For proof that viral fame can lead to bona-fide stardom, look no further than Atlanta rapper Lil Nas X. Born Montero Lamar Hill, the rapper developed his online fanbase (and his fluency in the quick, satiric language of the internet) by curating memes on Twitter. Then came “Old Town Road.” The track, made to a $30 beat and released in late 2018, first gained steam as the soundtrack to the “#yeehaw” challenge on video-sharing app TikTok, then for getting removed from Billboard’s Hot Country chart, kickstarting a conversation about Nashville’s exclusion of black artists. Shortly after, Lil Nas X recruited Billy Ray Cyrus for a remix, which has now topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 15 weeks and logged 9 of the 11 biggest streaming weeks of all time. More recently, Lil Nas X made headlines for publicly coming out as gay, telling BBC Breakfast that his decision to share his truth was “opening doors for more people.” —Raisa Bruner

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may be a junior member of the House of Representatives, but when it comes to social media prowess, her seniority is virtually unparalleled. Ocasio-Cortez, who even offline is often referred to by her Twitter handle “AOC,” has nearly 4.8 million followers on the platform, more than most members of Congress. In January, just weeks after she was sworn in as the youngest Congresswoman in U.S. history, Ocasio-Cortez co-hosted a session for her peers about social media best practices, explaining the importance of being “authentic.” And though she’s made some online missteps during her tenure on Capitol Hill — like identifying her Democratic colleague Rep. John Yarmuth as a Republican while slamming older male legislators — Ocasio-Cortez has also expertly harnessed viral tropes to draw attention to subcommittee hearings and granular policy debates that have typically been relegated to the confines of C-Span: an Instagram video of questions she asked at a hearing about cannabis in February has amassed over three million views. —Alana Abramson

President Donald Trump has ramped up his digital presence over the past year. On March 17, he sent out 29 tweets in a single day, including a tweet pondering whether federal agencies should investigate Saturday Night Live for criticizing him and a retweet of Jack Posobiec, a conservative news host who promoted the Pizzagate and Seth Rich conspiracy theories. But that still paled in comparison to his output on May 1, when he posted a whopping 84 times.(There may be a downside to the increased frequency: a CrowdTangle report cited by Axios indicates that the president’s overall interaction rate has fallen.) Regardless, Trump’s tweets initiate a feedback loop of cable news segments, Google search results and online news stories, giving his short missives longer legs and allowing his online influence to dwarf that of his political rivals. This year in particular, Trump used his massive online megaphone to criticize Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his campaign’s connections to Russia and increased his attacks on social media companies, arguing that conservative voices are being unfairly targeted for censorship online; the claim has not been proven. —Brian Bennett