December 12, 2014

Not noticing the whole "Person of the Year" business.

I loathe Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" annual nonsense. Nevertheless, I'd always given it some thought as it approaches. Who will be Time's "Person of the Year"? I'd believed it was an irresistible question, best to confront, endure, and get past in preparation for the announcement. Then there's the announcement, and you briefly note and critique it and move on.

This morning — I don't know, something about waking up at 4 a.m. — it occurred to me to check who's considered to be in the running this year, and I was surprised to see the announcement had come a couple days ago.  I realized I'd seen pictures of the cover, but the image had not registered at a "Person of the Year" cover:



Who did the ebola fighters nudge out? The first runner-up seems to be "Ferguson Protesters, The Activists":
Protest is a performance that can make the unseen visible. In this angry epic, thousands found a role.... A black President who so often seems reluctant to talk about race was forced into the fray.... This outcry was better focused than Occupy, bigger than the one that followed the Trayvon Martin case.... But to many, it was hard to square the anger with the Molotov cocktails whistling through the night....
So... raise a Mazel Tov cocktail to the ebola fighters. How can that choice possibly cause complaint? The runner up who's an actual person — an individual — would have required too much of the patient, pedantic explanation that "Person of the Year" is not an endorsement.



Keep going with the uplift... and maybe I can finally actually, fully, and completely not notice Time's "Person of the Year."

23 comments:

ddh said...

Speaking as a former Time Person of the Year, I have no objection to the selection of Ebola fighters or really much reaction at all.

ddh said...

I was recognized in 2006.

Ann Althouse said...

I was recognized in 1966.

lgv said...

Within 5 years, the person of the year will be an entire continent, ten years all women, 15 years the entire planet.

tim in vermont said...

That nurse in Maine certainly qualifies, another liberal telling America to fuck off just before the mid terms.

Liberals will never understand the electoral power of those kinds of things. Never.

Phil 314 said...

We're still relevant, dammit!

Wince said...

I'm so glad she will be remembered as that "nurse from Maine" rather than her actual name.

CWJ said...

"A black President who so often seems reluctant to talk about race was forced into the fray"

Spit take - coffee all over the. Coffee table.

reluctant? forced? Does anyone there actually think about what they are writng, or is it all just a pretty word cloud that fits the mood they want to establish - in effect the written equivalent of elevator music.

campy said...

"A black President who so often seems reluctant to talk about race was forced into the fray"

Spit take

Of course he's reluctant. He'd rather talk about himself.

Laslo Spatula said...

I don't pay attention to Time magazine until their Swimsuit issue.

I am Laslo.

virgil xenophon said...

Were the standard truly a consequential individual, then Putin would win hands down--but then we don't want to put Obama in a bad light by comparison, do we?

MisterBuddwing said...

The Hitler cover shown here is a tad misleading - when TIME actually named Hitler its Man of the Year (1938), they created a grotesque cover that did not feature his face or flatter him in any way.

"From the Unholy Organist, a Hymn of Hate":

http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/projects/hitler/sources/30s/391time/391-02hitlertime.jpg

TosaGuy said...

As a two-time, Time person of the year, I have to admit that I didn't pay attention to this year's selection.

George M. Spencer said...

A "Person of the Year" is not a person of the year when the person is a group of people.

A great PR and sales stunt when Time monopolized its market. Means nothing now.

Person of the year was Obama, the man who defiled the Constitution...and got away with it.

LCB said...

When I see pictures like that of Adolf, I try to mentally put myself "back" before WW2, see what my reaction might have been. Can't do it though. The older I get, the more I learn about German actions in WW2...and the more evil I feel when I see his pictures.

Gahrie said...

Tsk Tsk professor, an unpleasant reminder that Hitler and the fascists were once the darlings of the Left.

mikee said...

The only time of the year I hear anything about Time is when they manage to get blogs and online news aggregators to pay them some attention with their PoY.

When was the last time Time broke a story of national importance, or reported the definitive version of an event?

I remember the last time a weekly news magazine was involved in a story of national import - it was when Drudge scooped Newsweek on the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, and that only happened because Newsweek withheld publication of that rather big story.

Goodbye, Time, you day is over.

Will Cate said...

Why anyone cares about what the anachronism known as "Time magazine" thinks about anything is beyond me...

JAORE said...

Sadly, Time has been out of the running for Magazine of the Year for at least three decades.

chillblaine said...

Zoe Quinn is the person of the year. Her button reads, 'cuties killing video games.' Her relevance was obvious to anyone paying attention - to Gamergate.

Bill said...

"But to many, it was hard to square the anger [of the rioters] with the Molotov cocktails whistling through the night...."
I dunno, anger & Molotov cocktails seem reasonably congruous.

Opinh Bombay said...

This link talks about doctors offices and how there is never any new reading material because the new mags get stolen.

http://www.businessinsider.com/why-does-the-doctor-only-have-old-magazines-2014-12

I love this line: "No one stole any of the four Time magazines or 15 Economist issues."

HT said...

"Liberals will never understand the electoral power of those kinds of things. Never."

I am a liberal and I found Kaci whatsohername to be unpleasant in almost every way. I argued with my fellow lib friends about Ebola and quarantine. Hospitals in DC were fairly lackadaisical and only taped up pieces of paper advising travelers to Ebola countries how to report, after the tempreature regarding Ebola was raised in the media. I'm not convinced that hospitals here are much better prepared than before the first case. I'm sure they've defaulted to lackadaisical-ness.

My lib friends were probably too polite to say they thought I was overreacting, or maybe I raised some good points in their minds. (Unlikely)

But I think we can all admit now, the dust *has* settled and the temperature is decidedly lower. We are not sweating every new possible case of Ebola (and there have been some more "scares") like before, nor are we as anxious as we once were about new arrivals from the "Ebola countries." I believe if we were honest, we would admit that we individually are not as concerned about Ebola in the United States as we once were. At least, I (a liberal) am not.

It's interesting to check in and see what else is going on regarding Ebola. A few months ago, there was a Wash Post photographer who had been to Africa and within 21 days of returning to the US was disinvited from a pre-planned speaking engagement at Syracuse about Ebola. He was indignant. People either rallied to his side or were indignant against him. Betweeen then and now, he returned to Liberia, but recently he died there from a heart attack. Very sad.