Richard Tyler “Ninja” Blevins has joined Time’s list of Top 100 Most Influential People this year. The list was released on Wednesday. Blevins is known as a Fortnite Streamer and an “influencer.”
But starting this year, his popularity will grow more after he gets included in the most influential people list. He joins Jacinda Arden, Michelle Obama, Taylor Swift, The Rock, and Pope Francis in this year’s list.
Blevins is definitely not the average Twitch streamer. His official Youtube channel has got 21,904,944 subscribers to date.
On the Time’s website, Blevins’ profile was written by professional NFL player, JuJu Smith-Schuster. Smith-Schuster, the wide receiver of the Pittsburgh Steelers, admitted being starstruck by Ninja in a game. Smith-Schuster said he was at “a complete loss of words” last March 2018 when he played with Blevins. The NFL player was with Drake and Travis Scott that time.
Millions of people have been following Ninja as he plays the popular battle royale game, Fortnite. Those millions, of course, include Smith-Schuster. He described Blevins as the “unquestioned best” in playing Fortnite.
He also said the Fortnite streamer has successfully blended pop culture and gaming. Schuster was probably right in capturing that Ninja played a huge role in building up the esports’ credibility.
Blevins has long been a professional gamer. He was born in Detroit and grew up in Chicago. That’s where he was introduced to video games.
However, it was in 2017 when his career soared higher as he regularly streamed his Fortnite gameplays. He previously played for the Renegades and Team Liquid. Currently, he earns $500,000 monthly from playing and streaming Fortnite.
In 2018, Blevins appeared in Super Bowl. Jimmy Fallon and Ellen also interviewed Blevins. He also graced the cover of ESPN in September last year.
That was the first time that an esports player was featured on the mag’s cover. On his Tweet last year, Blevins shared his excitement being the first professional gamer to be featured on ESPN magazine.
He was included in the Pioneers’ list sharing the limelight with Sarah Oh, Massimo Bottura, and Lynn Nottage. The other recognized Pioneers are He Jiankui, Hasan Minhaj, Indya Moore, Naomi Osaka, Aileen Lee, and Tara Westover.
The famous list also had artists Rami Malek, Emilia Clarke, Ariana Grande, Dwayne Johnson, and Claire Waight Keller. Media moguls Mark Zuckerberg also made it to the list along with basketball sensation, Lebron James.
The 100 most influential people included 18 artists, 24 pioneers, 26 leaders, 16 icons, and 16 titans.
