I am TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year

Well, actually we are all TIME’s Person of the Year.

Person of the Year: YOU

This is probably old news to all of you (except Chrysler) thanks to the very social media that TIME seeks to acknowledge. However, some (most?) of us are not exactly taking this recognition gracefully.

In fact, blog after blog after blog are calling this years Person of the Year a “cop-out” and question everything from the sanity to the sobriety of the TIME editors. Many argue that there are far more important candidates, such as recent United States foils Kim Jong-il, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Democratic leaders that led to the victory in Election 2006 like Nancy Pelosi or Howard Dean, or even the people of Iraq, perhaps the most important news event throughout the year. Some people even want to recognize Al Gore for making a movie that no one saw.

I think the editors of TIME may have actually made a good choice. Is it really a cop-out if everyone complains about it? Isn’t a cop-out the easy choice that people may not love but they like or at least are ambivalent about? Is a choice that people hate really a cop-out?

Look at the candidates mentioned above. We have three anti-American world leaders, who have been leveling threats and insults our way throughout the year. But that’s just it, all they have been doing is threatening, all bark no bite. Other than some failed nuclear missile tests, none of these leaders have really done much.

Do Democratic leaders really deserve a Person of the Year award for winning a mid-term election for the minority party? Will this change actually really change anything or affect the world much?

Has Al Gore really accomplished anything except increase global warming himself with all of his hot air?

The people of Iraq have sure made headlines this year, but again most of them haven’t done anything. It is just a small percentage who are the terrorists who are actually affecting the world. But even they are not affecting the world that much. If the actual people of Iraq ever rise up and say enough with all the violence even if they say enough with our presence as well, then they deserve the Persons of the Year.

Back to the choice that TIME did make.

The social media is changing the world. News is not the same. Relationships are not the same. Communication is not the same. Myspace, YouTube, facebook, Digg, and the countless other social sites are changing the world. This revolution is changing the world. If we could go back in time to 1876, would not Alexander Bell be the recipient of the Person of the Year then? Unlike the telephone, a single person or company is not driving the social media, we are all.

We really do deserve to be the Person of the Year and I congratulate you all. Let’s just hope that our affect on the world has been and will continue to be positive.