I suppose you’ve seen who Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” is this year? You! Not you particularly, I write, in case Nancy Pelosi is reading this and wondering if the Patriot Act provisions have done away completely with Internet privacy. No, the Person of the Year is you, all who use or generate content on electronic media.
There was a time when being named “Man of the Year” by Time magazine meant you were a great man, one who impacted the shape of the year’s events for good or for ill. Charles Lindbergh was the first, in 1927, and his choice made sense. When Adolf Hitler “won” the “honor” in 1938, Americans cried foul but could see how the evil leader had shaped the year’s events, albeit for ill. Time played around with the award in 1966, awarding it to the under-25 generation.
I think things took a decisive turn toward the cute with this award in 1988 when “the endangered earth” was named “Planet of the Year.” This was followed up in 1990 with “the two sides of George Bush” (his successful foreign policy aspect and his ineffectual domestic policy aspect) were named “Men of the Year.” After that, the award became more and more of an attempt by Time to surprise the public than to actually acknowledge policy or culture shaping persons. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com won the award in 1999, corporate whistle-blowers in 2002, and, last year, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and U2’s Bono.
In a hat-tip to America’s egalitarian ethos, Time long-ago did away with “Man of the Year” language. It could be a man or a woman, they assured us. But that was always true, a woman (Wallis Warfield Simpson) received the distinction within ten years of its beginning. Since now the award is even more egalitarian than that, embracing entire planets, the generic category of the computer, and now virtually everyone with access to a machine, why not just call it: “Person, Place, Thing, Idea, or Community of the Year”?
So enjoy your honor. Time will need to get cuter next year so you probably won’t win it two years in a row. Unless, again, you are Nancy Pelosi, and then I guess it depends on what kind of media footprint you leave.
