| Today, in advance of the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles in a few weeks, we're highlighting a list of a dozen people who are transforming culture (and the business of culture) as we speak—people whose names might not be known now but will be in the future. Plus: Why Apple's new movies will be mostly playing on the small screen and how pro bettors are disguising themselves as addicts to get free money from sportsbooks. If this email was forwarded to you, click here to sign up. The names on this list aren't of the household variety. But they are the people who very well could be that familiar in the near future. They're blowing up on TikTok, drawing massive crowds at music festivals, creating genre-bending art—and even expanding their culinary empires. Pay attention to them now so that, when they're huge, you can say you were fans from the early days.  Photo Illustration by 731; Portraits: Rapp: Jon Kopaloff/Getty Images. Roan: Lucienne Nghiem. Shaboozey: Daniel Prakopcyk. All others: courtesy subject. Carlos Eduardo Espina, political content creator and activist
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. —Kate Krader Parker Finn, director
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. —Thomas Buckley Junkoo Kim, founder and CEO, Webtoon Entertainment Inc.
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. —Sohee Kim Renée Rapp, singer-songwriter and actress
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." —Hannah Miller For the full list, go here: Bloomberg Screentime Ones to Watch And coming soon: Sign up for the Weekend Edition newsletter for big ideas and open questions in the fascinating places where finance, life and culture meet. | 
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