Nielsen: Kanye West Less Influential Than Taylor Swift

Kanye West recently boasted that he’s 50% more influential than Stanley Kubrick, Pablo Picasso, Paul the Apostle or any other human being, dead or alive.

But, as West’s pal Jay Z says, “Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t.” And the numbers are in: according to Nielsen Talent Analytics, only 24% of U.S. adults consider West to be influential–versus 55% for Taylor Swift.

Fortune reports Nielsen’s numbers are derived from weekly surveys of approximately 1,000 U.S. consumers who are asked their opinions on 50 personalities. These figures are also used to concoct the firm’s N-Score, a syndicated tool used to measure endorsement potential for entertainers.

The respective destinies of West and Swift have been strangely intertwined since the rapper interrupted the singer at the VMAs in 2009 with the now infamous words, “I’m a let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time!”

Many observers–including West, most recently and lewdly in his song “Famous”–have suggested that this interaction was responsible to rocketing the singer to superstar status. Whether correlation or causation, Swift’s earnings jumped from $18 million in 2009 to $45 million in 2010, and have increased every year since.

According to Nielsen’s study, Swift isn’t the only entertainer who’s more influential than West. The list includes Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Spielberg and Serena Williams. Winfrey is ranked as three times more influential than West.