The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Yawn of the year
: Oh, gawd, it’s that time of year again: time to speculate over the utterly meaningless selection of the Time Man/Woman/Person/Thing/Theme/Whatever of the year. It’s a nonstory!
Perhaps we bloggers should respond with some big award of our own: The Blogosphere’s Fool of the Year? Tyrant of the Year? Nonstory of the Year?
Blog Hoax of the Year
Charles Johnson has been running the Idiotarian of the Year on Little Green Footballs since last year. The prize, the Fiskie, named after Robert Fisk was won by Jimmy Carter last year.
Time, ever unimaginative in these things, will obviously pick Bush, unless they just can’t stand to, in which they’ll pull some trend out of their ass and make a big deal of it (probably product design, that’s a hot newsweekly subject at the moment), as if we all spent the year of the Iraq war thinking about Phillipe Starck’s toilet brushes for Target.
As bloggers tend to focus on ideas or “memes” as we trendily call them, the blogosphere could produce an “Idea of the Year” award for the most impactful idea of 2003.
I bet Time will pick “The GI” or something like that to avoid picking Bush while sounding patriotic. Maybe Tony Blair.
Just as long as it’s not Michael Jackson.
I had a thought the other day that Time would choose a ‘Group of the Year’ and award it to the Anti-war/Bush/America protestors in ‘honor’ of their ‘impact.’
Reuter’s scare quotes are so much fun.
The GI would be a better idea than Bush. But then, The Firefighter would have been better than Rudolph Giuliani two years ago, and they didn’t do that either.
Michael Jackson will be next year.
Perhaps some ersatz pairing seen as cromulent by the media elite; maybe Rachel Corrie and Jessica Lynch? Now that would be worth cancelling a subscription over.
How can you focus on this? I’m still reeling from not being included in People’s Sexiest Men Alive list.
What’s worse is that James Carville was!
I like those categories, but I’ll add my own, Fad of the Year and the obvious winner Flash Mobs
Ken, I’m miffed that People didn’t even contact me. I need a new publicist.
Anyway, I’m too busy working on best album and non-fiction book lists. (Any suggestions are welcome.)