Humbled yet proud: Time magazine has named Pensito Review its Person of the Year, and we are happier than pigs in poop. Okay, technically the magazine didn’t name Pensito Review per se, but, as the Associated Press put it:
The annual honor for 2006 went to each and every one of us, as Time cited the shift from institutions to individuals — citizens of the new digital democracy, as the magazine put it. The winners this year were anyone using or creating content on the World Wide Web.
By those terms, Pensito Review certainly qualifies as Person of the Year. Hey, we create content, man. Currently, we have posted 3,228 (counting this one) posts. Our readers are almost as prolific, posting nearly 5,500 comments or complaints, so they get to share the singular honor of Person of the Yearhood with fellow digital democrats Jon, Trish and me.
Of course, some will say that Time was just being lazy in picking millions of people when there were so many stand-outs last year: Kim Jong Il, Vladimir “Polonium” Putin, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Newt Gingrich, Nicole Richie — the list just goes on and on. But Time’s editor explains very well why they went with the cyber masses:
”If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people,” said Richard Stengel, who took over as Time’s managing editor earlier this year. “But if you choose millions of people, you don’t have to justify it to anyone.”
Oh wait, some of those folks on my list actually did receive honorable mentions:
The magazine did cite 26 ”People Who Mattered,” from North Korean dictator Kim Jon Il to Pope Benedict XVI to the troika of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Hey, and since George Bush uses The Internets to access The Google, there’s a passing chance that he posted content, too, qualifying for double honors. Unfortunately, Time Managing Editor Stengel couldn’t leave well enough alone:
Stengel said if the magazine had decided to go with an individual, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the likely choice. ”It just felt to me a little off selecting him,” Stengel said.
A … little … off? Come on, Time, don’t cheapen our laurels! We deserve to be right up there with Bill and Melinda Gates, and Bono (last year’s PoYs). Leave Mahmoud out of it, man.
