Why Does Time Magazine’s Choice of “You” Bother Me?
My immediate reaction to the announcement yesterday that Time Magazine chose “You” for their “Person of the Year” award was they tossed in the towel and gave up looking.
They typically select someone in a leadership role who has caused a major shift somewhere. I can see how Web 2.0 and the usage of YouTube, MySpace and SecondLife also cause a shift in consciousness on a grand scale. But, is this all “you” want? Is occupying our time with make-believe or alternative versions of ourselves what we really want? Watching spoofs of leaders who crapped on us is fun, but how is paying any more attention to idiots than they deserve helping ourselves in the long run?
Time writes:
“The new Web is a very different thing. It’s a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it’s really a revolution.”
The revolution began with email. In my mind, “revolution” was the instant a person figured out they could communicate anything to anyone in the world via email. This brought on dramatic changes to global humanity because it removed the responsibility of being humane. There is no longer a basic requirement to be considerate of other people when you can be anonymous, or blame your behavior on something like, “This is how we do it where I come from and if you can’t take it, you’re a [fill in degrading term here].”
We are no longer a species of “hunters and gatherers”. We don’t even have to be real. From Time’s piece,
“Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred. But that’s what makes all this interesting. Web 2.0 is a massive social experiment, and like any experiment worth trying, it could fail. “
Could fail? In my mind, it already has. If you are parent and there is a computer or TV in your house, you may understand. My kids have cell phones because children are being kidnapped from their bus stops and while at the shopping Mall. Google has a map to my house for God’s sake. My children get credit card offers, and they are underage kids. My daughter enters contests at Cosmo Girl and suddenly I’m getting a package in the mail. It’s a thong. My sons need to be reminded that if you blow up people in real life, they die. And sadly, they don’t understand what that means because in video games, nobody ever dies. They are either “on” or “off”.
And so are we. We are either online, or off-line. When are we planting seeds in the earth to grow our food? When are we going to stop pretending that our choices aren’t destroying the planet’s resources? My town just installed one windmill, because they got a state funded one to use as a teaching tool to show how wind can generate electricity. One. They erected that one windmill in the town’s favorite park, with no sign explaining why it is there, or how consumers could possibly get one, or how we can come up with a plan to use wind to power our electric needs rather than relying on the electric companies.
Where is the leadership here? Are “you” forgetting how to be leaders? This doesn’t matter anymore?
I find there’s a gap between life on the Internet and real life, creating a disconnect about what’s really important and necessary right now. Things like safety, peaceful living, the economy, healthcare, childcare because parents both need to work, support for working parents who work and care for the kids and have no time for each other anymore (but there’s somehow plenty of time for YouTube and SecondLife?)
As a web geek, I should be glad that Time chose interactive sites as the big thing to celebrate for 2006. I guess there were no true leaders this year. No one thinking about how our grandchildren will pay for today’s government debts. Why worry about tomorrow when you can hide inside a virtual city, have a virtual foot massage and buy virtual furniture?
Time writes,
” It’s a chance for people to look at a computer screen and really, genuinely wonder who’s out there looking back at them.”
Where has Time been all these years? I felt that way in 1996 when I chose “cre8pc” as my domain and identity. I had this idealist belief that I could help promote peaceful co-existence simply by meeting people and making an effort to understand and share with them. I no longer believe I personally did a damned thing other than make friends in countries I will likely never see in real life. Judging from the enormous spam email and spam comments I get, and the even greater number of automated new, have no intention of participating human, members to Cre8asiteforums, I figure the chances of connecting with humans with any soul or integrity is minimal.
And this is what I had so wanted from my Internet experience. I wanted to buiid a new world on this planet, not a fake virtual one. I don’t especially care to race to see what Britney and Paris look like naked or having sex. Who in the heck gives a cows dung about that? Political leaders are IM’ng for sex and preachers are emailing for sex. Where is the greatness of “You” in this scenerio?
Has Time magazine glorified the fact that if we’re horny, we just turn on the old computer to get what we want?
I’m not buying this big happy Time selection about “You” being the choice of the major cool thing for the year. And, I’m not wishing to ignore those using the Internet in positive, constructive ways that benefit huge chunks of people. I’m saying that Time wimped out by focusing on all the ways we have to pretend we’re not here and don’t have to be responsible, think or genuinely care about each other.
It’s not a “You” I care to get to know. It’s not a “You” I care to do business with. In my second life, I so want to do something that matters to the people I love. I don’t want to forget how to live and thrive, here.
Stumble it!
Comments (11) to “Why Does Time Magazine’s Choice of “You” Bother Me?”
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Mary Walilko wrote:
Kim,
Thank you for bringing the focus back to Integrity. It seems to have become forgotten in a world filled with greed and “anything goes.” I find myself moving closer to those near me as I watch the cyberworld explode into “pseudo-reality.”
Mary
Posted on 17-Dec-06 at 5:07 pm | Permalink
Rhea wrote:
So, it really is all about me. I mean, us.
Posted on 17-Dec-06 at 7:57 pm | Permalink
Bill wrote:
Hi Kim,
I’m not bothered with the selection, and I’ll explain why.
I think that we forget sometimes that the people we elect into our government offices are our “representatives” and not our leaders. We are the government, regardless of whether we voice our views online, or in some public forum, or on the phone, through the mail, or by email. Too often, too many of us forget that, and keep silent.
It’s an easy thing to do, but we need to speak up, we need to send letters, and make phone calls, and respond to government requests for public input in person at meetings, and online when we are given the chance.
I’m encouraged that people are blogging about their views, sharing their thoughts with others, interacting on forums. It’s easy to feel powerless, to feel like no one is listening, to not even vote out of disatisfaction.
Sure there’s too much spam online, and too many folks who are inconsiderate. But there are still people learning from each other, finding folks who share common interests even though they are separated by miles or cultures.
The online world isn’t a separate place from the offline world. It’s just a different way of holding a conversation with others - one that we are testing and experimenting with in myriad ways.
I don’t think that Time abrogated their responsibilities by making a choice that might have seemed easy. I think in many ways, it was a hard choice to make.
Posted on 18-Dec-06 at 12:37 am | Permalink
Eric Enge wrote:
Hey Kim - I don’t blame you for questioning the choice by Time Magazine. It seems a bit odd to me too.
No question Web 2.0 is a very unique experiment. But I too would defer to someone who did something for world peace, or someone who invented a novel new technology to deal with the energy crisis. Perhaps we are in short supply of those at the moment.
But I do think not that think that the web social experiment has failed. I agree that it has exposed a lot of the ugliness in the world, and made it more visible - but that’s a good thing because it gives us a chance to deal with it.
It will cause setbacks. We will have to deal with things that are parents did not. But as a culture and a society, direct exposure to these problems will make it easier for us to deal with it, and influence it, in the long run.
Posted on 18-Dec-06 at 6:41 am | Permalink
cre8pc wrote:
“…it gives us a chance to deal with it.”
This is getting closer to the core of what’s eating at me. My beef isn’t with web 2.0 as THE choice. It’s how it’s being applied to living. I don’t have any interest in pretending or hiding in a virtual world because frankly, I’m raising 3 new humans in the physical world and it’s THIS one I care about.
Had Time presented individuals who applied web 2.0 in ways that don’t exploit the medium, I would have felt there was something to celebrate. I see no honor in spreading hatred with a blog, just because “you” can, and posting how to build bombs. I just don’t accept this.
Posted on 18-Dec-06 at 10:33 am | Permalink
Pete Wailes wrote:
I think the big thing to remember is, as long as people get what they want (fast food, SUVs, microwave food etc), they won’t care about what they need (exercise, healthy diet, cheap to run, efficient cars). As a culture, both here in the UK, and in the US, people don’t care about what it costs, as long as it makes them feel better RIGHT NOW.
The long term effect doesn’t register in the public conscious. As such, we’ve now got global warming, the near extinction of 1/3rd of all frogs, and many more amphibians, thousands of species on the endangered list, and so on and so forth. A simple way to cut pollution? Make petrol expensive. So only the rich can drive and it becomes a luxury. Is it fair? No. Would it work? Yes. As long as people can drive their own car to work, they will. People can’t be bothered to group together and share. If a child won’t share, you take the toy away until they do. Why are we any different?
People need to realise that there ARE consequences to their actions, and act like they care. Until we do, the world is in deep poo.
Posted on 18-Dec-06 at 11:12 am | Permalink
Gerry Grant wrote:
I watched the special on TV last night on how Time chose the cover while I was waiting for Survivor to record for a while so I would not have to watch the commercials. I agreed with Time on their choice. The founders of MySpace and YouTube made huge sums of money off of other peoples creative efforts but did not share it with them. The two YouTube guys are even fighting with the third founder over the money.
The Internet has been a great enabler; we can now book our own travel, trade stocks, sell things at auction and even find love online. People have been creating and sharing the web for a long time now, I was creating online videos in back in 1995. If you go back to the pre-commercial Internet days universities used it to share information that they had created. None of this is new, Time is just acknowledging the adoption of the capabilities of the Internet. We finally have reached the Tipping Point where enough people have the ability to create content and share it. The next phase will be the quality content rising to the top when the revenue is shared with the creators. Affiliate programs and PPC programs that share revenue are good examples of this, the web site DataGrant Productions, http://www.datagrant.com is moving in the direction of helping create content and sharing the money that advertisers pay.
Posted on 18-Dec-06 at 5:28 pm | Permalink
David Temple wrote:
You are NOT the person of the year!
Posted on 19-Dec-06 at 12:46 am | Permalink
cre8pc wrote:
Nope. And just as soon as I’m ready to take over the world, I’ll letcha know
Maybe Time will notice that. heh.
Posted on 19-Dec-06 at 9:33 am | Permalink
andy wrote:
I was in the grocery store and looked at the Time cover… that’s a terrible picture of me, I’m going to fire my publicist!
Posted on 20-Dec-06 at 2:06 pm | Permalink
Andrey Milyan wrote:
I think they just didn’t want to put G.W. Bush on the cover AGAIN
Posted on 21-Dec-06 at 11:00 am | Permalink