Mad Magazine's 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things of 2012

[ITR champion]

It's a tradition for me, about this time of year, to start a thread for discussing and predicting Time's Person of the Year. This year I won't bother, first because Time will probably just choose President Obama and also because I think that Time will soon follow Newsweek and US News & World Report into oblivion.

Instead I'll focus on a publication that isn't in danger of becoming irrelevant: Mad Magazine and its annual issue: The 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things of the year. I think there's more good discussion to be had here because it reflects the fact that our national conversation is more about reacting to the negative than praising the positive, and also because Mad is much more willing to say what's actually on people's minds than Time is.

This year I figure that Todd Akin has to be the odds-on favorite to be number one on Mad's list. Other obvious choices would include Lance Armstrong, General Petraeus, and Mitt Romney's "47 percent" comment. The one thing I dislike about the list is that it always includes several celebrities that I've never even heard of.

[enomaj]

Chiming in to say Mit's 47% won quote of the year.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012...ark-quote-year

[Jas09]

I would think that some of the pre-election predictions will make the list, with maybe a special nod to the "unskewed polls" guy.

[Robot Arm]

Originally Posted by ITR champion

Instead I'll focus on a publication that isn't in danger of becoming irrelevant: Mad Magazine and its annual issue: The 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things of the year. I think there's more good discussion to be had here because it reflects the fact that our national conversation is more about reacting to the negative than praising the positive, and also because Mad is much more willing to say what's actually on people's minds than Time is.

The positive/negative thing may be part of it, but there's a trend toward re-hashing and re-digesting news that I've noticed in the past few years. Maybe it's a consequence of the 24-hour news media and other info streams, but it seems as if some event gets reported as news for an hour, and then the talking heads will go on for weeks about What It Really Means. If you miss that first hour, it's really hard to catch up.

If there is a trend toward reacting to the negative, it's because it's easier to second-guess mistakes than to praise the positive or to do the legwork to find something new to report.

[williamweigand]

Considering that the latest issue of Mad (with its annual tribute to the year's biggest idiots) arrived in today's mail, I suspected the OP may be a Mad staffer trying to generate a little publicity for the mag. Then I checked and saw that he is a longtime contributor to the SDMB. Don't want to spoil it for anyone that might want to guess at Mad's list, but will just mention that Todd Akin isn't number one.

[dropzone]

Originally Posted by Robot Arm

... and then the talking heads will go on for weeks about What It Really Means. If you miss that first hour, it's really hard to catch up.

I'm sorry, but I missed the first part of what you said and have no idea what you are talking about. Could you sum up what it really means? Take a week, maybe three. I have time.

I had a reaction like yours after weeks of Benghazi talk. I thought I had missed something important so I researched it. Our ambassador and some other guys died? Check. There was some confusion at first, as could be expected? Check. Obama was against it? Check. So what the fuck have people been bloviating about for the past few months?

[Wesley Clark]

Originally Posted by dropzone

So what the fuck have people been bloviating about for the past few months?

An opportunity to publicly criticize and possibly use the legal system against the administration.

[dropzone]

Yeah, but besides that? They haven't managed to make it remotely interesting.

ETA: I was wrong. It made the Petraeus thing funnier.

/hijack

Back to the topic, I'm liking the 47% suicide by Romney. It's Mad's style.

[JohnT]

A Yalie, Fred Shapiro, compiles a list of the most famous quotes of the year. Topping 2012? 47%.

[Ethilrist]

Birthers.

I could see how they had a certain point before the first election, and they were struggling along through the first term, but all the people who continue to be Birthers? That's pretty dumb.

[drew870mitchell]

I was trying to think of non-political Dumb:

• Apple Maps
• Lance Armstrong's remaining supporters
• The Big East Conference (East of China, yeah)
• Murdoch's "The Daily" iPad Newspaper
• Black Friday now begins on Thursday
• The Bing product placement in the otherwise forgettable new Spiderman movie

Not comprehensive, of course, but I wouldn't be surprised if any of these made it.

[Learjeff]

Never mind, my mistake.

[RTFirefly]

If they include classes of people as well as individuals, the poll 'truthers' and 'unskewers' should be in there. Oopsy.

I'd put Romney at #1 easily ahead of runnerups Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock. Romney gets bonus points for apparently being a poll 'truther' himself, or being completely taken in by those who were, on top of '47%', 'corporations are people too,' 'binders full of women,' and all the other good stuff. Plus he seemed to actually believe the general run of stuff they dish out on Fox.