The 7 Most Overrated Time Magazine Persons of the Year

It's that time again, when we start to ponder that age-old question: who will be Time magazine's Person of the Year? Since 1923, the cover of Time has been a sign of people who matter in the world. The Person of the Year, started four years later, goes to someone who really matters. Allegedly. Most of the time, it's been given to giants -- Gandhi to Gorby, Lindbergh to Zuckerberg. This year, nobody really stands out yet. The Middle Eastern freedom fighters, perhaps? (It went to the Hungarian freedom fighters in 1956.) Will they give it to Obama again, now that bin Laden's dead and Obama's daughters are doing their homework? Or, with all these natural disasters, will they do something cute like give it to Angry Earth (just like they gave it to Endangered Earth in 1988)? If they get it wrong, it won't be the first time.

Here are some of the previous winners who really didn't deserve that lofty title. Feel free to comment. In fact, feel free to come up with your own ideas on the new Overrated blog. Any violent arguments graciously received...

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Comments

[BlackBuddha]

08:17 PM on 11/28/2011

Generalissimo & Mme Chiang Kai-Shek.

...luckily, if there is a question on who to name from China...
they all sound the same... like China's Teng Hsiao-P'ing in 1978 and then in 1985 when it went to Deng Xiaoping.

[JustinBiever]

07:42 PM on 11/24/2011

rudy guiliani is the biggest anti hero in the history of the world. its nice to have seen him in the same list as stalin, westmoreland and bush

[Richard Nicholas Morris]

08:52 AM on 11/24/2011

Mohammad Al Bouazizi should be made Time 'Person of the Year' . Here's why
http://bit.ly/sTozek

[BobLaughlin]

01:57 AM on 11/24/2011

"Most of the time, it's been given to 'giants' -- Gandhi to Gorby, Lindbergh to Zuckerberg."

Is that going to be a SAT question: Which of the above is the least likely answer? D.? Or C.& D.?

And, as ever, the Winklevoss twins are sadly slighted.

[dourdinlives]

01:36 AM on 11/23/2011

how does one become a racist. does it happen suddenly, the heart shrinking...the mind hardening...or does it grow slowly..creeping, slithering until its burnt and crispy...like a roast over done? why and when does one decide that some people should be loved..and others despised, attacked and kept on the run?

[SuzDuJour]

09:50 PM on 11/28/2011

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

[dourdinlives]

01:55 AM on 11/29/2011

might i offer this solution.perhaps wearing a t shirt with your baby picture emblazoned across the front 2 or 3 times a week, with "this was me at 3", written across the top. or maybe i m wrong. maybe haters hate everyone including babys without any consideration.when you grow up in america as a little black boy or girl, it does not take long before you realize, even your kindergarten teacher hates you. if the ask you what you want to be when you grow up, and you answered with anything that was not low and menial, they would correct you on the spot, and tell you NO! perhaps you should be something low and menial instead. i remembered that all my life,

[CenaW]

12:01 AM on 11/23/2011

If time is honest they would put the K0ch Brothers on the cover.

[Dan-Snyder]

05:55 PM on 11/22/2011

Stalin???

[michelesda]

01:34 PM on 11/22/2011

I've always thought the Times person of the year picks were strange. I wonder who dared venture into the bubble to find out who the person of the year was from a guy who had never heard of the Beatles in 1965!

[jhNY]

11:57 AM on 11/22/2011

Are they still printing that thing?

[healthanalyst]

02:02 AM on 11/23/2011

Quality of journalism has really gone down. once in a while there's a great issue, but lots of almost yuppie crap. no real sense of what happened in either the us or the world. its not just time infortunately.

[jhNY]

11:59 AM on 11/23/2011

I agree with your first sentence entirely. But to me, "Time" was always a middle-brow shaper of middle-brow opinion, and never the place where you might expect to find the best writing by the best writers-- all the way back to the Luces.

[Guardian Weasel]

11:16 AM on 11/22/2011

OWS is easily the biggest Stateside story of the year, but tying the movement to a single figure will be tricky.

The Arab Spring has enormous global consequences, yes, but somehow I have difficulty imagining Mubarak or Gadhafi on the cover of Time next month.

It will probably be something vague like "The Egyptian people" or "The 99%".

[empress trudy]

08:43 AM on 11/22/2011

this year it will be either the Arab Spring or Occupy Wall St. Unless you can find some obscure 3rd world woman who runs a small micro credit bank.

[Tyler28VA]

08:25 AM on 11/22/2011

Grover Norquist is undoubtedly 2011's person of the year. That guy has more influence over Republicans than God.

[elgeezr]

10:51 AM on 11/22/2011

Sorry to be so dumb, but I have no idea who Norquist is. I'll look him up.

[Chazzam]

04:09 PM on 11/22/2011

He's the one with the keys to the country.

[Guscat]

06:27 AM on 11/22/2011

"All of 'em, any of 'em."

[mflorian]

01:58 AM on 11/22/2011

2001 was really when it became a joke. Time decided that keeping fuming readers was more important than their integrity.

[McGuffin18]

12:26 AM on 11/22/2011

Time's person of the year should go to someone who reverses the dumbing down of media and reverses the convergence of ownership.

Whaddaya think of that Time Magazine?

[jhNY]

12:01 PM on 11/22/2011

I think the last guy who would mostly qualify is named Ted Turner, but he's out of the game-- though Ari anna might have easily qualified before the sale...

[CenaW]

12:02 AM on 11/23/2011

Very funny, Time has been dumbed down as well....

No one is going to do anything about the lies via the so called news.
All propaganda, all the time.