For the last 85 years a publication called Time has been running a 'Man of the Year' (recently changed to 'Person') award. Past winners include Gandhi, Middle America, George W Bush and many others. Time is running a feature where users can vote for who they want to be Person of the Year, and then the magazine editors will decide accordingly. Do you know who is one of the top favourites this year?
Kim Jong Un. Yes you read that correctly, The short, plump, floppy-haired dictator of one of the most impoverished and secretive police states in the world is up for nomination as Person of the Year. Do you know who else joins him in the top 4? Egyptian President-turned-dictator Mohammed Morsi and Syrian president Bashar Al Assad.
This raises a couple of interesting questions. Firstly, if Kim Jong Un actually wins the popular vote (and at this rate he probably will), will Time just go ahead and pick their own winner anyway? They probably will as many of the votes for KJU are coming from the underbelly of the internet - 4Chan. A similar thing happened with a Justin Bieber 'where should I tour' page which ended up voting to send him to North Korea.
Regardless of the comic hilarity of a short fat dictator being named Person of the Year or the disturbing idea of someone like Mario Draghi / Jay Z winning it, how do you think 'greatness' should be decided? Should it be merely whoever (or whatever) had the greatest impact on world regardless of morality / ethicality? Please reply in the comments below while I go and vote for Psy, simply for having over 11% of the worlds population (give or take) dancing along to his hideously catchy K-Pop.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2128881_2129…
What, no Mark Pincus?!
Bo Xilai, for the greatest soap opera in modern history.
Mario Draghi/Jay-Z: never has the forward slash been used so appropriately.
where Kim Jong Un is mentioned, cake is not far behind.
It says that the editors will ultimately choose...
troll level: medium at best.
To be fair, if the actual result was determined by online voting alone, then I'm sure the trolls would take over and ensure a Kim Jong-un victory.
Agreed 100%, if it was decided strictly via voting I would love to read the article Time would be forced to write about him.
My vote is for Malala Yousafzai. That girl showed real courage blogging about her desire to go to school and standing up to the Taliban.
If she recovers, she deserves to go to the very best university. She's clearly fought for it.
IlliniProgrammer Propaganda Alert
I hope she chooses to become an engineer, and if she chooses to study in the US, I think UT Austin and Berkeley would need to admit her. She should not have to settle for some backwater ivy.
First he was named "Sexiest Man Alive For 2012" and now a potential winner for Person of the Year? Seems Kim Jong Un is having quite a week. I wonder if the the People's Daily will pick this up and run a 100-page photo spread. Only one can hope.
TIME has no problems electing deeply unpopular people as person of the year. Hi there, Stalin.
If Middle America is considered a person, then so too should Lumina Investments
TIME had Hitler as Man of the Year in 1938, Stalin twice, Khomeini in 1979...
To be fair, the changes that man has started since he was named leader of the country are amazing. You can book a vacation trip to North Korea nowadays, they show Disney chaaracters at their festivals, they admit failure when rockets don't work, etc.
Okay, so, after looking through the Man/Person of the Year history of winners, I have an idea: If you win Time's "Person of the Year", you're immediately shot in the head.
I imagine that 90% of people voting for Kim Jong-un (including me) are doing so only because it'd be funny for him to actually be person of the year. I may be wrong, but I don't recall him doing anything meaningful over the past year. Didn't he just maintain most of his father's ideologies? I think Malala is most deserving.
The guy who wrote My Sharona
Certainly Malala or the Mars Curiosity Rover.... Have you seen the twitter feeds??!!
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