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Time Names POY, Bloggers Not Tickled

Bloggers respond to their new honor with witty puns and sarcastic punditry.

December 18, 2006

In an apparent attempt to elicit witty puns and sarcastic punditry from bloggers, Time magazine has announced that its much-anticipated Person of the Year is “You.”

“[F]or seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, Time‘s Person of the Year for 2006 is you,” declares the magazine, applauding bloggers, the pioneers of open-source software and anyone that somehow participates in the Web 2.0 revolution.

Oddly, bloggers don’t seem as tickled by the honor as we might have expected. Most write the story off as a cop-out, suggesting that Time is simply pandering to advertisers, and that the story is either old news or just not newsworthy.

“As if anything could preclude our right to mock,” writes Gawker. “Time‘s annual hype machine finally reached its crescendo this weekend, announcing the choice for the 2006 ‘Person of the Year’: You. That’s right — You, over there, with the face. Even if you’re a fan of the abstract POTY selections (as opposed to a single person or group of people), this has to rank as the most squishy, opportunistic pick ever. See, this way they get to roll in YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, even Web 2.0 — anything with a hint of buzz, warranted or not. And since a bunch of Yous use a lot of these tools, we’re all meant to be flattered and intrigued by our collective appearance on the cover. And we were worried it might end up as ‘Blogs’ or something silly like that. Oh well. Sorry, Stephen Colbert, it ‘s not you, it’s You.”

“Wa wa wee wa, that’s boring,” writes Jen Chung at Gothamist. “Because it’s not like Web 2.0 ever fails to navel gaze! Sure, Web 2.0 probably hit some sort of critical mass this year, but this observation still seems late. And by lumping everyone and everything together, it seems to trivialize some Web 2.0 types who have been at the forefront — and other ‘Persons of the Year’ — while overemphasizing the importance of others. We don’t know, on the other hand, it does give us the chance to accept a hearty clap on the back for wasting precious time tagging photographs with ‘cats in clothes.’ Maybe Time got a memo from the State Department requesting that Ahmadinejad not get the cover (he’s the runner-up). But more likely Time wanted some buzz and to appeal to marketers. That plus put a mirror on the cover.”

Recalling Brian Williams’ November tirade against the high praise that is lavished on blogs, mediabistro’s FishbowlNY spins Williams’ speech as prophesy:

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“It also appears [Managing] Editor Richard Stengel took Brian Williams’ nomination seriously in his first ‘Person of the Year’ selection as editor. Last month, the NBC anchor stole the show at Time‘s POY luncheon with an impassioned rant on the dark side of his ‘You’ nomination: ‘We’re choosing cat videos over well thought-out, well-reported evening newscasts,’ said Williams. ‘Look at the shows that do well that don’t include dancing … If we’re all blogging, what aren’t we reading? … I believe it is tearing us apart.'”

Baseballers and criminals are included too, one blogger notes.

“Sex offenders, drug dealers, serial killers and even Curt Schilling, take a bow,” writes Paul Katcher. “You’ve joined the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt and ‘The Computer’ (who was unavailable for comment back in 1982). This is truly a great day to be alive. Because, if you’re alive, you’re the Person of the Year. So, I guess the clown who leaped into the Yankee Stadium netting last year really did make something of himself.”

Mark Boyer was a CJR intern.