Breaking through online takes craft, timing, and nerve. The 2026 Webby Special Achievement Winners have all three. Every year, we work with Jurors in the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences to recognize a special set of the Internet’s top innovators, creators and artists as Webby Special Achievement Winners. From Shonda Rhimes to Druski, this year’s class represents what it truly means to say “We Made It.”

Below, meet the honorees who earned it.

Shonda Rhimes

Shonda Rhimes has defined the streaming era with ambition, authorship, and undeniable cultural force. Through Shondaland and her landmark partnership with Netflix, she has built a global storytelling engine that shapes not only what audiences watch, but how they gather around it, talk about it, and return to it. In 2026, Bridgerton Season 4 premiered at No. 1 worldwide with 39.7 million views in its first four days, reigniting a worldwide fandom and a cultural language all its own.

At the same time, Grey’s Anatomy ranked as the second most-streamed series in the United States in 2025 with 40.9 billion minutes viewed — surpassing even Stranger Things by nearly one billion minutes. More than twenty years after its debut, audiences are still choosing to spend their time inside the worlds she built. That kind of longevity is rare. That kind of loyalty is earned. Few creators have shaped both the present and the future of streaming television with this level of scale and staying power. For her extraordinary creative leadership and her lasting impact on how global audiences discover, binge, and live with television online, it is our great privilege to honor Shonda Rhimes as the 2026 Webby Streaming Person of the Year.

Kylie Kelce

Kylie Kelce launched Not Gonna Lie with a clear intention: to speak on her own terms. The show centers her perspective on motherhood, relationships, women in sports, and the realities of public life — and within days of its debut, it climbed to No. 1 on both Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Apple named it one of the Top New Shows of the Year and among the Most Followed Shows of 2025, underscoring that this was not a novelty launch but a genuine audience shift.

What keeps listeners coming back is not the charts; it is the feeling. Week after week, Kelce invites audiences into conversations that sound like real life: equal parts sharp, self-aware, and disarmingly funny. Whether sitting down with Kelly Clarkson, Paige Bueckers, or trading sibling-style banter with Travis Kelce, big names do not feel like big performances here. They feel like people. In a year defined by noise, Not Gonna Lie stands out for building trust, bridging sports fans, young parents, and pop culture listeners without trying to be anything other than itself. For her extraordinary debut and her ability to transform lived experience into cultural connection, it is our great privilege to honor Kylie Kelce with the 2026 Webby Podcast of the Year.

Druski

Druski has redefined how comedy is created, distributed, and experienced in the Internet era. Rising from Atlanta through viral social sketches, he has built a comedy ecosystem that blurs the line between content, character, and cultural commentary, transforming short-form video into a scalable entertainment engine with over a billion views across his content. He enters 2026 as one of the most ubiquitous comedic voices in culture, spanning social media, music, live events, and broadcast.

His “Coulda Been Records” series has evolved into a full-scale franchise spanning digital episodes, live auditions, and touring, while his satirical dating series “Coulda Been Love” is generating over 100 million views. His Coulda Fest arena tour has brought participatory energy into major venues, including Barclays Center and State Farm Arena. Collaborations with Drake, Justin Bieber, and a Super Bowl commercial appearance further position him as a connective force across comedy, music, and mainstream entertainment. Yet his influence extends beyond scale into form. Through “Coulda Been Records,” Druski has pioneered a participatory format that invites emerging talent into the spotlight, turning audiences into collaborators and reframing how entertainment is developed in real time. For redefining comedy as a platform-native medium and demonstrating how a creator can exist simultaneously across platforms, industries, and audiences at a global scale, it is our great privilege to recognize Druski with a 2026 Webby Special Achievement Award.

Pete Davidson 

Pete Davidson is one of the defining performers of his generation and one of the Internet’s most closely followed voices. In January 2026, he launched The Pete Davidson Show on Netflix — filmed largely from his garage and released weekly, scaling the intimacy of podcast culture to a global streaming audience. At a moment when digital content feels engineered for perfection, Davidson chose something closer, looser, and more human.

In 2025, he stepped into Amazon MGM Studios’ streaming film The Pickup, bridging generations of comedy while keeping his own offbeat edge intact, and returned to Saturday Night Live for its 1,000th regular episode. Through a national Axe campaign and Instagram “AXE Me Anything” takeover, he spoke directly to young men about confidence, social media anxiety, and self-worth. Pete Davidson does not curate distance from his audience. He lets them witness the evolution. For transforming vulnerability into cultural gravity and for helping pioneer a new format of conversation in the streaming era, it is our great privilege to recognize Pete Davidson with a 2026 Webby Special Achievement Award.

Taraji P Henson

Taraji P. Henson is an acclaimed actress and producer whose platform extends far beyond performance. Through her Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, she has been a vocal advocate for mental health awareness in the African American community, working to destigmatize mental illness, increase access to services, and encourage open dialogue about mental wellness. Her advocacy for pay equity in Hollywood has sparked critical conversations about financial disparities affecting women and minorities in the entertainment industry.

Her activism includes support for LGBTQ+ rights and racial justice, further demonstrating her commitment to advocating for marginalized communities. Henson has expanded her immense following and digital reach to promote her advocacy work, engage with her audience, and inspire action worldwide. More recently, she expanded into entrepreneurship with TPH by TARAJI, an incredibly successful hair and scalp care line tailored for diverse hair types, showcasing her as a dynamic entrepreneur in the beauty industry and extending her commitment to health and self-care beyond the screen. For her profound contributions to mental health, pay equity, and her broader advocacy work, combined with her entrepreneurial ventures, remarkable acting career, and strategic use of digital media to effect change, it is our great privilege to honor Taraji P. Henson with the 2024 Webby Advocate of the Year.

James Gerde

James Gerde is a filmmaker-turned AI-native creator redefining visual storytelling through generative AI. Working across tools, including Adobe Firefly, he uses AI as a true creative partner, transforming everyday footage into intricately stylized, imaginative worlds designed for short-form, social-first storytelling. His videos reimagine familiar scenes through striking material transformations and highly-detailed visual experimentation, resulting in a signature style that is immediately recognizable and rooted in authorship.

Over the past year, Gerde’s work has evolved rapidly in both technical sophistication and cultural reach, demonstrating how generative tools can accelerate creative growth and expand what a single creator can produce and scale. Through his studio, Gerde Got It, he is building a creator-led model for AI-driven storytelling, showing how accessible tools can enable high-impact work that resonates widely across digital audiences. Central to his process is a commitment to transparency and creative integrity, embracing AI as a tool that amplifies human expression rather than replacing it. For his original voice, his innovative use of generative technology, and his emergence as part of a new generation of AI-native creators, it is our great privilege to honor James Gerde with the 2026 Webby Special Achievement in Creative AI Award.

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See the 2026 Webby Winners in the Winners Gallery + Index

Winners of the 30th Annual Webby Awards will be celebrated at a star-studded ceremony hosted by Josh Johnson on Monday, May 11! Follow us @thewebbyawards everywhere on social to catch the show’s best moments, including live red carpet interviews and unfiltered 5-Word Speeches.