TIME's Historic, Idiotic Choice

Debate over TIME's Person of the Year has become a year-end ritual.

Many people mistakenly think the designation is meant to be an honor.

They're wrong. TIME's Person of the Year is not an award or an endorsement.

TIME's Person of the Year is the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year.

Read the complete list of past Persons of the Year.

A quick glance reveals that TIME has given the title to some notorious figures, including Ayatullah Khomeini (1979), Nikita Khrushchev (1957), Adolf Hitler (1938), and Joseph Stalin -- twice (1939, 1942).

True to the criteria, those Persons of the Year were selected based on the impact, "for good or for ill," that they had at the time.

There have also been some really goofy choices -- like the Computer (1982) and the Endangered Earth (1988). I guess computers and the planet are people, too.

In 1936, Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson was named Person of the Year. How very tabloid of TIME! All the way back in 1936, the magazine was showing its penchant for fantasy and celebrity obsession rather than grasping and reporting the news.

In my opinion, TIME made history this year.

Since 1927 when Charles Lindbergh was picked as TIME's first Man (person) of the Year, through eighty years of selections, there has never been a more ridiculous choice.

This year the title goes to --- YOU.

Yes, YOU!

YOU ARE TIME'S PERSON OF THE YEAR!

Actually, it isn't really YOU, unless YOU are an Internet user or creator of content.

That's one reason to criticize TIME's choice of YOU. It's extremely misleading.

It might be YOU, but it might not be.

YOU might be TIME's Person of the Year if...

It sounds like a Jeff Foxworthy "You might be a redneck" joke.

It's absolutely idiotic that TIME chose YOU because it's not necessarily YOU.

I think the "deciders" at TIME couldn't bring themselves to put bloggers or New Media on the magazine's cover as Persons of the Year, so they recognized them in a more roundabout way.

Why not swallow hard and give the title to bloggers?

Why not name the New Media or the Alternative Media?

At the very least, Internet users, consumers and creators, could be specified as the Persons of the Year.

Why put YOU on the cover?

It's inaccurate.

It's stupid.

YOU is so silly. (YOU are so silly?)

It's lame.

Perhaps another reason that TIME chose YOU was to be intentionally vague. Maybe it was an effort to appease the egomaniacs who have been campaigning for the title.

People like Nancy Pelosi and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can kid themselves into thinking that, in fact, they were chosen as Person of the Year.

YOU gives the impression of being very inclusive. No one is left out. Everyone is recognized.

That's so affirming. It also humanizes the computer monitor and the keyboard, warm and fuzzy.

Does it make YOU happy?

One thing that's kind of nice about YOU being selected by TIME is that it eliminates the magazine as having a noteworthy impact.

YOU is not ME.

In other words, TIME isn't Person of the Year.

Right?