News 2006=YouTube … and Condos, condos, condos!
posted by on November 27 at 9:27 AM
Admittedly, Time magazine is completely irrelevant these days. But their Man/Woman/Thing of The Year ritual—they’ve been doing it since 1927 (Charles Lindbergh)—has a relevant life of its own outside the dying magazine. Getting excited about Time’s Person of the Year is like enjoying Super Bowl Sunday even if you don’t watch a single NFL game all year (moi).
2006 has been a Year-Zero, history-altering kind of year: The GOP implosion; the on-line upheaval that’s undoing traditional media; and the tragic War in Iraq. 2006 is on par with previous cultural watersheds like 1966, 1980, and 1994. And so I’m curious to see who or what is crowned Person/Thing of the Year to define these shape-shifting times.
I nominate Google/YouTube as 2006’s standard-bearer. I think October’s $1.65 billion deal perfectly sums up the new media insurgency that’s exploding the status quo right now.
Runner-up for Time’s annual honor: Maybe “Purple America?” After years of pushing its radical, divisive agenda, the GOP finally alienated the majority of the country. Voila: 2006 starred the emergence of the Democrats and the new center.
I think the Blogoshpere—based on its role in upending the traditional media (and its role in the Democratic landslide)— should also be a candidate for the 2006 title.
Something about the war also seems like it should be under consideration, but I don’t know what best sums it up. Time chickened out of giving the title to Osama bin Laden in 2001 (the obvious choice), so I certainly don’t see them giving it to the Iraqi insurgents this year. Rumsfeld, maybe? (Remember, the Person of the Year doesn’t have to be a success story…just the person or thing that had the biggest impact on events.)
And 2006 locally? I’d nominate Condos as Seattle’s thing of the year.
As for those other shape-shifting years I mentioned: In 1966, the honor went to the Young Generation. In 1980 it went to Ronald Reagan. And 1994 was reflected back belatedly: Newt Gingrich got Time’s Man of the Year in 1995. (1994 itself went to Pope John Paul II ?)
Shape-Shifting Years Past:
1995:
1980:
1966:
And Hitler got in 1938.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Google is rapidly transforming YouTube into a new corporate media outlet. John Stewart's masters are knocking individual posters off and replacing them with the "YouTube office" of the same old, same old big media companies.
AIDS in Africa. The rest is conversation.
Seattle? Hmmm.. I would say the random shootings.
Wow, Reagan looks so gay in that cover. And I mean "gay" as in homosexual.
Ryan Phillipe was 1966 man of the year?
has the "blogosphere" won enough elections to be thing of the year? lamont and burner didn't exactly pay off.
Factcheck,
Believe you me, after so much bravado from the DailyKos contingent re: Lamont, I have to admit that I enjoyed that they were taken down a peg in Connecticut.
My Blogosphere nod mostly covers the alternative media insurgency that's exploded in the past two years on-line and not so much the "NetRoots" stuff. But I do think the NetRoots folks were a factor in the D sweep ... if nothing else, for helping energize the Democrats. Dean as DNC chair is a child of the NetRoots ... and he certainly carried that spirit into the field this election season.
But I agree with you: The Blogosphere was a bit overrated as a giant force in the D sweep.
Webb? Tester? Both were candidates that the blogosphere backed against the party establishment in their primaries and went on to win. McCaskill was an early longshot favourite too before Missourri hit the radar.
Man of the Year: S.R. Sidarth
Doug,
He wont get it, but nice call!
Aexia,
True that on Tester!
i prefer the new nomenclature for YouTube: GooTube
Year of the Failure of the MSM.
Mark Foley nationally. Quite an October surprise.
In 1936, TIME named their first Woman Of The Year. Sixteen years later that woman's niece (by marriage) was named Woman of the Year. FDR was the first US president named Man of the Year and since then every president except one has been named Man of the Year. Who are these people, Alex, and does anyone care? Hmmmm....2006 - how about the Citizens of Baghdad? Rep. Rahm Emanuel?
Not sure about the ladies, but I doubt Ford was ever a Man of the Year.
Well, the current Ford would be Failure of the Year, but I think Bush and Rove beat him to it.
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