By now you've probably seen it: The reflective cover of the current Time magazine, touting the Person of the Year to be... You.What the hell do they mean by that? Well, they figure that because of Web 2.0 applications, from blogging to Facebook to MySpace to YouTube, the public at large is largely responsible for shaping how the world informs and entertains itself. To demonstrate what they were talking about, they interviewed 15 people who have made a name for themselves online, from the guy who ratted out Mark Foley to the guy that Senator George Allen called "Macaca" to the woman who reviews seemingly every book on Amazon.com. YouTube gets a lot of play here, with a big profile of founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen.
It seems like a profound selection, doesn't it? All of us, communicating with each other, shaping the way we think about things and bringing the power to the people. If John Lennon were still alive, he'd probably write a song about it.
Problem is, there was way too much going on this year to have such a conceptual, feel-good selection for the POY. Remember, POY isn't supposed to be a selection given to the person or persons who have done the most good; it's supposed to be given to the person or persons who had the most impact on the news and people's lives in the past year. Heck, Hitler was the POY once, and Stalin was the POY twice (the first time was the year after Hitler was POY... talk about a dark period).So, let's think about who could have been POY this year, in both the evil and non-evil categories: George W. Bush, all the Democratic winners in Congress, Kim Jong-Il, Mahmoud Amahdinejad of Iran, Stephen Colbert... Heck, I would have even accepted Chad and Steve From YouTube. I could think of a dozen better examples than "You."
To me, it seems like Time's selection of "You" was a complete cop-out on their part. It makes me wonder if they didn't want to chose someone like Kim or Amahdinejad for fear of a backlash; they haven't selected someone from the "evil" category in quite a long time, and maybe they just didn't want to chance it. And the impact of Web 2.0 applications over the last year has been significant. It just seems like a case of giving people the warm fuzzies instead of going for the hard choice.
By the way, this isn't the first time in recent memory that Time has taken the easy way out, as our friends at Lost Remote explain in excruciating detail.
What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
12-19-2006 @ 12:43PM
Thomas said...
It's a shitty cover, regardless of the logic behind it.
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12-19-2006 @ 9:47AM
LC said...
I agree. Complete cop-out. I would have picked Mahmoud Amahdinejad as the top news maker.
I mean why pick "You" this year? People have been blogging, posing videos and exposing people via the web for the last few years. I think Time wanted to boost lagging sales by creating buzz with a bizarro pick.
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12-19-2006 @ 9:51AM
Fred said...
Beyond lame.
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12-19-2006 @ 9:50AM
AF said...
You're right that it's a cop out. Right now the Middle East is the biggest thing affecting the world, Iran is instigating and stoking three civil wars in the region, they're successfully standing up to the international community that wants to rightfully stop them from getting nukes, and probably more than Kim Jong Il, Amahdinejad is showing how weak and pathetic Bush and the world powers are today. I think maybe both the Iranian leader and Kim should be the persons of the year. Time magazine is just afraid the public will think they're celebrating these two thugs even though Time has a long tradition, dating back to I think the 1920's or 30's of bestowing the title of man/person of the year on America's enemies. But with more people reading the news online I think all print media is worried about the loss of subscribers.
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12-19-2006 @ 10:23AM
Michelle said...
I thought it was a cop out. Oh, come on, already. There is no one individual that was an important story this year? I'd fired the editors for this one.
On a completely unrelated note, but on the topic of firing, for those who are remotely interested in the American Inventor show, they are saying bye bye.
http://www.americaninventorspot.com/judges_youre_fired_americaninventorspot_com_exclusive
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12-19-2006 @ 10:54AM
Tammy said...
Time has been copping out for a while. In 2001 the person of the year should have been Osama bin Laden. But Time was afraid of offending advertisers and instead used Rudy Giuliani.
So yes, I do think choosing "You" as the person of the year was a cop-out.
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12-19-2006 @ 11:54AM
soundoftheground said...
cop out. the daily show's piece on this last night pretty much took care of any question...
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12-19-2006 @ 11:34AM
CJ said...
More of a gimmick than a cop-out.
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12-19-2006 @ 11:26AM
BoomFoxx said...
Definately a cop out, but on the bright side I've already added the following line to my resume:
"2006 - Time Magazine Person of the Year"
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12-19-2006 @ 11:51AM
Bebop said...
I don't think it is as much of a cop-out as it is lame.
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12-19-2006 @ 9:23PM
Sam McConnell said...
I won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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12-19-2006 @ 5:40PM
David4 said...
Yep very lame, nothing else to say.
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12-19-2006 @ 11:30PM
seth brundle said...
Cop out.
Should have been John Stewart.
The rise in popularity in his intelligent satirical dissent has done more to illustrate the catastrophic madness of the Bush administration then any other source.
But comedy never gets academy awards, nobel peace prizes, or even Time's Man Of The Year.
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12-20-2006 @ 1:10AM
GhaleonQ said...
"The rise in popularity in his intelligent satirical dissent has done more to illustrate the catastrophic madness of the Bush administration then any other source."
*stares blankly*
ANYWAY, how about Kofi Annan? Besides the good things that he's let happen or spearheaded in the United Nations, he's also been responsible for allowing Russia and China to protect the dangerous Middle Eastern and East Asian states, let Putin escape from organized political killings, ignored Darfur and the other crises again, used information to battle various humanitarian efforts by the United States, Japan, Australia, et cetera, left Eastern Europe to flounder in terrorists' influence, and escaped from any prosecution in the Oil-For-Food program scandal.
The United Nations doesn't always have an important year, but this seemed to be a big one for it. Annan had a lot of good and bad, which seems to fit "Time"'s definition.
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