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Comment by avvt4avaw | Hacker News Reader

Look at the other people on the list this year. Donald Trump. Cardi B. Hugh Jackman. Satya Nadella. Sean Hannity. Jacinda Ardern. Elon Musk. Oprah Winfrey.

You can argue about the exact selection of people. You can say that Time is 'politicised'. But this is clearly a list of people who are very well known.

It's not embarrassing to admit that you had a blind spot about a particular author, musician or politician. But it is a bit silly to then go on to claim that since you haven't heard about them, they can't be that famous after all.

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I live in the EU, which is quite Americanized by any standard, and I'd bet nobody around me would recognize the name of Sean Hannity (or Nikki Haley, another name on the 2016 list). That list just seems hopelessly parochial to me.

It's a list of influential people, not most famous. Knowing who they are I'd say you could reasonably put both on such list.

What's Nikki Haley's influence on the world?

Being the US representative to the UN, I imagine she helped delay action on climate change and things like that.

She's only been the ambassador to the UN since 2017, yet she appears in the 2016 list.

Man, Trump really makes the years seem longer...

I live in the EU too and the only name that anybody would recognise there is Donald Trump because they spend all day on the telly telling us how evil he is. Also Hugh Jackman if you like his movies.

I live in the EU and know the cancer that Sean Hannity is. The global village is reality.

That's a list of eight names, of which I only recognize four (Trump, Jackman, Musk and Winfrey).

I think the problem is that the world is much more fragmented than we assume it is.

You've probably heard of Satya Nadella on HN, he's the CEO of Microsoft

I probably read a few stories that must have included his name, but somehow it never registered.

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