Mr. Mom (Age: 34)

Photograph by Regine Mahaux/TB/Getty Images

Forget the freakish photos, the media circus, and even the dude-with-pillow-under-his-shirt send-up on SNL. Thomas Beatie, legally speaking the world's first pregnant man, forced us to glimpse what male motherhood is like—and it's both beautiful and terrifying. Regardless of how history views the transgender man, a onetime Miss Hawaii Teen USA finalist, he sure left the Y-chromosome crew with lasting questions: Would you if you could? Do the joys of childbearing outweigh the drawbacks? Will they give me an epidural? So while the tabloids and Oprah ate up Beatie's personal journey, and crazed Bible-beaters hurled epithets at him, his uterus-less wife, and his baby, Susan, male-kind was quick to rejoice at the possibilities: single fatherhood, feeling baby's first kick, the moment of truth with the home-pregnancy test. And just as quickly shuddered in fear—of morning sickness, maternity clothes, the pain of childbirth, and the fragility of Roe v. Wade. Yes, through surgery, hormones, and a sperm donor, Beatie gave us a taste of what evolution and biology never saw fit to. Now pass the saltines, please—we're feeling queasy.

1. THE UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE AGENT >>

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Gay American Idol (Age: 30)

When Ellen came out to a national magazine it was a pioneering move. When Lance Bass did it, well, he knew a good idea when he saw one. But when Clay Aiken announced "I'm gay" on the cover of People, it was proof that a has-been's hunger for publicity is matched only by America's insatiable fag-scination. Was this a bombshell five years after the former American Idol had his 15 minutes, two years after the National Enquirer reported that he'd solicited sex in gay chat rooms? "You'd have to say good job for something that has so little news value," says Larry Gross, director of USC's Annenberg School for Communication. No one but a handful of Claymates was shocked—"I think it was all of five women who were still members of the Rock Hudson fan club," says Howard Bragman, a longtime Hollywood publicist who has advised numerous actors on coming out. Expect more shameless D-listers to crawl out of the woodwork and the closet. "The appetite is there," Bragman says. "The No. 1 thing people ask me is who's gay in Hollywood." Thanks to Gaiken, now we'll know who's gay on Hollywood Squares.

40. THOMAS BEATIE, MR. MOM >>

Singer (Age: 41)

Courtesy of AP Photo/L.D. Chukman

When image consultants say there's no such thing as bad publicity, a sordid, six-year-long case involving sex, minors, and videotape isn't what they have in mind. R. Kelly just may have turned conventional wisdom on its head: Despite being repeatedly written off, the singer became infinitely more culturally relevant during his legal ordeal. He's released four No. 1 albums, of which he's sold more than 8 million copies, and landed 21 singles on Billboard's Hot 100 chart and 10 in the Top 20 (including "I'm a Flirt" and "Same Girl"). And rather than tone down his raunchy lyrics, Kelly has pumped up the perviness (from the recently leaked "Kiss Your Candy": You got the club on pause/ In your jeans real tight/ I can see your little crack/ Wanna hit them drawers). "People roll their eyes, but they still download his music and networks still play his videos," says Natasha Eubanks, creator of the gossip blog the Young, Black, and Fabulous. "We've all seen the sex tape, we know the damn deal. But he's in his own lane musically, so he can get away with it." The King of R&B's new challenge is continuing his reign now that he's beaten the rap.

39. CLAY AIKEN, GAY AMERICAN IDOL >>

Parents' Nightmare (Age: 20)

Photograph courtesy of Alphax/X17Online.com

If Miley Cyrus baring her shoulders was deemed scandalous by the parents of her tween-age fan base, what kind of effect will her running around with a 20-year-old underwear model have? One parent doesn't seem troubled—the Disney star's manager dad, Billy Ray, who may have brokered the relationship. Now that Justin Gaston has landed the world's most worshipped tween idol, he's redefining what boyfriend means to girls ages 4 to 14. Out: dimpled, asexual Zac and Cody. In: strapping dude who earns a living showing off his package. When teen-pregnancy rates climb, guess who will get the blame? Of course, Gaston made sure to take Cyrus to a church service in Pasadena on one of their first dates, and the starlet maintains that there'll be no sex until marriage. Even if that turns out to be true, in many parents' minds he's already finger-banging their young daughters.

38. R. KELLY, SINGER >>

Mikheil Saakashvili, President, Georgia (Age: 40)
Dmitry Medvedev, President, Russia (Age: 43)

Photograph by Cristina Garcia Rodero/Magnum

Some people look at these young pit bulls and see George Bush and Vladimir Putin holding their leashes. But in August the two leaders showed that they're not yet housebroken. First West-leaning Mikheil Saakashvili slipped his collar and sent tanks into the breakaway region of South Ossetia. Then Dmitry Medvedev, Putin's handpicked successor, invaded the region with some 15,000 Russian troops. The showdown pulverized Georgia, brought the oil-rich Caucasus region to the brink of all-out war, and pulled the United States and Russia into a tense standoff full of Cold War rhetoric. The barking continued: Saakashvili said an "existential threat hangs over Georgia" and Medvedev boasted that "Russia is a nation to be reckoned with from now on." The stakes are high, says Charles King, a professor at the School of Foreign Services at Georgetown University: "Georgia has been one of the largest recipients of U.S. political and economic assistance, and if it becomes a member of NATO, an attack on Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, would be the equivalent of an attack on Tampa or Tucson." That's why Washington is hoping Saakashvili and Medvedev just learn to heel.

37. JUSTIN GASTON, PARENTS' NIGHTMARE >>

Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art, Sotheby's (Age: 45)

Photograph by Steve Pyke/Countour by Getty Images

While pretty much the entire economic landscape is in ruins, one gilded corner remains: the soaring art market. Thank Tobias Meyer, who has established himself as the art world's most dynamic deal-maker. In May, he engineered the sale of Francis Bacon's Triptych for an artist record $86 million. But his coup de grâce was persuading Damien Hirst to bypass dealers like Larry Gagosian and give his works directly to Sotheby's to auction. Meyer helped Hirst rake in more than $170 million, establishing the provocative Brit as the most bankable artist since Andy Warhol. Meyer's steely confidence and instinctive taste allow him to guarantee huge prices to artists with the certitude that he can sell their work for a profit. "Tobias is the James Bond of the art market," Peter Dunham, a Los Angeles-based collector, told the New York Times. "He's beautifully dressed [and] has beautiful manners. But he's tenacious and ruthlessly efficient in getting the deal done. His skill lies in his ability to make collectors and buyers feel comfortable." Even as everything else is crashing down around them.

36. THE COLD WARRIORS >>

Kai Huang, CEO, RedOctane (Age: 36)
Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy, Cofounders, Harmonix (Ages: 39 and 37)

Photograph by Andrew Hetherington/Redux

When Kai Huang invented the faux-six-string controller and Alex Rigopulos and Eran Egozy dreamed up the games for Guitar Hero and Rock Band they created the future of rock and roll. MTV bought Harmonix (which owns Rock Band and designed Guitar Hero) for $175 million, and Activision snatched up RedOctane (which owns Guitar Hero and manufactures its guitar-shaped controllers) for $99.9 million. The hidden value in those acquisitions? They are digital platforms for music distribution. Since 2007, Rock Band players have downloaded more than 21 million songs at $2 a pop. In May, Mötley Crüe released a single on Rock Band. In September, Metallica's new album, Death Magnetic, was offered to Guitar Hero players the same day it hit stores. And in October, MTV landed the Beatles, whose catalog has long remained beyond the reach of iTunes. Huang, Rigopulos, and Egozy now lunch with the stars they used to see in concert.

35. TOBIAS MEYER, WORLDWIDE HEAD OF CONTEMPORARY ART, SOTHEBY'S >>

Writer-director (Age: 43)

Photograph courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Courtesy of Everett Collection

Don't tell Junior, but WALL-E is a serious film—a portrait of a desolate, post-apocalyptic world with humans adrift in space and ruled by computers who thwart their return to Earth. Call it Kubrick for Kiddies. Or a popcorn flick for cineastes. It's the perfect example of Andrew Stanton's Midas touch: the ability to make kid-friendly fare that adults are happy to see. But even by Stanton's standards (he also wrote Toy Storys 1 and 2 and wrote and directed Finding Nemo), WALL-E is a banner achievement in high/low, young/old, male/female, anyone-with-a-pulse appeal. While the something-for-everyone approach is well-worn, more than $470 million at the box office and a possible Best Picture nomination are certainly not. "You are what you direct," says Pixar head John Lasseter. "And WALL-E shows you that Andrew is one of the most innovative storytellers working in film today." Stanton's made it official: We're all slaves to the machine.

34. ROCK BAND BROTHERS AND THE GUITAR HERO >>

Statistical Soothsayer (Age: 30)

Photograph by Melissa Ann Pinney

Until recently, Nate Silver was known in the sports-betting world as the whiz kid who developed PECOTA, an algorithm used to forecast baseball results with unprecedented accuracy (like the Tampa Bay Rays' improbable breakout season, which he predicted way back in February). Last winter he decided to train his brainpower on the race for the White House, anonymously starting the blog FiveThirtyEight (named for the number of electoral-college votes). Obsessively crunching poll results and demographic figures, then plugging them into his own formula, Silver predicted Hillary Clinton's surprisingly narrow victory in the Indiana primary and her 15-point loss in North Carolina within one and two percentage points, respectively—shaming almost every paid professional in the country. Politics junkies took notice. Within months, FiveThirtyEight was attracting more than 600,000 readers a day, and Silver, now unmasked, was receiving glowing endorsements from media pundits. Joe Klein named him "rookie of the year," and Stephen Colbert booked him as a headliner. After less than a year on the job, Silver is the political world's most rigorous, reliable authority on polling. Not bad for a sports geek.

33. ANDREW STANTON, WRITER-DIRECTOR >>

Zhai Zhigang, Jing Haipeng, Liu Boming, Astronauts
(Ages: all 42)

Forget about those baby-faced gymnasts at the Olympics, or Beijing's ability to send our economy into instant free fall by calling in the billions we owe. The real proof of China's exploding superpower status is these three taikonauts. With the completion of their three-day mission aboard the Shenzou VII—including Zhai Zhigang's 13-minute space walk—the former fighter pilots reignited the space race. Their heroics, broadcast live on state TV a month after the games ended, unleashed a second wave of national pride, punctuating a year fraught with brutal cold spells, catastrophic earthquakes, political turmoil, and tainted milk with celebration in the streets. The full scale of their accomplishment remains a state secret, but what we do know is eye-opening: The Chinese have made three journeys into outer space since 2003. They plan to launch a space lab by 2011 and a fully operational space station by 2020. And they don't intend to rest until they've planted a big red flag on the moon. NASA, meanwhile, is mothballing its shuttles in anticipation of a new line of spacecrafts not scheduled for launch until 2015. That gulp you just heard? It's coming from the Pentagon. Seems all that scientific inquiry has led China to missiles that can knock a satellite from the sky.

32. NATE SILVER, STATISTICAL SOOTHSAYER >>

Reclusive Rock Album (Age: 14)

Eighteen band members. Three managers. Four producers. More leaks than the Bush White House. Close to $20 million spent. Fourteen fucking years. Yet somehow Chinese Democracy—the absurdly delayed opus from Guns N' Roses—owns you. You don't want to care, but you simply can't help yourself. Blame the train-wreck factor of the reclusive, enigmatic Axl Rose, who's become rock's answer to Michael Jackson (minus that sketchy man-boy-love thing). But beneath the apparent hair plugs and Botox is a mad scientist still capable of a few flashes of greatness. Tracks like "There Was a Time" and "This I Love" sound more like "November Rain" than like anything on the band's classic debut, Appetite for Destruction, but they still rock. More surprising, though, they're actually being released. "We never thought this day would come," announced Tony Jacobs, VP of marketing at Dr Pepper, who earlier this year promised free bottles of the soda to anybody who bought Chinese Democracy if the album made an appearance in 2008. "Now all we can say is the Dr Pepper is on us." Great. You waited 14 years and all you got was one stupid album and a soda.

31. THE SPACE INVADERS >>

Crossover Kid (Age: 26)

Photograph by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images

It's Lil Wayne's world. No question about it. In June, the diminutive MC, who calls himself "the best rapper alive," defied a decade of nosediving music sales by moving more than 1 million copies of Tha Carter III in its first week—surpassing Mariah, Madonna, and the rest of the industry. Credit his lyrical skill, fecund imagination, and ingenious wordplay, but don't overlook the man's guitar-strumming, flannel-wearing appeal. "As a rapper, maybe you shouldn't have that quasi-skater Hot Topic vibe, but he pulls it off," says Hillary Crosley, the hip-hop and R&B correspondent for Billboard. "He can jump on a silly song with T-Pain, a serious song with The Game, or a Euro-dance track with Kevin Rudolf. You can't be more pop than that." Or more ubiquitous. Between his LPs, his mix tapes, and his collaborations, Lil Wayne seems to release something new every day—often free of charge on the Internet. He even got an endorsement from Michael Phelps, who pumped up with "I'm Me" before crushing his Olympic competition. Get used to Wayne's world. He isn't going away anytime soon.

30. CHINESE DEMOCRACY, RECLUSIVE ROCK ALBUM >>

Age: 28 (born in 1980 with the publication of The Official Preppy Handbook)

Photograph by SplashNews

Call him Chad. Or Chip. Or Holden. Call him whatever you like, old sport, as long as you'll join him for a Bloody Mary by the tennis court while he gabs about the true meaning of power. He is the great American preppy, and while his plaid, country-clubbish influence has ebbed and flowed over the decades, he's never really gone away. In fact, the buttoned-down, wing-tipped, Bermuda-shorted, madras-clad prepster is like jazz or cheeseburgers—a classic American export—and it's during times like these, when everything seems to be in flux, that we always come back to him. Consider the ascendance of Gossip Girl's Upper East Side snot, Chuck Bass, and the steady resurgence of the populist-prep label J. Crew. Consider fashion designers like Michael Bastian and Band of Outsiders' Scott Sternberg, who have turned Ivy League tropes upside down, and Kanye West's evolution into the fresh prince of Nantucket. So prevalent is the preppy virus that it now infects even rock and roll, which has given us a bumper crop of campus bands (Vampire Weekend, Chester French, Ra Ra Riot, MGMT) that look natural in tennis sweaters, rep ties, and Wayfarers. Hell, the stock market has crashed and Robert Chambers is heading back to prison—gentlemen, let's clink our brandy snifters to Sherman McCoy. It's 1987 all over again!

29. LIL WAYNE, CROSSOVER KID >>

Governor, Louisiana (Age: 37; Last year's rank: 34)

Photograph by Mario Villafuerte/Redux

Even before Election Day, political pundits were fantasizing about the "Republican Obama." Bobby Jindal, the son of Indian immigrants, who last year shocked nearly everybody by becoming Louisiana's first nonwhite governor since Reconstruction, may indeed prove he has the chops to run in 2012. Unlike Dubya and Sarah Palin, Jindal's got intellectual cred: He won a Rhodes scholarship after studying at Brown, worked at the super-selective McKinsey consulting firm, and won plaudits running Louisiana's health department—the state's largest agency—at just 24. But the Hindu turned Catholic plays the red-state "values" game just as well, winning over Evangelicals with his fierce opposition to abortion and gay marriage and support for the teaching of intelligent design in public schools. "He's incredibly attractive as a current and future leader of the party," says GOP strategist Alex Vogel. "He's a case study in where Republicans should be. He reaches across racial lines, and rather than having campaigns based on raw ideology, Jindal has run and won on the strength of his competency." In other words, he's more than just the guy you'd like to have a beer with.

28. THE PREPPY >>

Moot, Anonymous, Rubico (Ages: 20, unknown, unknown)

Photograph courtesy of Flickr

Five years ago, a 15-year-old computer dork who calls himself Moot borrowed his mom's credit card to set up an online clubhouse where he and his pals could argue the finer points of Japanese animation. The result, 4chan, remains a good spot for doing just that. But it has morphed into something bigger: a culture factory where brainy oddballs post anonymous messages—to date, more than 178 million. Their goal: to come up with infectious ideas, jokes, and sight gags—memes sticky enough to go viral across the Internet. Those brilliantly insipid cat pics that gave birth to the phrase i can has cheezburger? Moot's boys. Rickrolling? The term epic fail? That "Chocolate Rain" song? 4chan popularized them all. But the gang plays hardball, too. In 2007, a network of regulars known as Anonymous declared war on the Church of Scientology, launching a wave of online attacks that led to real-life protests worldwide. And in September, a 4chan visitor named Rubico (allegedly University of Tennessee sophomore David Kernell) bragged of breaking into Sarah Palin's e-mail account and posting the goodies online. When Bill O'Reilly started squawking about the intrusion, the hacktivists took aim at him, too, unmasking a portion of his subscriber list. Pwned.

27. BOBBY JINDAL, GOVERNOR, LOUISIANA >>

Third Baseman, New York Yankees (Age: 33)

Photograph courtesy of Diamond Images/Getty Images

With his sizable talent and earnings, single-name ubiquity, and blond-tipped ambition, A-Rod has long been a bit like Madonna. Of course, Madonna hadn't been much like Madonna lately—ensconced in her English manor, writing children's books and chugging Kabbalah water—but that changed when she grabbed ahold of A-Rod. So his reported benediction—"She's my fucking soul mate, dude"—not only upended two marriages (and kicked off two multi-million-dollar divorce battles) and shook the celebrity-industrial complex, it laid bare the Yankees' $275 million man's own penchant for stirring up controversy. "It's a merger of equals," says Michelle Sterling, founder of the consultancy firm Global Image Group. "His history of infidelity goes way beyond marriage, so this liaison is totally consistent with his public image, which, incidentally, has never been great. But he seems to like it that way—he's A-Hole." But for Rodriguez, who appears to relish scrutiny even as he shies away from it, his home-wrecking hookup is a symbiotic relationship. He gets to learn the art of being a pop-culture idol at the feet of the master, while she gets back her dirty-girl bona fides: Screw the English accent—she's playing pitch-catch with a strapping superstar 17 years her junior. Thanks to A-Hole, it's good-bye, Madge; welcome back, Ms. Ciccone. We sure missed you.

26. THE HACKTIVISTS >>

Guitarist/singer, The Jonas Brothers (Age: 16)

Photograph by Preston Mack/Disney Channel/Retna Ltd.

Nick Jonas is learning the Timberlake Corollary: The squealing tween throngs may claim to love every boy-bander equally, but when the bandmates go their solo ways there's room for only one in the fans' hearts. So while the chaste sibling trio from Wyckoff, New Jersey, may be on a serious roll—their third album, A Little Bit Longer, sold 525,000 copies its first week (outdone in 2008 only by Coldplay and Weezy), their multi-million-dollar Live Nation deal will keep them ducking Underoos in hockey arenas through the end of 2009, and their flick Camp Rock gave the Disney Channel hope for a High School Musical-esque franchise—it's Nick who will be standing long after the purity rings have been chucked. It's no secret that Columbia originally signed Nick on his own—and the brothers-cum-backup band were added later. Just ask Disney's robot overlords, who saw fit to link, in a sexually nonthreatening way, of course, the youngest Jonas with the House of Mouse's prize stablemates Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez. Or ask Elvis Costello, who called Nick "thoughtful and curious" in the introduction to a lengthy interview his acolyte conducted with him. If you were hoping that Nick Jonas would take a seat next to Hanson in child-star oblivion, we've got bad news: You'll be buying your kids his merch for years.

25. ALEX RODRIGUEZ, THIRD BASEMAN, NEW YORK YANKEES >>

Ages: Twenties and Thirties

Photograph by Adrees Latif/Reuters

It's a story out of a seventies martial-arts movie: Despotic leaders oppress the people and devout monks speak out; after the leaders' goons break up the protests, the monks rebel and the people rise up. When fist-pumping Buddhist monks inspired hundreds of thousands to defy Myanmar's military junta last year it was merely the prologue to a group of lamas' challenging China's rulers in a way not seen since Tiananmen Square in 1989. Thousands of paramilitary police were rushed into Tibet's capital, Lhasa, after local police shut down the monks' march on the anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising. In the fierce clashes and crackdown that followed, 140 were killed and thousands jailed as crimson-robed monks threw rocks, charged police lines, and bombed a government building. Authorities later seized caches of guns, explosives, and knives from monasteries. Tibet's militant monks sent a clear message to Beijing's hard-liners: Push us around and you might get a little om upside your dome. As Samdhong Rinpoche, a high-ranking lama and the prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile, announced, "Preaching is not enough. Monks must act to improve society, to remove evil." Yes, China may still control Tibet, but these young followers of the Buddha not only gave the ascendant superpower one heckuva black eye—they showed that beneath their sacred robes is a pair of big, brass ones.

24. NICK JONAS, GUITARIST/SINGER, THE JONAS BROTHERS >>

Average Age: Late thirties

Photograph courtesy of Phamous Fotos/Splash News

When Writers Guild of America members went on strike last November over residuals from digital media, the pain inflicted on TV watchers was almost immediate: marathons of The Amazing Race. But by the time the strikers agreed to terms, in February, the consequences were considerably more serious and lasting. Upwards of $342 million in writers' and crew members' wages was lost in the strike's first two months alone, according to the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The Milken Institute projected that the L.A. economy would suffer a 37,000-job, $2 billion hit. When the striking writers returned to their jobs, networks found themselves mired in backlogged programming, which led to a string of premature cancellations and a steady decline in ratings. By May sweeps, television viewing was down 10 percent across all networks. Now Hollywood is facing another dreadful repeat: The Screen Actors Guild is locked in a staring contest with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers over new-media residuals. If SAG members hit the picket lines, they risk doing more than reopening a few wounds. As NBC Universal president and CEO Jeff Zucker said in an address to advertisers, "I don't think the economy or the television business would be able to survive something like that."

22. THE BADASS BUDDHISTS >>

Pastor, Lakewood Church (Age: 45; Last year's rank: 16)

Photograph by Brent Humphreys/Redux

Every spiritual leader in America seeks to make God more accessible, but Joel Osteen presents the Almighty as a stand-up suburban dad who throws great barbecues. "His message isn't theologically sophisticated," says William Martin, a professor of religion at Rice University in Houston. "It's that God wants you to be prosperous and have a good life." Osteen's brand of cul-de-sac Christianity draws 42,000 people to the former NBA arena where his services are held each Sunday. But they're only the studio audience—7 million more consume his religion-lite on TV every week. For some it's a gateway drug to harder Bible-beating, for others an alternative to the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. For Osteen it's a windfall—he earned a $13 million advance for his latest book, Become a Better You, which had an initial printing of 3 million copies and made its debut at No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. His blonde siren of a wife, Victoria, and her clingy dresses don't hurt his popularity either. "A lot of men want a wife like Victoria," Martin says. And Osteen is showing her the way as well. This year, he helped Victoria publish Love Your Life, which had a first run of 750,000 copies and landed atop the best-seller list too.

22. THE HOLLYWOOD STRIKER >>

Age: 12

Photograph by Sian Kennedy/Getty Images

Perhaps you've wondered why your empanadas are now less gloriously coronary-inducing. Or why Chili's constantly bums you out by displaying calorie counts. Thanks to a diet of Cool Ranch Doritos, a sedentary lifestyle, and generally absent parenting, 9 million American kids are overweight. By 2010, half of the children in the Americas will be obese, according to a recent study. The child-obesity epidemic is the country's greatest health risk. And one of the cause's leading champions is none other than former McDonald's aficionado William Jefferson Clinton. "Something like this could easily collapse our nation if we don't act now," he told a national fitness conference. It turns out that allowing vending machines stocked with junk food into public elementary schools wasn't such a hot idea. Neither was letting the kids play video games all day (better get the Wii Fit!). Meanwhile, the recent statutes banning trans fats in New York City, Philadelphia, and California—with more certain to come—are a reminder that kids aren't the only ones who need to be treated like children.

21. JOEL OSTEEN, PASTOR, LAKEWOOD CHURCH >>

Actor (Age: 43)

Photograph by Greg Williams/Art + Commerce

When Robert Downey Jr. famously said "What's amazing is no matter how much I fuck up, it keeps straightening itself out," he was being characteristically modest: Things haven't just straightened out for the rehab recidivist—they now appear to be set on a vertical trajectory, one that has seen him become perhaps the hottest commodity in Hollywood. Having traded coke and heroin for coffee and cigarettes, Downey proved this year that he can deliver blockbuster charisma (the summer's much-lauded Iron Man earned nearly $600 million at the box office) without losing his wild edge. Don't forget he went all in and won in blackface in the uproarious Tropic Thunder. Nobody besides Heath Ledger has generated more Oscar buzz. The Soloist, with Jamie Foxx, comes next for Downey, then a crack at Sherlock Holmes before he dons the metal suit again for Iron Man 2, in 2010. "He's up and down like a yo-yo," his best pal Mel Gibson recently said. "But he's grown, and he's going to move forward and conquer the world." Pretty good for a guy who was busted carrying cocaine, heroine, and a concealed handgun on a Malibu highway a few years back. Downey, that is—Gibson the anti-Semite was merely drunk.

20. THE FAT BOY >>

Cofounders, Twitter (Ages: 36 and 31)

Photograph by Kara Andrade/AFP/Getty Images

It has become the ultimate tween-age diversion, a microblog that broadcasts real-time SMS status updates (OMG, guys r so hot at the mall 2nite!) to everyone in your network. Since its launch in 2006, Twitter has signed up more than 3 million users and is poised to make IMing as relevant as Friendster. Beyond the millions of inane news feeds, the service has less frivolous applications. Companies like Sprint and Whole Foods use it to provide customer service, the Red Cross disseminated aid information with it during this past summer's Midwest floods, and Barack Obama's Twitter feed kept 100,000 supporters tuned in to campaign news. But the surest sign Evan Williams and Jack Dorsey have created the next big thing is the number of copycats, like Jaiku (bought by Google), identi.ca (an open-source version), and Yammer (a for-business-only version). "No one wants to miss out," says Chris Shipley, chairman of the Guidewire Group, which does financial analysis for the tech sector. "But the key is creating a really important source of information—that's the real value." You know, information like what clothes you're trying on right now.

19. ROBERT DOWNEY JR., ACTOR >>

Star Resuscitator (Age: 45)

Photograph by Kevin Mazur/WireImage.com

In 2004, Britney Spears made a mistake far worse than marrying K-Fed: She dumped longtime manager Larry Rudolph, who had taken her from Mouseketeer to Sex Empress of the World. Seemingly overnight her life became chum for a tabloid feeding frenzy: almost-dropped babies, custody battles, stretchers, electric clippers, pink wigs, Cheetos, and psych wards. The public implosion was so complete that this year Britney's father lobbied Rudolph to commandeer the sinking ship. Rudolph established strict rules: no drugs, no drunken nights, and lights out at 11 P.M. When Britney released "Womanizer" in September, Rudolph's turnaround magic was evident: For the first time since 1999, Spears was No. 1 on the Billboard charts. And the video, dripping with bedroom scenes, put her back on the sex throne, too. "Larry made Britney," says E! gossip columnist Marc Malkin. "Now he's guiding her in all the right ways. He's making people want more." They'll get it—not only Brit's much-hyped album, Circus, but an MTV documentary on her epic comeback. It's all about keeping up appearances—and that's Rudolph's specialty.

18. EVAN WILLIAMS AND JACK DORSEY, COFOUNDERS, TWITTER >>

Average Age: 31

Photograph by Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

The wounds you can see are only the start. When Iraq veteran Travis Twiggs, 36, shot his brother and then turned the gun on himself in May, the deaths were widely reported as examples of one of the disturbing by-products of the War on Terror: violence committed in the homeland by combat veterans. Four months before Twiggs' murder-suicide the New York Times reported that there were 121 cases in which Iraq or Afghanistan vets had been charged with homicide. One third of those killed were the veterans' spouses, girlfriends, children, or other relatives, and another quarter were fellow service members. Thirteen of the vets also killed themselves. The majority of those found to have post-traumatic stress disorder or other combat-induced mental illnesses were diagnosed only after they were behind bars. The military greenlights the return of most combat vets without a psych screening, meaning that the 38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of marines who, according to a Pentagon task force, suffer psychological damage remain untreated until they're home. A reported 65,000 service members have already sustained physical or psychological wounds—or both—and with more and more troops serving second and even third deployments, their ranks seem sure to swell. So next time you read that caring for those injured vets over their lifetimes will run up to $700 billion, remember that's the least of the cost.

17. LARRY RUDOLPH, STAR RESUSCITATOR >>

CEO, Live Nation (Age 43; Last Year's Rank: 47)

Photograph by Misha Gravenor

While the record labels have their collective head in the sand, they can feel Michael Rapino's impact each time he kicks their behinds. First he made Live Nation the world's biggest concert promoter, minting money even as the record companies foundered. Then he stole the labels' most bankable acts, locking up Madonna, Shakira, and Nickelback in a string of 360-degree deals—which cover the artists' recording, touring, and merchandising­­—totaling an estimated $400 million. Now he's turned to the dark side one of the music execs' own: Jay-Z—making the ex-head of Def Jam a minion of Live Nation. Rapino is outsourcing the little stuff, like album marketing and promotion, and focusing on innovation. "It was never Michael's intent to become a record label. He knows that system is dying," says Bryan Coleman, Nickelback's manager. "If we want to put songs on the Google phone, he'll make that deal. He's the visionary of the new regime." Rapino is purging Live Nation of all its non-music properties to consolidate its hold on the music business and clear the decks for its own ticketing service. The agency sells 45 million tickets a year—and is doing to TicketMaster what Rapino's already done to the record labels.

16. THE BROKEN SOLDIER >>

Scrabble Revivalists (Ages: 27 and 22)

Photograph by Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

In January, Hasbro, the company that owns the U.S. rights to Scrabble, offered to buy the online knockoff Scrabulous from brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla, for $10 million. The Agarwallas, from Kolkata, India, who were reportedly making approximately $25,000 a month in ad revenue, said they would sell—for a "multiple" of $10 million. Hasbro sued them instead. And while a court ruled that the game itself was not protected by copyright, it decided that the name—and any variation on it—was. Ultimately, Scrabulous lost its lease on Facebook, and the Agarwallas were forced to counter with a generically named facsimile, Wordscraper, and then with a third incarnation, Lexulous, for which they moved their game and user database to a freestanding site, extending an open invitation to the 600,000 former Scrabulous players to come along. Meanwhile, Wordscraper still boasts 214,000 active monthly users on Facebook, and Scrabble, eager to cash in on its newfound relevance, has launched two licensed versions, used by more than half a million players. Thanks to the Agarwalla brothers, Scrabble—whether played using wooden tiles or on a computer screen—is not only cool again but legal.

15. MICHAEL RAPINO, CEO, LIVE NATION >>

Age: 19

Only one person can make or break a potential blockbuster before it hits theaters, and he doesn't work in Hollywood or control a penny of the multi-million-dollar budget. He lives in his parents' basement and sometimes wears a cape—but the much-mocked comic-book geek possesses the ass studio execs must kiss to hit superhero-movie gold. Thanks to favorable early buzz, Iron Man and The Dark Knight banked more than $575 million and more than $990 million, respectively, making them the top-grossing films of 2008. It's no coincidence the producers and casts of these smash hits made the same pit stop on the road to box-office dominance: the Comic-Con International festival in San Diego, where they schmoozed the nerdy throngs, sat on panels, debuted Joker-laden teaser trailers, and forced Robert Downey Jr. to smile and wave like a homecoming queen. There's a reason that Zack Snyder, director of 300 and next year's Watchmen, says each of these rabid conventiongoers is "worth 20 normal fans." He knows the death knell of the next megabudget superhero flick will sound curiously like The Simpsons' Comic Book Guy: "Worst. Movie. Ever."

14. RAJAT AND JAYANT AGARWALLA, SCRABBLE REVIVALISTS >>

Age: 29

Photograph by James Westman

His parents raised him on dolphin-free tuna. He learned the difference between schwag and hydroponic during his first year at Exeter. By grad school he was buying organic kiwis and flipping through Michael Pollan texts while sipping fair-trade lattes. Now he's filling the holes in his adult life with the radishes he planted outside his Silver Lake duplex. The number of organic farms in the United States has more than doubled in the past decade, and the average age of the farmer is plummeting—but then, you already know that, because last weekend a guy in a Radiohead T-shirt sold you apples from his upstate orchard. At that murky intersection where your green guilt meets your love for balsamic-marinated beets, the Hipster Farmer will find you. And you will believe. You attend his dinner parties. You follow the same foodie blogs. And yes, yes—buying local and organic does make sense. So now you find yourself joining a produce co-op and asking the man at the deli where the walnuts come from—behavior you would have found loathsome a few years back. Of course, this is not simply about food. Just as Perrier and raspberry vinaigrette signaled the coming of the yuppie, the whiff of organic sage from the Hipster Farmer's back yard announces your upwardly mobile taste.

13. THE COMIC-BOOK GEEK >>

Press Whore (Age: 31)

Photograph by Ahmad Elatab/Splash News

There are two John Mayers: the first an arena-filling blues-pop prodigy prone to earnest emo-balladry, the second—the interesting one—a starlet-bagging Lothario as shamelessly efficient about the telling as he is about the kissing. The secret of his success is his sensitive exterior. With his clever blog posts and ad hoc stand-up routines, Mayer seems too smart, too sweet, too self-aware to revel in celebrity climbing. But the proof is in the photo op: In July he delivered eloquent, scathing testimony at Los Angeles' City Hall pleading for anti-paparazzi legislation; a month later he held court outside his New York gym, telling the shutterbugs who mysteriously knew he'd be there why dumping Jennifer Aniston was actually the ultimate sign of his respect for her. "Instead of a 'no comment,' he launches into a speech about how he wants them to 'write some real stuff' and what a 'great' girl Aniston is," says Seth Abramovitch, the editor of Defamer. "At most, it's something you tell your best friend after eight beers—not a reporter from OK! after spin class." Given Mayer's compulsive codependency, Johnifer's (or is it Mayniston's?) rumored reconciliation in October came as little surpise. The way we learned about it was less surprising still: They were reportedly spotted canoodling in the oh-so-private confines of LAX.

12. THE HIPSTER FARMER >>

Reputed Drug Kingpins (Ages: 34 and 29)

Photograph by Jorge Duenes/Reuters

The War on Terror has eclipsed the War on Drugs, but Mexico's escalating narcotics conflict, which is being fought within spitting distance of the United States, may change that. There were more than 330 drug-related killings in Tijuana over the first 10 months of the year—including 140 during a 25-day stretch when bodies were found decapitated or dissolved in vats of acid. Amid this battle for control of the cross-border trade, Fernando Sánchez Arellano, a nephew of the Arellano Felix cartel's founders, has reportedly enlisted as muscle longtime rival Heriberto Lazcano, a man who has purportedly fed victims to his ranch animals. "It's Darwinian—survival of the most conniving, brutal, and luckiest," says Bruce Bagley, a professor of international studies at the University of Miami. Sánchez Arellano and Lazcano may not reign long, but with an estimated 90 percent of U.S. cocaine coming in across the Mexican border and up to $25 billion being sent back each year, who can blame them for wanting to be drug kings for a day?

11. JOHN MAYER, PRESS WHORE >>

David Jones, CEO, Euro RSCG (Age: 41)
Christopher Barger, Director of Global Communications Technology, GM (Age: 40)
Matt Kistler, Senior Vice President of Sustainability, Wal-Mart (Age 42)

Maybe you've heard? The planet is dying. No need to worry—ExxonMobil is on the case. Yes—praise the Lord—faster than you can say "Valdez," the company once described as "the earth's No. 1 global-warming villain" has embraced the environmental movement. As has General Motors. And even Wal-Mart. "We want greener products from greener companies—but there's plenty of green smoke," says Scot Case, vice president of the environmental marketing firm TerraChoice. "Car companies sell themselves as green if they have one or two models with good mileage. They can't become green overnight." Tell that to Christopher Barger, who created a chat site so that GM could communicate with consumers about projects like its electric car. One caveat: Ripping the Escalade and Hummer too strongly is verboten, as environmentalists learned when GM blocked their comments. Under Matt Kistler, Wal-Mart has seen sales of extended-life lightbulbs and paper products skyrocket, no doubt making the Walton family believers in the healing power of greenwashing. And why not? If the Valdez's hull breached today, David Jones—the ad exec behind ExxonMobil's "Taking on the World's Toughest Energy Challenges" spot—might tell us an 11-million-gallon spill was a giant step toward reducing carbon emissions.

10. FERNANDO SÁNCHEZ ARELLANO AND HERIBERTO LAZCANO, REPUTED DRUG KINGPINS >>