Miyamoto.

Probably the most valid entry in this thread.

My personal choice goes to Speilberg. You might hate it, but it's hard to argue what he has done in the past thirty years. ET, Jurassic Park, Amistad, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Color Purple...

Honestly, you think that's one of the best?

God forbid that you listen to U2's One or REMs Losing My Religion or any other handful of songs that might be around...

Pele

On that note, Michael Jordan should probably deserve a mention. That man changed sports, marketing, and personality all in one fell swoop.

The Village People changed police, construction, leathermen, cowboys, and the way we view Native Americans and the Navy forever. And their film Can't Stop the Music, with Steve Gutenberg and Olympian Bruce Jenner, is a huge hit in Israel and Australia.

Oprah got Barak Obama elected president. Other than Oprah, it would have to be Madonna.

i love that U2 song aswel, but for me, Wonderwall is just the bussiness

Snarky, but Bowie still isn't the most influential celebrity of the past 30 years no matter how much you want him to be so (and you should know how much I love Bowie).

Then I'll go with Gunpei Yokoi for creating the D-Pad, which has been on every single gaming system since he invented it, changing the world of gaming forever. And he made the Game Boy, which changed the world of gaming forever. His Beam Gun games helped start the light-gun-carnival game craze, and inspired the Nintendo Zapper. And he created Metroid, which still inspires every Castlevania and and many other games, as well as giving us the first great female protagonist of gaming. And his "Lateral Thinking of Withered Technology" philosophy was not only responsible for the success of the Game Boy (choosing battery life over color), but is now responsible for the success of the DS and the Wii. He is still an inspiration for Miyamoto and Iwata, and as far as I'm concerned his ghost still runs Nintendo.

I'd let Miyamoto, Michael Jorden, Spielberg, Bowie, and Oprah round out the top 6, but I won't put them in order. That's 2 game-related people, 1 athlete, 1 filmmaker, Bowie for helping to create several genres and influencing music, fashion, music videos, music business, and PR, and 1 Oprah to rule them all and in the darkness bind them.