Time couldn’t pick one person, so it picked everyone

December 18, 2006

As you no doubt heard over the weekend, Time magazine chose its person of the year for 2006 and picked … all of us.

The “Great Man” theory of history is usually attributed to the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle, who wrote that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.” He believed that it is the few, the powerful and the famous who shape our collective destiny as a species. That theory took a serious beating this year.

To be sure, there are individuals we could blame for the many painful and disturbing things that happened in 2006. The conflict in Iraq only got bloodier and more entrenched. A vicious skirmish erupted between Israel and Lebanon. A war dragged on in Sudan. A tin-pot dictator in North Korea got the Bomb, and the President of Iran wants to go nuclear too. Meanwhile nobody fixed global warming, and Sony didn’t make enough PlayStation3s.

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

Maybe Time deserves credit for thinking outside the box. Maybe readers will love this year’s selection (I heard one clever person joke over the weekend that they now plan to add “Time: Man of the Year” to their resume). But naming everyone the person of the year is wholly unsatisfying.

Sure, it’s a challenge to pick one person, but Time created its own attention-getting bailiwick and now it’s stuck with it. I like the idea of recognizing the impact of bloggers, online communities, social networking site, social news sites, and the utilization of tools like YouTube, particularly with regards to the midterm elections, but the trick of these annual gimmicks is to pick someone — or maybe a couple of people — who represent the larger trend. It’s exactly why it made some sense when Salon named S.R. Sidarth (the guy George Allen called “macaca”) its man of the year.

By picking everyone, Time punted on the hard choice.

August J. Pollak summarized the problem quite nicely.

Congratulations to Time for actually thinking of something even stupider than Rudy Giuliani in 2001. […]

I’d like to apologize in advance for this, because I’m sure it will offend some. But Person of the Year isn’t the Special fu**ing Olympics. The entire point of the exercise is that everyone doesn’t get a medal for participating. The purpose of the issue is to address the person or persons who, for bad or worse, most affected world events of that year. So they picked … everyone? Well of course everyone affected world events the most, fu**wits.

I mentioned Giuliani because I think most people who used to care about this would agree that 2001 was the year that without any argument Time blatantly copped out on the entire point of the issue. Osama bin Laden was clearly the person who, like Hitler in 1933, affected world events the most that year. But bin Laden wouldn’t sell magazines and American readers would be too stupid to realize it’s not an award. So now, five years later, Time’s given in and decided that Person of the Year is, officially, an award. Congratulations, Time Magazine is now Everybody Gets a Trophy Day.

Indeed, Time effectively admitted as much, suggesting that it would have likely given the “honor” to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but didn’t want to make him Person of the Year. First, Ahmadinejad’s impact on global affairs hasn’t been that great, so Time adding him to the short list doesn’t make that much sense; and second, despising someone isn’t supposed to be a disqualifier.

I could even make a reasonable case for Bush being Time’s person of the year. Or Nancy Pelosi. Or Howard Dean. Or Dick Cheney. Or Bill and Melinda Gates. But everyone? It’s too clever by half.

Incidentally, if you were on Time’s editorial board, who would have you picked?

I would’ve just picked bloggers in general, simply because they affected the elections this year (for better or worse).

Allen’s macaca moment, the Michael J. Fox ad, Lamont (even if he didn’t win), Foley, etc. etc. etc. were all affected by bloggers. Whether it was a blogger breaking the story, or many of them keeping an issue alive, they really did have an effect on the mid-terms.

If I had to pick just one person? That’s tough … but Dean for his 50-state strategy would’ve been a good choice. Hell, even Bush would’ve been a defensible selection — his reluctance to change course in Iraq and low approval ratings had a large affect on the midterms as well.

  • The Time thing is bogus. If I had to make a pick, it would be the Democratic Party–as “the Winner of the Year.” Of course, the biggest loser was Karl Rove and the concept of a “permanent majority.” (insert smile here)

  • I see your point, CB, but I kinda like the choice Time made. “Great men” are getting really tiresome since these days they always turn into ashes when you get beyond their fame or glamour. I think Unholy Moseseses’ choice is good too. But bloggers are part of the great “You” that is emerging as people cut out the middle man so much with the Internet. I like people taking over the means of communication. And I like seeing people break down national boundaries in at least a virtual way. Yay You!

  • how about the Reservist? The men and women in the National Guard & the state military reserves have been used to the point of breaking by the current manpower strategy for the wars.
    Or perhaps the archetect of that strategy, Don Rumsfeld?

  • If I was making the choice, I doubt I’d be able to resist the mischief of naming Howard Dean and Rahm Emanuel as co-persons of the year. 2 different Dems, often portrayed as almost blood enemies, each in their own way reshaped the American political landscape.

  • I really think the big story of the year (among many big stories) is the Democratic takeover of congress. The story of the year was Iraq, and the election was a huge “no way” from the electorate to the President. The dialogue has markedly shifted (except for the Decider’s mind, of course).

    And the face of the new congress, apologies to Harry Reid, is the first female Speaker of the House, and the most powerful elected woman in United States History (based on being second in the line of succession).

    Nancy Pelosi is the face of the 2004 election, and would have been a clear choice.

    But I’m happy to be named myself…..

  • CB,

    A bit of an aside regarding your quotation Pollack’s article: why is it necessary to censor “fucking” but acceptable to print “fuckwits”? And since when is it necessary to censor bad words on this site at all? (I note that Pollack actually wrote “fucking,” sans asterisks, in his article).

    Regarding the main point, I agree that Time’s choice is a shameless appeal to the most inane populism, quite likely driven in part for marketing purposes.

  • Well, as you say, despising someone isn’t supposed to be a diqualifier. Is there any question it would have to be Bush?

  • Unbelievable. I know quite a few “you’s” who DEFINITELY didn’t deserve this kind of recognition…

  • I thought that Salon’s choice of S. R. Sidarth (aka Macaca) was inspired. I urge everyone to read the essay in Salon about their choice that is linked above.

    Sidarth took George Allen down, and indirectly had a hand in bringing down Conrad Burns. Without him, the Senate would still be controlled by Bush’s party.

  • there are individuals we could blame for the many painful and disturbing things that happened in 2006. The conflict in Iraq only got bloodier and more entrenched. A vicious skirmish erupted between Israel and Lebanon. A war dragged on in Sudan. A tin-pot dictator in North Korea got the Bomb, and the President of Iran wants to go nuclear too. Meanwhile nobody fixed global warming, and Sony didn’t make enough PlayStation3s.

    Bush and his legendary incompetence and passivity played a part in every one of these catastrophes in world affairs, except the shortage of PS3’s.

    Is Bush going to Japan to throw up on someone?

  • IMO, this is the stupidest, most fucked up cop-out ever.

    Bruce Wilder: Is Bush going to Japan to throw up on someone?

    let’s hope so. or maybe he’ll run into a Japanese cop on his tricycle.

  • A bit of an aside regarding your quotation Pollack’s article: why is it necessary to censor “fucking” but acceptable to print “fuckwits”?

    Oh, sloppy Monday-morning editing, I guess. They’re both the same now.

  • Time really needs to rename the award as “newsmaker of the year.” That would then make it easier to name folks that aren’t likeable but had the biggest imact on the news. I then suppose that the Iraqi miltias could be the most deserving newsmaker for dragging the conflict into an intractible stalemate that the US can no longer win in the traditional sense.

    Another good option would be the Democratic netroots for causing the shift in power in Washington from the ground up. Elections will never be the same again and true democracy is resurgent in America. Guys like Tester, Webb, Lamont and many many others benefit from the online buzz and activism.

    But I will graciously accept this award and put it proudly on my mantlepiece for being tied for the roughly 6.5 billionth person worthy of the prize.

  • I would nominate both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for the honor. Their senses of humor helped spearhead the Democratic victory and that was the news story in the country of the year.

  • Who had the most impact on the world this year? Well, not much good happened, so for starters Time would have to get over that issue. I find it very hard to argue with two different triumvarates:

    Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld – no small group did more to impact the world, in this case alas for the much worse, in 2006. The entire election was really a referendum on these three; many other trends, many other notable people in 2006 were all driven by or derivative of these three. As Olbermann put it in GQ, “Rumsfeld couldn’t have caused more harm to this country if he were a paid agent of bin Laden.”

    The other possibility are “The Radical Islamists” – Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, and Sadr. They are the looming, ever more brazen threat and the folks to whom Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld are reacting.

  • Congratulations petorado. You are unique, just like everybody else. 🙂

    When I’m mad I write fucking or FUCKING!. When I’m not I usually write some variation of the word. To anyone over 40, fucking is a pretty rough intense word. F*cking just seems a little gentler. If you’re under 40? Well fuck it! 🙂

    It’s a little like the comedian who riffed on the variations of the nuances of the word, “dude” and how it is used in different situations.

  • I would first like to thank my parents for bringing me into this world, plus Mr Cheeseman, my Grade 12 English teacher and finally, the Academy for giving me this award. I would also like to thank Time, for being ever more pointless than it’s dimwitted and ass kissing cousin, People Magazine.

    I read Time for 22 years and stopped reading it in 2001 after enduring one too many Peoplesque Asskissing profiles of the powerful and stupid.

    I’d vote for Jon and Stephen as well. Truth to power as well as a good laugh or twenty.

  • If further proof was needed that these legends in their own minds have had their collective head so far up their collective ass that they’ve forgotten what daylight and fresh air is, this is it.

    What a bunch of brain-dead corporate boobs. Shooting them would be a waste of ammunition – they haven’t got brains, they haven’t got hearts, they sure as hell have no intestines since they have no fortitude, I can’t think of any place to hit that would be fatal.

    If I hadn’t cancelled my surbscription to Time in 1968, now would be a good opportunity.

  • In a world of six billion people, controlled by a dwindling number of mega-corporations, it seems silly for Time or anyone else to care about naming a “person of the year”.

    The work of those scientists and artists and others who really can make a positive contribution to our lives is virtually unknown to the ignorant tee-vee addicted boobs who make up the audience for Time and its editorial staff. The only focus of the mass media seems to be on freaks: televangelists, criminals, politicians and other celebrities.

  • Dale: To anyone over 40, fucking is a pretty rough intense word.

    puh-leeze! i’m over 40 (and a chick) and have been using it conversationally for years (apart from in professional situations).

  • “I would’ve just picked bloggers in general,”

    The heck with that. I’d pick the blog readers and commenters; without us bloggers would have to get real jobs.

  • I figure George Bush should have been named “Man of the Year” as long as Time avoids the more appropriate category of “Newsmaker of the Year,” as petorado suggests.

    In the old days the MOTY featured good choices, including bad guys. These were people who really made an impact on the world. While computers, blogging, medicine and “everyone” are plausible selections, they are not individual men or women. Why not stick with the named category?

    Otherwise, spinach could have been Man of the Year.

  • There is one more point to touch on here. And it might be similar to what age–or consciousness–tolerates the word “fucking.” Specifically, there is “an age” (or a point in life) that one realizes the newspaper editorial writers–or Time magazine editors–have a perspective that is NOT fucking superior to your own. Yet, these self-important arseholes pontificate with the certainty that they dwell at Delphi. Their view/opinion is no better than your own. What’s cool is that with internets fostering dialogue in a virtual community, these corporate blowhards can go fuck themselves.

  • I don’t read Time on a regular basis and I don’t pay much attention to whom they name person of the year. Hence I really can’t get too worked up over this one way or the other. Let me say though, that if they wanted to recognize the impact of the web on politics this year, but couldn’t easily narrow down the choice to a single person or entity which had the most immediate impact on the current situation, such as kos, CB, or YouTube, then perhaps they should have given the award to the prime mover:Tim Berners-Lee.

  • And the face of the new congress, apologies to Harry Reid, is the first female Speaker of the House, and the most powerful elected woman in United States History

    I’m with zmulls on this one. As insipid as the whole idea of Time’s Person of the Year award is, she at least would be a decent choice, albeit not perfect.

    Of course a good argument can be made for Al Gore given his very prominent role in bringing global warming into more public awareness. But as he may be a Dem presidential candidate there is no way that Time would ever give a prominent Dem such a promotional boost.

  • I guess that guy from N Korea with his shiny new bomb.
    He sure pissed on shrub’s leg.

    Impeach, Try, then Hang!

  • Rumor has it that next year Time will give itself the honor.
    Comment by The answer is orange

    🙂 And to tie in to the other thread of these comments. Time will also go f*ck itself next year.

    If you type f*ck with an asterisk does that indicate an orifice as well?

  • On the principle that an enemy of my enemy is my friend, I’m pleased with Time’s choice. George Will had a hissy fit on TV about it, and that’s alomost enough to justify anything. David Brooks will have conniptions too, because he thought — like Zeitgeist , @16 — that it should have been Ahmadinejad, Nasrallah, and Sadr. Well, he thought it should be — his column appeared before the Time’s “award”.

    And I don’t really see why it would have been OK to nominate any group (netroots, Dem Party etc) and not the entire “community” of the blogosphere.

    Me, I’m happy to be one of the 6.5 billion or whatever the number is. I’ve never read Time and don’t plan to subscribe but I will try to get a copy of this issue as a souvenir. While the symbiosis between blogs and MSM has been an ongoing affair (we read them and they read us), it’s the first time (I think) that anyone in the MSM-sphere has acknowledged the importance and the beneficial impact of the blogs. Good for them.

  • Is it really worse than picking computers (1982) or the whole entire Earth (1988 — doesn’t that make me a repeat winner?) or Science (1960 — hey! That makes me a threepeat!)?

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