Person Of The Year

  First, let me congratulate you on your recognition as Time magazine’s Person of the Year. 

  Now, let me say that I think it’s bunk.  You didn’t do anything to deserve it, short of creating a MySpace page and uploading a 42-second video clip of your cousin taking a softball in the crotch.  Oh, and your little blog—no one reads it.  You deserve to be Person of the Year like K-Fed deserves a Grammy.  Like Andy Dick deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.  Like Britney Spears deserves Mother of the Year.  Pardon my candor, but you don’t deserve it anymore than I do.

  Shame on the editorial staff at Time for copping out, and shame on them for stroking our already-over-inflated egos, as if we aren’t already self-important enough.  It is a cheap ploy designed to sell a few more copies of their much-awaited Person of the Year issue—a designation that once meant something. 

  Charles Lindbergh was the first person to receive the honor, when it was called “Man of the Year,” in 1927—the year he became the first person to ever fly solo and non-stop across the Atlantic.  (Let me again remind you that you won it this year, for sitting on your couch with a can of Pringles, and watching Futurama reruns on Cartoon Network.  Good job.) 

  I mean, really.  Time’s Person of the Year is a distinction that has been given to every U.S. president since Harry Truman, except for Gerald Ford.  Dozens of world leaders and humanitarians—names like Gandhi and Martin Luther King.  Rudy Giuliani was acknowledged in the months after the attacks of 9/11.  People of influence.  Last year, Bill and Melinda Gates shared the honor with Bono.  This year, my neighbor Kenny shared it with, well, everyone else.

  This isn’t the first time that Time has named a large group “Person of the Year.”  For example, in 1966 it was given to everyone 25 and under.  That decision is defensible, considering the role played by American youth in the civil rights movement, the sexual revolution, and the anti-war movement. 

  Sometimes objects are named Person of the Year.  In 1982 it was the computer.  In 1988 it was “Endangered Earth.”  The fact that Time can’t find a person to crown Person of the Year either speaks to the deficiencies of their editorial staff or to those of mankind.  I certainly hope it’s the former.

  There has been a lot of talk in this debate about Adolf Hitler, who was named Person of the Year in 1938.  It’s important to remember that it’s not about being the best person; it’s about wielding the most influence over the year’s events.  With that in mind, perhaps al-Qaeda would have been a more suitable group to choose.  Or, as Time did in 1950, it could have gone to the American fighting-man, our men and women of the services.  And they could have done it with few objections.

  At some point over the next couple of weeks, you may find yourself staring at your own reflection in the foil-gilded cover of Time.  It’s a cheap ploy designed to sell magazines.  As you consider whether or not you want to give Time’s editorial staff that satisfaction, you may want to consider this: Paris Hilton could be looking at the same thing.

-From Pulse
   December 28, 2006