[Opinion] Time: The Star Is You

The Person of the Year award named by Time magazine has a long tradition just like the prestigious magazine’s history does. The first Person of the Year chosen by Time was Charles Lindbergh, the world’s first pilot who crossed the Atlantic Ocean in 1927. Not only great men such as mahatma Gandhi (1930), Winston Churchill (1940), Martin Luther King (1977) and Bill Gates (2005), but also dictators like Adolf Hitler (1938) were chosen. Joseph Stalin was listed twice in 1939 and 1942. In 1982, Person of the Year was not a person but a computer; this year, it was “You,” which is quite interesting.

The biggest reason why Time selected “You” as Person of the Year is the advent of new digital frame such as You Tube and MySpace. Lev Grossman, a critic at Time magazine announced that “You” is true Person of the Year because it got over the global media’s control and got new digital democracy into shape. In addition, it provided a playground for fun to people without any charge.

YouTube, which has about 100 million page views a day, has enjoyed explosive popularity since its advent in February 2005, and changed the American landscape forever. Some people even said that YouTube was the decisive factor in the outcome of the U.S. mid-term election on November 7. Countless bloggers filmed candidates’ mistakes, obnoxious scenes and their words and deeds of hypocrisy and contradiction and posted them on YouTube. The candidates had to wage a tough war with the one-person media, not with their competitions or mass media.

Flickr and Wikipedia are also examples of the Internet revolution created by ordinary people. In Korea, VANK (Voluntary Agency Network of Korea), which corrects wrong information about Korea online, and BRICS, a site for young scientists that changed the flow of public opinion on the Hwang Woo-seok incident, were worthy activities. After all, “You” is the opposite concept of a monopoly in power and information. New makeovers and activities of “You” that transform the world through the Internet are highly expected.

Editorial Writer Chung Seong-hui, shchung@donga.com