kicks off its latest edition on June 19 in Anaheim, it will cast a light on many of the personalities in this realm. Some of them, like the science influencer and product reviewer Lamarr Wilson or the outer space explainer Alexandra “Astro Alexandra” Doten, will actually be speaking at the convention, part of a push to include more educators. Others will be in attendance or simply form part of the great creator universe that transcends the confines of the Anaheim Convention Center — indeed, that goes beyond any physical space to exist in our phones, laptops and collective consciousness.
In the alphabetic grouping below you’ll find a sampling. Medical influencers like Dr. Amalina Bakri, explaining how cutting-edge cancer research is evolving. Science communicators like Mark Rober, a Bill Nye for the new age. Fei-Fei Li, who basically helped invent AI and now explains to her legions of fans how we should best maintain it. Or Molly White and Tristan Harris, who keep the tech world honest with their human-centered advocacy. You’ll even find a … less-than-human personality in the form of “virtual” influencer Lu From Magalu.
This isn’t meant as an exhaustive list, of course; there are plenty of other notable names shaping our future. But these personalities comprise a representative range of the folks who make social media a place of innovation and progress.
As VidCon executive Sarah Tortoreti said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter when asked about the diversity of this year’s lineup: “I think at its core, what we are trying to do is be a reflection of what is happening in the online communities that exist across the entire creator ecosystem. So it’s important to us to be diverse in not only platform, but also genre of content.”
The Green Brothers got this all going in Century City back in 2010 with the idea, as Hank Green said at the time, “to reflect the growth and culture of the online video industry.” Here’s who’s defining the culture and making the world safe for tech and science.
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ASTRO ALEXANDRA
3M+ TikTok followers
The vastness of space and the technicalities of space exploration would seem like strange fodder for the casual frippery of TikTok, but somehow Doten sidesteps all of that to make complex subjects fun and simple. Whether she’s debunking Muskian rumors of the U.S. astronauts “stranded” in space or breaking down the scope of the cosmos (“There are trillions of stars and galaxies that we will never reach and some that we will never even know about”), the 2018 Vanderbilt graduate and onetime NASA worker thrillingly brings worlds far away very close.
Amalina Bakri
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DR. AMALINA
237,000+ TikTok followers
Bakri wouldn’t seem like a natural subject for the dance-y precincts of TikTok. The Malaysian-born medical professional is a clinical research fellow at Imperial College London, where she conducts research on breast cancer and other life-critical realms. But thanks to a savvy mix of pop (check out her video of going to work at the hospital set to “There She Goes”) and straightforward explanations about subjects like breast asymmetry, Dr. Amalina has become one of the more important medical influencers on a disease that continues to afflict too many.
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MKBHD
20M+ YouTube subscribers
You want to know tech products? The story begins, ends and runs through the middle with MKBHD, the alias of 31-year-old New Jersey native Marques Brownlee. Whether it’s the new iPhone, an obscure AI device or even just some small everyday items like earbuds and wallets, MKBHD breaks down what clicks and doesn’t click for a device with a clear, accessible style that nonetheless doesn’t lack for sophistication or knowledge. Wait, is that Tim Cook gabbing with him on his channel from Apple’s WWDC24? Of course it is. The Apple CEO knows the man to go to.
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JACK CLARK
83,000+ X followers
If you want the deepest dive on AI from a person who has been living it for years, check out Clark. A co-founder of the AI giant Anthropic and former policy director at OpenAI, Clark has the Silicon Valley résumé that makes him an instant draw; in a world of secrecy, Clark is spilling. (He’s a former Bloomberg reporter, which helps in that department.) On his popular Substack “Import AI” and across his social platforms, Clark on the daily meets the challenge he believes is the defining one of the 21st century: “To make an increasingly fast-moving technical world legible to a large number of people.”
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TRISTAN HARRIS
180,000+ X followers
Being a social media presence while also being its conscience is a tricky job, but we’re really happy Harris is doing it. An entrepreneur and former design ethicist at Google, Harris founded the Center for Humane Technology as a check on an industry he feels too often manipulates people’s time and emotions. Across social platforms and on his “Your Undivided Attention” podcast, Harris explains from the inside how Big Tech influences billions — and offers convincing strategies for how to restore our humanity in the face of those manipulations.
Rob Kim/Getty Images The Webby Awards
FEI-FEI LI
4M+ plays on Ted Talks
The internet can be a place for awesome skateboarding videos. It’s also where Li gives viral Ted Talks like “With Spatial Intelligence, AI Will Understand the Real World” that break down the tech of the AI Revolution. Li, a former chief scientist of AI at Google Cloud, founded and co-directs the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and speaks frequently on how AI can be made more human-centric, a kind of Neil deGrasse Tyson for the AI era. If you want to know how the tech is progressing, listen to Li — after all, she’s the one moving it there.
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LU FROM MAGALU
7.9M+ Instagram followers
The Brazilian has a pretty clear differentiating factor when stacked up against other creators in the fashion and retail space: She doesn’t really exist. Lu is a virtual influencer. She appears in photos and videos and even collaborates with brands including McDonald’s and Red Bull. But far from honing her game while, say, attending high school in Rio, she is the purely virtual creation of Magazine Luíza, the Brazilian retailer and media company. As AI content proliferates, Lu could be a template for the future of influencers, demonstrating to companies in the U.S. and around the world that you don’t need to live and breathe to make an impact online: You just need to resonate.
Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images for Teen Vogue
ALLIE MILLER
1.5M+ LinkedIn followers
If AI is successful in transforming how corporate America operates, there’s a good chance that Miller will be one of the reasons. The tech company veteran (she’s worked at Amazon and IBM) has become one of the go-to voices for companies and people seeking to understand this new world of business. As her many LinkedIn followers can attest, Miller helps people navigate how businesses and entrepreneurs can leverage AI to great effect — in a way that is accessible and digestible.
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MARK ROBER
69M+ YouTube subscribers
What to say about the NASA/JPL and Apple engineer turned YouTube gadgeteer, who also has millions of followers on platforms like TikTok? All of them turn to Rober for crazy science experiments, cool pranks (he has a recurring series of videos playing tricks on people who steal Amazon packages from doorsteps) and, of course, an explosion or two. Rober leveraged his creator following to launch Crunch Labs, which offers science and engineering kits for kids, teens and adults, ensuring that in addition to being entertaining, Rober has leveraged his massive following for educational purposes, too.
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MOLLY WHITE
222,000+ Bluesky followers
The internet can be a place of bro-y hype. Then there’s White. A Massachusetts-based software engineer, White came to fame in the early days of Web3 — that 2022 period of NFTs and cryptos — explaining all the problems with that business on her journalism platform, dubbed “Web 3 Is Going Great.” She has kept it going in an age when the White House has seemingly turned crypto into official state business, deflating the bubble and demystifying a murky world on her newsletter and podcast, Citation Needed, and social platforms. Followers turn to White for the unadulterated truth, and we applaud her for it.
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LAMAR WILSON
1.1M+ TikTok followers
In a world where tech influencers are a dime a dozen, Wilson stands out as an original. The creator started his YouTube channel in 2008 and quickly showcased a playful sense of humor that nonetheless came with unvarnished opinions. After garnering more than 2 million subscribers, Wilson stopped shooting in traditional YouTube widescreen (though is still on the platform) to focus on TikTok, where across his many reviews, unboxings and other content shows this stuff is serious — but can also be fun.
This story appeared in the June 18 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.