Khaby Lame, others ranked in Forbes top 10 content creators 2024

The most recent 2024 Forbes Top Creator list showcases 50 creators who are currently riding the growth of the creator ecosystem (now estimated to be nearly 50 million people strong).

The Forbes ranking reveals a $20 million increase in earnings for top social media influencers, with a total of $720 million made over the past 12 months.

The report also showed a growth of more than 100 million followers to the creators’ combined total—now boasting more than 2.7 billion followers across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. Goldman Sachs predicts that by 2027, the industry will be worth nearly $500 billion.

American influencers dominated the top ten list with just one, Senegalese-Italian Khaby Lame coming in at number 10.

Other African creators like Olajide Olatunji (KSI) who made an entrance in last year’s edition (Number 2) was notably absent in this year’s ranking

Khaby Lame, dubbed the Charlie Chapman of digital media, has carved a niche in the influencing business for himself becoming the most followed person on TikTok with 163 million followers and 255 million followers across all platforms. His short videos reacting to memes and viral trends have garnered about 2.5 billion likes which he has converted into millions of dollars.

Khaby Lame made an impressive jump from 11th position last year, with his income rising from $16.5 million in 2023, to $20 million this year.

Forbes says in order to accurately rank the world’s top Creators, it “crunched data on the estimated gross earnings, follower counts, engagement rates, and entrepreneurial activities of thousands of internet personalities with the help of the creator marketing firm Influential”

Forbes also used estimates of each creator’s gross earnings between June 2023 and June 2024 to arrive at the ranking

Below are the top 10 top social media influencers, their countries and net worth.