The Observer newspaper in the UK published a report indicating that Justin Bieber is more influential in the social networking sphere than Barack Obama or The Dalai Lama. According to Jan Hoffman of The New York Times, part of Bieber’s appeal stems from his YouTube channel. Long before he released his EP, My World, in mid-November, the YouTube videos attracted millions of views. Bieber continues to upload videos to the same channel and has opened a Twitter account, from which he interacts with fans regularly; his account was reported in November 2010 to have over 6 million followers. The accounts also serve marketing purposes; for example, Bieber’s music video for “One Time” only began selling quickly after it was uploaded to YouTube.

Net Worth: $112 million (2013)