What is your opinion of Time’s Person of the Year going to “Protesters”? Please choose one, and then feel free to give your opinion or an alternate.
Power to the people!
I chose “Really Really Freaking Lame” for multiple reasons. Among them, to paraphrase Samuel L. Jackson as Jules in Pulp Fiction,
Unless of course you’re referring to M. Welby Protesters, founder of Taxidermists Without Borders, in which case I apologize. Otherwise, a person, by definition, is an individual- not a group, not a concept. Now, if you wanted to make, say, Seal Team Six or The Guys at Facebook a Person of the Year, then, maybe sorta kinda, but even so I’d say go with ONE of them and then have a “Group of the Year” section. People don’t want an abstract for a ‘Person of the Year’, a lesson you should have learned when you had that crappy foil-mirror 'It’s Youuuuuu!" issue.
Choosing “Protesters” would be like People’s choosing “Hot guys in Vampire movies!” as “Sexiest Man Alive”, or the Heisman Trophy go to “Rookies who try really hard!”, or “Best Supporting Actor goes to American Indians!”. We want a face, singular, concrete.
Moammar Qadafi, Kim Kardashian, Vladimir Putin, Osama or Obama, Romney or Cain or Gingrich or a Clinton, even Rubber Man from American Horror Story, any of these would be less of a copout than “Protesters”.
And really, it’s not so much that I care who Time’s Man of the Year is, I just hate people getting paid a lot more money than me coming up with lame copout lazy seeming shit like this.
And if you have to go with a group project winner, Protesters? Really? Were “Street Mimes”, “Pimps”, and “Respiratory Therapists in See Through Blowses” unable to pick up the award in person?
Perhaps an occupation is in order?
Yeah, because this is sooooooooo different from 2006 when they chose… You.
Or 2005, when they chose The Good Samaritans.
Or 2003, when they chose The American Soldier.
Or 2002, when they chose The Whistleblowers.
Or 1993, when they chose The Peacemakers.
Or 1988, when they chose The Endangered Earth.
Or 1982, when they chose The Computer.
Or 1975, when they chose American Women.
Or 1969, when they chose The Middle Americans.
Or 1966, when they chose Baby Boomers.
Or 1960, when they chose American Scientists.
Or 1956, when they chose Hungarian Freedom Fighters.
Or 1950, when they chose The American Fighting Man.
Completely unprecedented.
2006 was mentioned above, the others are also lame, nobody said they’re unprecedented, but lamer still would be to open a poll calling decades old choices lame.
I like it actually. It pretty much defines the year IMHO.
I voted “really freaking lame” but was very close to “really really freaking lame”. I feel like the non-person people of the year are just huge, lazy cop-outs.
Time: If you want to run a “Concept of the Year” or an “Archetype of the Year”, great! It’s your magazine, so more power to you! However, if you are claiming to pick a person of the year and can’t be bothered to actually pick a person, that’s just really lame. Is there really no actual person who contributed anything noteworthy to the world this year?
I know Time’s been doing this for more than half a century (according to Wikipedia, the Man of the Year for 1950 was “The American Fighting-Man”) but lately it’s just getting lazy. Of the last 10, only 5 have been actual, individual people. Why even call it the “Person of the Year” anymore?
Sorry about the double-post. Carry on.
Lamer still would be complaining about an magazine’s editorial decision and masking it behind a “poll.”
I voted not lame.
I think it is a very good choice.
My problem is that, while it sums the year up quite well, it’s not a person. If the feature was “Concept of the Year” or “Group of the Year” then I would have no problem with it. As it is, while perporting to chose a person, Time couldn’t be bothered to play by the rules they set and went with a cop-out instead. When you hit an even person-to-nonperson ratio, it’s time to stop calling it the “Person of the Year”.
I like it as a concept. For most of history it’s been the pharaos, ceasars, popes, kings, presidents and CEOs that shape the world. And every once in a while the common people take a hatchet, sword, guillotine or rock to their faces to show they too, are a force to be reckoned with.
No, I think most would vote that “significantly less lame”, but you’re welcome to start a poll if you want to know for certain.
They haven’t this year, but it’s true they have occasionally done so in the past. Search long enough and you can possibly find a situation where it did any good.
I think it is one of the best choices they have made ever. No one can look back on the year and name a single person who had a bigger effect on our world then the protesters in Tunisia, Egypt Libya, Syria, Yemen and #Occupy. These groups individually and collectively changed face of the world and the world’s view on the kind of power that people have.
With the notable execptions of '82 and '88 all of the choices have been people. At worst they could change the name to People of the Year, but they are honoring the persons, not the concepts.
Don’t forget the protests in Spain that inspired #Occupy or the recent ones in Russia.
I voted not lame. Not lame is winning the plurality for now.
I haven’t read the issue, but I would be down with it if it encompassed global protest. Arab Spring was no joke. If it’s focused on OWS, then I’m more meh on it.
Other, because, “Awesome” wasn’t an option.
The Time “Man of the Year” has been meaningless since they chickened out in 2001 and named Giuliani Man of the Year because Bin Laden would have been too controversial. In the past, Hitler, Khomeni, and a number of Soviet leaders got the nod. If you just want a popularity contest why bother with the award?
Poll: nitpicking the term “person” as not being used literally enough when used in an obviously metaphorical sense on an editorial cover - “lame” or “suck ass” or “entirely missing the point”?