Who is the most famous person alive today?

[virgocatlover]

As in, well known world wide by face or name.

I would say the Queen was up there when she was alive but not sure Charles would make the top 10 now.

Trump, Putin or Elon Musk perhaps?

Obviously there are many famous Hollywood actors and singers but are any the most famous worldwide where English isn't the first language?

That's really not much evidence in a country of 1 billion. There are FB pages on everything.

Taylor Swift is not the global icon everybody thinks she is. But Trump is, because every country is affected by US foreign policy.

Can you name who is the current Dalai Laama? I can’t.

Not many can actually name him (without googling!) because he's always referred to as the Dalai Lama. The current 14th Dalai Lama has been in post since 1940 and is widely recognisable.

Ronaldo, Andrew Tate, Trump, Putin

The population of India is 1.4 billion. A Facebook page means nothing. There will be a certain demographic in India that will be very familiar with Taylor swift (young, urban and /or financially well off) but I'm pretty sure a large number of indians has never heard of her. And you need to remember that even if 50% of indians have never heard of her that is 700 million people.

I'm still going with shah rukh khan or maybe sachin tendulkar. Pretty much every single indian will know them and lots of people outside India too (even if not in the UK).

Or maybe the dalai lama as a pp said.

Define “famous”. Name recognition? Recognisable? For example isn’t Cristiano Ronaldo the most followed person on Instagram.

It's got to be Harry Potter!

ChatGPT is likely to be out of date and is unreliable

Ah, you’re right yes, whoops!

I took it to mean nothing more than "has heard of/ knows who this person is/ knows this person exists"

I think that will always be whoever the current POTUS is.

Real person - JK Rowling?

DH says possibly Simon Cowell 😆

Prince Andrew

Taylor Swift is not the global icon everybody thinks she is. But Trump is, because every country is affected by US foreign policy.

Exactly.

As Mr. Bean has been sold in about 250 countries, I'm going to say Rowan Atkinson

How many people would be able to name him as Rown Atkinson and not Mr Bean though?

I think that will always be whoever the current POTUS is.

That's often the case but I think Trump, er, trumps Biden (who I'm not sure I've seen mentioned on this thread) because he's a massive self publicist as well as more controversial as former and (hopefully not) potential next POTUS.

Probably a footballer. There were Man U/ Chelsea/ Arsenal shops in Beijing when I was there in the 2000s. It's one of the most cuture/ wealth/ language transcending activities and is genuinely popular against great swathes of the world.

When DS was little, we were on holiday beyond Europe and a local man looked totally bewildered by DS dangling around on reins. I managed to explain the purpose of them with the words "Ussain Bolt". There was a big grin of comprehension.
I don't think he'd be contemporary enough now though.

Mr Bean (Rowan Atkinson) is a good call amongst actors. His section of the London Olympic opening ceremony was wordless genius, and is the most accessible form of humour.

Michael Jordan
Tom Cruise
The Pope
King Charles
Lionel Messi

Alexa just confirmed Jedward.

Which one? 🤯

Surely not David Attenborough. As much as I like him, he’s not very famous in non-English speaking countries.

I‘d go with Trump/Putin/Merkel.

And of course Trump isn't even the current Potus !

Biden is low key compared to Trump, Obama, both Bushs, Clinton and Reagan.

I'm the same with a lot of people here, I found out about 6 moths ago that the Taylor Swift person is a woman, still wouldn't know her if she walked in. It's interesting that almost all the names mentioned are music or sport.