I knew I thought differently and walked to the beat of my own drum from an early age. When most kids were learning to write notes to friends in plain english, I was trying to send my friends notes in hieroglyphics. Not because I understood them, but because I felt deeply connected to the drama of ancient Egypt and the art of making basic communication feel very extra.
I literally tried to convince my second-grade class that I had been reincarnated and was a former Egyptian royal and demanded to be called “her divine highness of the monkey bars.”
When other kids played tag, I was staging my own dramatic coronation near the slide, appointing juice box bodyguards and assigning my enemies (greg and judy) to the crocodile pits, to be fair, they deserved it.
So when I say I made a list of historical figures who would SLAY as influencers if they were alive today, just know this wasn’t research. This was my origin story.
I found myself doom scrolling TikTok at 2am and one of those Tudor-era edits stopped me. You know exactly what I am talking about. Moody music, soft filters, and a narrator saying something like “king henry couldn’t rizz up annie b, he would’ve slayed on the bachelor though”.
I blacked out.
Next thing I know I’m sinking in the abyss of my brain and asking a question no one asked but everyone should:
Which historical icons would absolutely body the influencer game if they were alive today, who would slay or be nay?
Cleopatra – Beauty Influencer
Up first is a no-brainer. Cleopatra was THAT girl. Like, OG beauty influencer, master of the soft launch (she sailed into Rome on a golden boat just to be petty), love her for that, and had both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony in her DMs. She wasn’t just a queen. She was a strategist, a polyglot, and ran Egypt like it was a content empire. She was literally known for being the queen of public relations, like pop off queen. She made eyeliner a political weapon, faked her own death before it was cool, and honestly? She walked so the girlboss pipeline could run. Icon. Legend. Literally unbothered until the very end.
- Niche: Beauty, luxury, soft manipulation
- Handle: @NileQueenWithTheWing
- Bio: CEO of eyeliner & empire building. Don’t text your ex, make him build you a city.
- Collabs: Fenty Beauty, Olaplex, and probably a chaotic fling with Harry Styles.
William Shakespeare – Highbrow Sh*tposter
This next one made me laugh because I feel like William Shakespeare should be known as the ultimate rizzler of his time. He would be signing off his thirst traps with “thou art not ready.” He invented half the English language just to flirt better, I mean this guy was way ahead of his time. His captions would be like, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” under a mirror selfie with moody lighting and a feather quill. Grammarly would probably hire him as something like Chief Vibe Officer.
- Niche: Theater kid meets meme lord
- Handle: @SadBard69
- Bio: Verified by vibes. Invented 1,700 words. Would ghost you in a sonnet.
- Collabs: Grammarly, Substack, and whatever skincare brand’s name sounds vaguely poetic
Marie Antoinette – Delulu Rich Girl Core
If she had a ring light and wi-fi, Marie would 1000% be the type to do an unboxing haul of luxury macarons during a revolution. I can just see it now, she’d have a sponsored #GRWM from Versailles where she says things like “people are so obsessed with me being ‘out of touch’, anyway, here’s my new Gucci corset.” Political scandal who? She’s unbothered. She’s rich. She’s definitely not reading the comments, or the news.
- Niche: Fashion, pastry, political denial Handle: @LetThemEatInfluence
- Bio: Mood: macarons & denial. Revolutions bore me.
- Collabs: Gucci, Ladurée, and every brand that screams generational wealth with no budget control
Winston Churchill – Crisis Communications Thought Leader
Winston would have a whole LinkedIn brand for sure. I have no doubt he would be posting motivational threads like, “How surviving a world war prepared me to manage a product launch delay.” He’d smoke cigars on Zoom and call himself a disruptor. He’d probably host a podcast called “pivot & prevail.” He’s been cancelled and un-cancelled at least three times. He has a ghostwriter. It’s probably Shakespeare. His latest collab with Glenfiddich is a limited-edition whiskey called “Keep Calm and Drink On,” aged in the emotional trauma of five campaign failures and one press leak.
- Niche: Hot takes, cigar reviews, motivational rants
- Handle: @BrandCrisisDaddy
- Bio: “I made quotes before LinkedIn did.”
- Collabs: HubSpot, Cohley, and 17 different whiskey brands
Ludwig van Beethoven – Classical Diss Track King
This might be my favorite influencer. Beethoven wasn’t just a composer, he was a menace with a quill and a grudge. He’d post symphonies like they were carefully layered subtweets. Every crescendo? A callout. Every sonata? A soft “f*ck you” in C minor.
He didn’t hear the haters because, well, he literally couldn’t. But he still dragged them in harmonic counterpoint.
He’d go viral on TikTok with a remix titled “Für Elise (You Thought You Could Replace Me)” and post a story like:
“Wrote an entire piano concerto to emotionally destroy a critic. Felt cute, might drop another.”
You’d open his Spotify bio and it’d just say: “I wrote Symphony No. 5 because someone told me I couldn’t.”
- Niche: Moody loops, petty orchestral drops, classical beef
- Handle: @ToneDeafButMakeItArt
- Bio: “Can’t hear you. Still winning.”
- Collabs: Ableton, Audio-Technica, Beats by Dr Dre, and whatever violin brand sounds the most expensive when smashed on stage.
Sacagawea – Off-Grid Collab Queen
Sacagawea wouldn’t just be an influencer, she’d be the GPS of your soul. No phone signal. No filter. No problem. She’d casually drop a reel of her solo trekking through six biomes with a baby on her back and 2.3 million followers commenting “this is who I want to be when I’m emotionally stable.” While everyone else is filming “hot girl walks,” she’s leading an entire expedition with no map, no man who listens, and no hydration drops. Her captions would be like: “Found the pacific, you’re welcome.” Slay queen.
- Niche: Solo travel, land stewardship, “I’ll take you there” content
- Handle: @TrailBlazed
- Bio: Found your path and your brand purpose.
- Collabs: Patagonia, REI, AllTrails, and a historical retelling podcast she executive produces but refuses to promote because “if it’s good, they’ll find it.”
Abraham Lincoln – Storytelling King with Main Character Energy
Abe would be the king of long-form carousel rants. Every post starts with “Here’s what they won’t teach you in school” and ends with 3K reshares, 5 LinkedIn DMs, and someone crying in the comments. He’d be in your feed like: “four score and seven scrolls ago, you forgot your brand voice.”
Abe would never use hashtags. He’s above hashtags. His beard has a separate following. He would never go viral on purpose, and yet… he’s always trending.
You’d try to skim his captions but then get emotionally wrecked by slide 3. He’d collab with Duolingo just to teach owls the Gettysburg Address.
- Niche: Storytelling, political side-eye, emotionally intelligent roasts
- Handle: @TallHonestAndBooked
- Bio: 6’4”, emotionally available, invented soft power.
- Collabs: Notion, Beardbrand, Dr. Squatch, TEDx, Manscaped
Maya Angelou – Emotional Intelligence Content Queen
Maya would drop reels that feel like a hug and a wake-up call at the same time. Her “soft life” content would still hit like a Sunday sermon.
- Niche: Poetic accountability, healing with hands and bars
- Handle: @StillIRise
- Bio: Your fave poet’s therapist.
- Collabs: Oprah, Headspace, and every affirmations app that owes her everything
Genghis Khan – Expansion-Obsessed Growth Hacker
This man was the original ‘scale at all costs’ growth bro. His idea of going viral? Literally taking over most of Asia. He’d run a LinkedIn masterclass titled “From Fatherless to Fearless: How I Scaled Global Terror with Zero Overhead and a Horse.”
His content strategy?
- Mondays: tactical warfare breakdowns
- Wednesdays: “How to scale your territory (and mindset)” reels
- Fridays: sponsored posts from swordsmiths and legacy DNA kits
And just for giggles, he’ll casually drop posts like “my top 3 favorite cities i burned and why it wasn’t personal (but it totally was).
Don’t just scroll past his post without engaging thought because you’ll risk your brand being annexed.
- Handle: @Khanquered
- Bio: Growth mindset. Scaled fast. No survivors.
- Niche: Rapid expansion, masculine delusion, content domination
- Collabs: Ancestry.com, DoorDash , Grindr, Liquid Death
Ok , you’ve made it this far through eyeliner fueled coups, symphonic subtweets, and growth hacking on horseback, which tells me one thing: you get it. You know that marketing isn’t just data and deadlines. It’s storytelling. Strategic nonsense. Emotional architecture dressed up as a punchline.
Because the best marketing? It isn’t a perfectly optimized funnel or a color-coded calendar. It’s a story, told so well, people forget they’re being sold to.
So the next time someone tells you that your ideas are “too weird” or “not strategic,” just smile and remind them: Cleopatra soft-launched her political comeback on a boat full of perfume.
Now go tell your story. Make it weird. Make it funny. Make it unforgettable and tell me what other historical characters would slay the influencer game today.
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