With more than 10 million TikTok followers, Espina has become one of the leading Hispanic political voices in the US. His videos—almost all of which are in Spanish and which routinely get hundreds of thousands of views—provide commentary on policy and politics. In a recent 24-hour span, he posted about the Venezuelan presidential election, an earthquake in Las Vegas, the replacement for the late Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), a lawsuit against Elon Musk and J.K. Rowling, what he’ll do if Donald Trump wins reelection (“I’m going to keep working and doing what I do”) and airport security.

The 25-year-old, who was born in Uruguay and recently graduated from law school at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, first gained attention in 2020. The citizenship classes he was teaching on Facebook were popular on the platform—and then brought him wider attention when he focused on TikTok. “At first I thought TikTok was dumb,” he says. “But then I thought, ‘If I don’t like the content, why don’t I make content I’m interested in?’” He posted his first video in April of that year. “It was ‘Hey, if you want to be a US citizen, watch this video,’” he says. “I went to sleep, woke up, and it had 100,000 views.” Now he’s famous: “I was in Washington to meet the president. In two different restaurants, the staff knew me. They invited me into the kitchen to take pictures.”

Espina aims for at least five videos a day, but when there’s a lot of news—such as on Election Day in 2020—he’ll do as many as 30. Across all social media platforms this year, Espina says, he expects to bring in $2 million, up from $1.3 million last year, via sources including the US citizenship test flashcards he sells on the TikTok shop. (Those alone accounted for $470,000 in revenue in 2023.) Early last year he started a nonprofit, Migrantes Unidos, that helps immigrants in the US through social programs and scholarships, and he’s also looking at properties in the Houston area, where he now lives, for a community center that will provide language and citizenship classes.

Whether it’s Carlos Alcaraz’s stealth drop shot or Iga Swiatek’s blistering forehand, tennis fans love to rhapsodize about the skills of top players. For Eubanks, who’s flirted with top-30 status, they admire his big serve and nimble net game, but they’ve been wowed by a different skill entirely: his dexterity on the mic.

The excitement started in 2022. At the time, the 6-foot-7 Eubanks was several years into his pro career and struggling to crack the top 100. That spring he took a break from the clay-court season to apprentice as a commentator on the Tennis Channel. As it turned out, Eubanks, whose father is a Baptist minister, possessed a naturally warm charisma on camera, deftly mixing observations on matchups and playing styles with anecdotes from his life on tour. He shared fun stories about his friendship with occasional mixed-doubles partner Coco Gauff, the rising American superstar who Eubanks had known growing up in Atlanta. Viewers loved it.

But before he could fully hone his studio skills, the court intervened. In 2023, Eubanks—who’d played three years of collegiate tennis at Georgia Tech while studying business—had a breakthrough season. Big victories piled up: In Spain he defeated Adrian Mannarino to win the Mallorca Championships, his first career ATP Tour singles title. In England he scored thrilling upsets at Wimbledon, taking down Cameron Norri and Stefanos Tsitsipas en route to the quarterfinals. Eubanks’ ranking shot up to a career-high No. 29.

The 2024 season has been more of a struggle. Eubanks suffered disappointing first-round losses at Mallorca, Wimbledon and the US Open. His ranking fell to 106. In between matches his appearances on TV have continued to get positive attention, including the many postgame chats with players he did for ESPN at the US Open; during one with Gauff, she started chuckling during his questions and told Eubanks, “It’s weird being interviewed by you.”

For years, American audiences have benefited from a strong lineup of former players turned adroit TV commentators. But many of today’s best—including Mary Carillo, John McEnroe and Chris Evert—are in their mid-to-late 60s and decades removed from competition. At some point, a generational succession is in order, and Eubanks is only 28. In the meantime, this summer he competed as a member of the US’s Davis Cup team, and he’ll continue to appear on the Tennis Channel as his playing schedule permits.

Finn’s debut in the horror genre came in 2020 with Laura Hasn’t Slept, a short film about a woman’s recurring nightmares that won Special Jury Recognition at SXSW. He’s been honing his jump-scare craftsmanship ever since. Smile, his 2022 feature-length debut, based on Laura Hasn’t Slept and made for Paramount+, tested so well with audiences that it got a run in theaters before streaming online. After a viral marketing campaign that included hiring actors to smile eerily in the crowd at MLB games, it became the best-performing horror release of the year, grossing more than $217 million against a budget of $17 million, with audiences praising its acting and cinematography.

In the wake of Smile’s success, Finn, who has a master of fine arts in screenwriting from Chapman University, signed a first-look deal with Paramount Pictures and founded a production company, Bad Feeling, to develop highbrow horror films and TV shows. Smile 2 hits cinemas on Oct. 18, and Finn is also working on a remake, starring Robert Pattinson, of the controversial 1981 film Possession; the movie, about a murderous woman’s sexual relationship with a tentacled creature, was banned in the UK and heavily edited before its release in the US because of its gruesome content. Smile 2 “will take audiences on a brand-new journey delving even deeper into the unnerving and psychological horror that resonated with so many,” Finn says.

During a commencement speech he gave at Seoul National University in late August, Kim told attendees that in college he’d been “an introverted otaku,” someone who’s obsessed with anime and comics. He turned that obsession into a career: In 2004, after joining Naver Corp., South Korea’s largest internet company, he began building Webtoon Entertainment—first as an internal side project, then as a thriving content machine fueling shows on streaming services such as Netflix. “Managers at the company advised me to move” to Naver’s search business, Kim told the graduates, “but I always said, ‘As long as I can continue to read my favorite webtoons every day, I will continue to do this.’”

Webtoons are colorful digital comics designed to be scrolled through on mobile devices. Often serialized stories told in short episodes, the format has now been popular in South Korea for about two decades, thanks in part to companies such as Naver, which runs the country’s most popular search engine, that have made it easy for creators to publish content. Webtoon Entertainment’s platform had 7.7 million monthly active users in North America in the first quarter of this year.

Arguably the most successful webtoon made for a global audience is Lore Olympus by New Zealand author Rachel Smythe, a modern retelling of the Greek myth about the abduction of Persephone. It was made into an award-winning graphic novel, and it’s in development as an animated series with the Jim Henson Co. Korean webtoons such as The 8 Show, Hellbound, Sweet Home, Vigilante and Marry My Husband were developed into Korean dramas before then being adapted for Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video.

In June, Webtoon Entertainment had a $315 million US initial public offering, though its stock price has since fallen from about $21 to about $11 over concerns regarding growth. Still, Webtoon is expanding, developing originals from Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and other countries into live-action films and TV series.

Pijja Palace, the wildly popular two-year-old sports bar Naran owns in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, has the expected wall of TVs—and an unexpected menu of lentil-battered onion rings, wings slathered with Kashmiri red chile and chicken tikka pizza. (“Pijja” is how Naran’s grandparents said the word.) Naran says the menu is inspired by his family: “I grew up watching sports at my uncle’s house while they cooked on the tandoor. And LA is one of the biggest sports hubs in the world. We have two baseball teams, two basketball teams, two football teams.”

It’s the kind of crowd-pleasing concept that could easily translate to surrounding LA neighborhoods—and New York City, where Indian cuisine and culture are increasingly popular. But Naran, who attended the Napa Valley Cooking School and worked at notable restaurants such as Indian Accent in New York, wants to focus on new ideas. In the space next to Pijja Palace, he’s opening a Filipino spot with chefs Andrew Marco and Ralph Hsiao, both of Open Market, a cafe and sandwich shop in Koreatown. The as-yet-unnamed, 80-seat place will highlight less explored areas of the cuisine, including multiple kinds of the noodle dish pancit. And Naran also has plans for a bar that will celebrate India’s drinking culture. “I want to create Indian bitters,” he says. “Or a vermouth based on tamarind, on cloves, on coconut. There are so many spices coming from our country. Let’s rewrite the industry.”

Fondation Beyeler in Riehen, Switzerland, is considered a perfect small museum, built with a precise balance of glass, stone and wood that makes every artwork shine. But this summer, its main attraction was outside: a greenhouse that Okoyomon designed. The artist filled it with plants that are poisonous to humans but an ideal breeding ground for butterflies, which fluttered about, occasionally landing on visitors’ clothing. At the far end, Okoyomon had installed an animatronic teddy bear wearing lacy underwear, which by all accounts freaked people out as they came across it.

Unlike most hot young artists who traffic in easily transportable (and salable) paintings and sculptures, Okoyomon mostly makes work that’s conceptual and unwieldy. Sometimes it’s tied to history: In the 2022 Venice Bienniale, they created a room filled with streams, earth and plants including sugarcane, which exhibition literature tied explicitly to the transatlantic slave trade; and in a 2020 exhibit inside Frankfurt’s Museum of Modern Art, they filled a space with Japanese kudzu, a plant the US government introduced to Mississippi in 1876 to fortify ground soil after cotton plants caused widespread erosion.

Born in London and based in New York, Okoyomon spent their early childhood in Lagos, Nigeria, then later moved with their family to Texas and Ohio. In addition to their art, they’ve published two collections of well-regarded poetry, Ajebota (2016) and But Did You Die? (2024), and they often incorporate poetry performances as part of their art installations. This year, Okoyomon was also included in Nigeria’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale, and in a solo show presented in part by the prestigious Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid, they created a postapocalyptic forest (enlivened by another animatronic figure) in a grotto in the Montaña de los Gatos in Madrid’s Parque del Retiro. In November, Okoyomon will open a solo show at Austria’s prestigious Kunsthaus Bregenz museum inspired by their latest poetry collection.

Rapp is one of Hollywood’s hottest multihyphenates. In 2019 she played Regina George, the villainous queen bee in the Broadway musical adaptation of Mean Girls. After the production shut down during the pandemic, she was cast in the Max series The Sex Lives of College Girls, which follows four roommates as they navigate romance and friendships on their stately New England campus. Rapp quickly became a fan favorite as Leighton Murray, a privileged legacy student struggling with her sexuality.

In 2022, Rapp signed a recording contract with Interscope Records, releasing her first pop album, Snow Angel, the next year. The album, which made its debut at No. 44 on the US Billboard 200 chart, drew mostly positive reviews for Rapp’s versatile vocal range and tart lyrics. (On Poison Poison, she says of an ex-friend, “And, yes, I am a feminist / But, bitch, you’re makin’ it so hard for me to always be supportin’ all women.”)

Rapp reprised her Mean Girls role in a film adaptation of the musical that premiered in January, also collaborating with rapper Megan Thee Stallion on the song Not My Fault, which played during the movie’s end credits. She performed as a musical guest on Saturday Night Live’s first show of 2024 and came out as a lesbian during a skit. (She’d previously identified as bisexual.) Although Rapp has considered focusing solely on music, she’ll be in a handful of episodes in the third season of Sex Lives, whose release date hasn’t been nailed down. And, she told the Hollywood Reporter in February, “I’m developing things with people that I really, really like—that I’m excited about.”

Concertgoers always anticipate an artist’s set list, but at a Chappell Roan show, the intrigue extends beyond the music. Fans also wonder what she’ll wear. The 26-year-old singer appeared as the Statue of Liberty at New York City’s Governors Ball Music Festival in June, showed up as a swan on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon later that month and donned a metallic blue and neon pink luchador mask for Lollapalooza in August.

In less than a year, Roan, whose real name is Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, went from an opener for Olivia Rodrigo to a massive draw in her own right at music festivals. Her star has grown so big, so fast, that she attracted the largest daytime crowd in Lollapalooza history despite not being billed as a headliner. Even though her first album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, topped charts months after its release in September 2023, the industry viewed her more as a drag-queen-inspired gay icon than a mainstream star. (Roan, who’s from Willard, Missouri, identifies as a lesbian; one of her most popular songs, Pink Pony Club, is about a small-town woman finding community at a gay bar in LA.) Roan’s solo tour this year had her initially appearing at clubs that could fit 2,000 people, but she had to shift to venues that can handle many more fans.

Roan’s rapid ascent has tested her appetite for privacy. “People are starting to be freaks, like following me, and know where my parents live and where my sister works,” she said on a podcast in July. “I’ve pumped the brakes on honestly anything to make me more known.” Still, she has a tour to finish. That’s taken her to London, Berlin and other European cities—and will take her to Rogers, Arkansas, and Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Finally Over, the last song on Shaboozey’s breakout country-hip-hop album released in May, begins with him contemplating leaving the music industry at the washed-up age of 29. “ All my friends have got careers / And mine just might be over,” he sings ruefully, backed by a strumming guitar. “If I don’t sell my soul again / For another viral moment.”

Yet, in fact, his career refuses to quit. The Woodbridge, Virginia, native, whose real name is Collins Obinna Chibueze, has been on a hockey-stick trajectory for most of the past year. In March he appeared twice on Beyoncé’s country-themed Cowboy Carter. Then came a hit single, A Bar Song (Tipsy), leading up to the release of his album, Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going. The single, a honky-tonk anthem to drinking whiskey and dancing on tables, claimed the top spot on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs before hitting No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 (where it stayed for months). He’s teamed up with Jack Daniel’s, and this fall he’s touring with Jelly Roll, another country star with hip-hop roots.

Shaboozey has spent years on the edge of the industry’s spotlight. Where I’ve Been is his third album, and he’d previously mostly gained attention in brief, viral moments: One 10-year-old song, Jeff Gordon, was semi-famous for splicing audio from Nascar races with trap beats. He’s longed to be noticed more for his storytelling. That, of course, can be at odds with the more fleeting requirements of modern success, such as writing hooks that blow up on TikTok. Luckily for the man who ended his album with the words “I’m glad it’s finally over,” he’s just beginning.

Sud, a 41-year-old Indian American who previously ran the online video site Vimeo Inc., heads one of the world’s fastest-growing media companies. With 81 million monthly users, Tubi is a leader in the emerging category of free, ad-supported streaming TV. If that sounds a lot like the traditional broadcast model, it is, but with the cost of services such as Disney+ and Netflix rising, consumers want alternatives. Tubi, which is owned by Fox Corp. and competes most directly with Pluto TV and the Roku Channel, draws more viewers than Peacock, Max and Paramount+, and it’s tied with Disney+, according to Nielsen Co.

Tubi’s library consists of tens of thousands of films and TV shows (1993’s Groundhog Day, the ’70s detective series Columbo), and you don’t have to sign up for an account to watch. Such content, Sud says, is “nostalgia for some—we call it newstalgia for others.” Tubi also features original productions, many of them made by new filmmakers for hundreds of thousands, rather than millions, of dollars. One original, The Z-Suite, a workplace comedy about intergenerational clashes, was greenlit in May; it will star Lauren Graham of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood. The site is also popular with Black and LGBTQ audiences and has thousands of shows and films starring Black actors and made by Black creatives. Next year, Sud says, the company will invest more in niche programming, such as sports documentaries. It will also expand its international presence after making its debut recently in the UK.

Actors with a movie to promote make the rounds on late-night television. Up-and-coming comedians host Saturday Night Live. And now reality-TV stars who want to extend their five minutes of fame go on The Viall Files.

Viall, who’s been cast in The Bachelor, The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise, started his podcast in 2019. It has since become a must-stop for reality-TV personalities, whose fans want analyses of their various dramas. His weekly “reality recap” episodes tackle the most popular shows—The Bachelor, Love Island, The Real Housewives and Summer House—and his interviews can get tense. Bloggers called one infamous conversation with a Vanderpump Rules star at the center of an affair on the show “unhinged,” “chaotic” and full of “WTF moments.” Which, of course, is exactly what listeners want. Viall’s YouTube channel has almost 190,000 subscribers, and more than 200,000 people follow the the podcast on Spotify. He has more than 1 million followers on Instagram.

Part of Viall’s appeal is that, as a former reality-TV star himself, he has behind-the-scenes knowledge of how the industry works. Beyond speculating about interpersonal conflicts, he can explain how producers might regard them. On an episode about The Bachelor season that he starred in, Viall recalled producers telling him to spout a cliché—that his future wife was in the room full of contestants vying for his affection. “They’re obsessed with that line,” he said. He’s leveraged his insider status to start a new company, Envy Media, that’s developing other podcasts. One, Disrespectfully, is hosted by former Vanderpump stars Katie Maloney and Dayna Kathan.

It’s been a breakout year for women’s college basketball. Caitlin Clark drove record TV viewership for the NCAA’s March Madness tournament this spring. Now Watkins is poised to sustain the momentum. An LA native and Southern California high school sensation who plays with a rare blend of power and grace, she broke the scoring record for a freshman college player and was named an All-american. Watkins’ portfolio of sponsor deals already includes blue-chip brands such as Nike, Fanatics and Meta Platforms , and it only promises to grow now that Clark has moved on to the WNBA, leaving her and University of Connecticut senior guard Paige Bueckers as the biggest stars in the college game.

The two are set to meet on Dec. 21, when the Trojans travel to Hartford to face UConn in a nationally televised matchup that will test the schools’ championship credentials—and how many viewers the college game can draw in the post-Clark era. “I would like to believe the growth is here to stay,” Watkins says. “The players have been great for so many years. Finally we’re getting the attention that we deserve. So I just feel that will continue.”

Because the WNBA has a minimum age of 22, the 19-year-old Watkins won’t be able to make the jump to the professional game until 2027, so she has three more seasons at USC to build her profile. “I’m definitely happy at the moment,” Watkins says. “There’s so much for me to learn at this level before I’m ready to transition, so I’m just soaking it all in.”