More on TIME’s Award to “You”
Throughout the blogosphere TIME is getting ripped and mocked for naming everyone their Persons of the Year. Even the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editors felt the announcement worthy enough to put an opinion piece in the news section of its website. I understand the negative reaction. It’s a gimmick to sell magazines and get eyeballs to their website. Bill Glauber makes plenty of points about how narcissistic and banal the choice was with all the news that happened in 2006.
Still, TIME is onto the same trend Glenn Reynolds trailblazed with the An Army of Davids. Huge amounts of creativity have been unleashed with the new technological tools handed to us. Lots of it is crummy, lame stuff for most of us. But to the creators it’s fun and a way to learn new skills and the understand their own creative boundaries. The downside is the erosion of privacy, sensationalism, a lack of originality since people will be copying off others, and creative methods of anti-social behavior.
Daniel Drezner sees the germ of an idea in TIME’s pick but hates the magazine’s execution. La Shawn Barber appreciates the empowerment of the individual and praises government inaction for it. Both understand something important culturally is taking place. TIME failed to pick a person (they could have gone for the YouTube founders), but they’ve pushed a culture-altering phenomenon into the public discussion.
Who would you have chosen as your Man of the Year? My top three are Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, and Jack Abramoff. I’ll post my reasons for each of them in the next few days.
Persons of the year
Lee Scott
John Bolton