From Brazil to India – German influencers inspire millions of people

From Brazil to India to China – influencers from Germany are not only well-known in their home country. These three German influencers have a large fan base abroad.

Cassandra Mae Spittmann sings her way into the hearts of people in India

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi is her biggest fan: the German musician Cassandra Mae Spittmann – pseudonym CassMae – is a star in India. The 21-year-old sings in more than 12 languages, including Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada. Ever since Narendra Modi raved about her voice and music in his podcast, the woman from Duisburg who was born blind has been a celebrity in India. More than 700,000 people follow her on her Instagram channel – where she can be seen meeting and making music with India’s prime minister, for example. Her videos inspire so many people that she was nominated for the Indian National Creators Award 2024 in the Best International Creator category – and she won!

Lea Maria Jahn makes Brazil laugh

Lea Maria Jahn didn’t originally plan to do comedy. But then she moved to Brazil and “people applauded even when I opened my mouth to speak Portuguese”. Lea now tours Brazil with her stage programme. As “alemã de cria” (which translates as “German born and bred”), she plays on the cultural differences between Germany and Brazil in her stand-up programme as well as on her Portuguese-language social media channels. One million people on Instagram and 2.1 million on TikTok want to know how dating works in Germany compared to Brazil, for example, or whether Berlin really is as crazy as people are always hearing in Brazil.

Afu Thomas promotes greater understanding between China and Germany

Thomas Derksen was actually intending to set up a management consultancy in Shanghai together with his Chinese wife. Today, he is the best-known German influencer in China. He has been posting videos on YouTube under the name Afu Thomas since 2016 and now has 656,000 followers. On Weibo, a very popular social media platform in China, he even has more than two million fans. Through his posts, Thomas also tries to contribute to understanding between the two cultures: “I want the Chinese to learn more about Germany and the Germans to learn more about China.”