It would seem that TIME magazine has just named me their Person of the Year. I feel so… underwhelmed?
You know, I’m not one to think that the term “gay” should be used as a substitute for “lame,” but in this case, I really can’t think of anything better.
Me? Shucks… I didn’t do nuthing!
I can’t believe you got it. You suck.
Yanno, this is actually the second time I’ve won. (Back in the late '60s, they gave it to “People under 30,” which I was at the time.)
I knew that my time-wasting, online gaming habits would not allow me to seriously compete for the award. So I started to get all my news from internet media sources, vice television and radio sources. Plus, I recently took up some online Texas Hold 'em. However, I still felt I needed something more, which is why I decided to pony up another $14.95 to contribute to these here boards. Only then did I realize that I had a legitimate shot. I can’t tell you how good it feels to have all your hard work pay off like this.
This is gonna ruin the “Fake TIME Magazine Man of the Year cover with your picture on it” industry.
What is this, some sort of Zen thing? Of course the collective set of all us together adds up to the major force shaping events in any given year. :dubious:
D… U… H…
I would not have pulled this for a class report procrastrinated until the very morning of the deadline.
I mean, at least “people under 30” was a specific (though huge) group of people and it could be said they represented a series of definable trends.
I refuse to allow TIME to so inconsiderately preempt my 15 minutes this way, I most energically decline this award.
About damn time I win it. I’m awesome. 
What a coincidence! The same applies to me!
:: goes out to wave Esperantan-Canadian flags ::
Why not You? You, as a whole, have been able to control entertainment now more than ever. The main reason You was (were) chosen was because of Time 2006 Invention of the Year- YouTube, which shows that now more than ever, You are able to create your own entertainment and/or web content rather than some large corporation. This message board is perfect proof of this. So why not You? Congratulations to You, Me, and all of You.
(Historical Time Persons of the Year that were not particular individuals: American Fighting Man (1950), Hungarian Freedom Fighter (1956), American Scientists (1960), Generation 25 and Under (1966), Middle Americans (1969), American Women (1975), Computer (1982), Earth (1988), American Soldier (2003), You (2006))
Homer Simpson (spotting novelty TIME magazine cover with Ned Flanders as “Man of the Century”): Must’ve been a pretty slow century.
I guess Time has decided that kissing the ass of individual demographic groups (American women, people under 25, the middle class, soldiers) by naming them Person of the Year was taking too long, so they decided to just knock everyone out at once.
Or maybe their circulation is falling off so badly that they figured their readers needed the ego boost.
Somehow, being put in a class with people who:
didn’t do wonders for my ego. YMMV.
Me too. This year and back in 1958 when I was Charles de Gaulle.
Somewhere, in a dank hole in another part of the world, Osama bin Laden is clutching a copy of this issue and muttering “About fucking time…” to himself.
It’s a shame the backlash against it caused TIME not to pick Bin Laden as Person of the Year in 2001, since he did have a lot to do with world events that year. (Remember, the Person of the Year does not necessarily have to have a positive effect on world events.) Instead of a photo, they could at least had a grim cartoon of him on the cover like they did with Hitler.
My year was going along just fine until it went careening off into the irrelevant on Saturday night. I used to feel so smug about understanding the pointlessness of the “Person of the Year” tradition - but, heck, now it’s just about impossible NOT to.
It was beginning to look as if they weren’t going to get around to me. Whew, by the skin of my teeth.
I thought this was dumb at first, but the more I think about it the more I think it’s kind of an inspired choice.
What Time is saying is simply that they’re acknowledging that populism is making a splash in the media; blogs, Youtube, and that sort of thing are drawing attention away from traditional sources. It’s a sociological and technical fact that the ability of the common person to have their voice heard has suddenly increased exponentially, and the consequences are going to be felt big time.
So in the sense that Time’s choice captures the relevant events of the day, it’s a very good choice. The movement towards populist, Internet-based media IS a huge, huge sea change that’s going to dramatically shift the way Western society works; we’re just at the very beginning of the wave’s swell right now.
Going back over ther choices, I’m actually quite surprised at how few really bad choices there are.
Incidentally, it was “The Generation 25 and Under,” in 1966.