Freestyle Dumping

Time's Person of the Year is You (Me, whatever). I'm lucky; I had a subscription to Time because it was given to me extremely cheap (under $10) and am most fortunate that it ran out right before this issue came out. Over the 12 months that I received Time, I grew to hate it. Sure, this cover was so obviously a cop out. So I guess the question we're supposed to consider here is, why? To me, the obvious choices would have been The Democrats (or at least the leaders of the DNC, DCCC & DSCC), or maybe even Baker & Hamilton (though it's pretty obvious by now that the Iraq Study Group Report is going to do very little; the lead-up to it got a lot of press). I mean, isn't the Person of the Year supposed to be someone who got a lot of attention or someone who made a huge difference? Sure, "You" do things to make a difference in the internet (like using Google to search for porn, or by demanding newer and stranger role-playing situations for said porn) but with that "You" means a lot of shitty people who either made no difference or who actually worked the take the country backwards get in the door. I heard a whole lot about Suri Cruise this year, why wasn't she/he/it person of the year? Or how about K-Fed? Paris Hilton? Brittney Spears' exposed vagina?

Honestly, the small conspiracy theorist in me thinks that Time didn't want to pick the Democrats or any one Democrat, or maybe even Baker/Hamilton (who the Bushies and neocons aren't hugely fond of apparently). Or maybe just a total lack of imagination. Why am I person of the year? The internet? YouTube? Listen, I am all for YouTube; I think it is the next step in the democratization of the internet and it could possibly serve to keep those in public life more accountable for what they say (though it is just as likely to spawn new generations of better liars), but has anyone actually just browsed YouTube? For every single one video of something like the "macaca incident" that makes a difference, there's millions of videos of people just playing video games, or running around naked, or taking a dump, or any other number of shithead things. At any rate, the internet has been around for quite a while; it has always been powered by "people." Is Time just now catching on to this? Obviously they are referring to massively distributed collaboation, and the fact that people with cell phone cameras are catching very important video, or posting very important information on blogs (not blogs like this one) that then sometimes make their way into the evening shout shows, but those are relatively few enterprising and activist people. The internet is full of millions more people who only want to see those Brittney Spears vagnia pictures, or pictures of Suri Cruise, or of Pauly Shore being punched by a redneck, or whatever.

I have very little to say that wasn't already covered; great job with this topic, Glenn. But obviously the Time choice was a cop out. But what do we care? Time is like that. Compare the two post-election covers from 1992 and 2006. In 1992, the Republicans had their "revolution," and took over the Congress from the Democrats, who had held on to power for about 40 years. On the cover of Time, we see an elephant running over and stomping a little donkey whose (if I remember correctly) eyes are popping out for extra special effect. In 2006, when Democrats took the Republicans out of office after only 12 years, and won more seats than the GOP had in 1992, Time showcased a sedate cover that shows a big red dot and a big blue dot slightly converging with the overlapping parts colored purple, with a headline saying "The Center is the New Place to Be," repeating the bullshit meme that the Dems only won because their candidates were so conservative (don't get me started on that; almost nothing makes me more mad than that total bullshit claim). That says all you need to know about Time Magazine.

I would write more, but I must wrap Christmas presents, and I want to leave enough room for those who must post after me to actually have something to say. Or totally abandon the subject at hand and just write about whatever.