Person of the Year 2011: It’s ‘The Protester’
Person of the Year 2011
The leaders of the Occupy movement will be building an organization and recruiting new protesters for the next phase of their operation this winter. The protesters also have captured the attention of the entire country, and shifted the national conversation to economic inequality.
And now they have gotten the attention of Time magazine, who named generic “The Protester” as its Person of the Year 2011.
Many people predicted late Apple CEO Steve Jobs would be the 2011 winner. But Jobs was not a contender, according to the Washington Post. He doesn’t have the best history with the magazine. Back in 1982 Jobs believed he was being profiled for Man of the Year honors, but learned that Time had selected the personal computer as “Machine of the Year.” And Jobs considered the article on him “awful.”
The Protester
Time has acknowledged the protests taking place in Egypt, Tunisia and Russia affected their decision. According to
Syracuse.com, Time credits the rise in protests to technology and social media in spreading their cause’s message.Time said the U.S. Occupy movement was started by a couple of magazine editors, a 69-year-old Canadian, a 29-year-old African American, and a 50-year-old anthropologist.
The magazine did pay tribute, however, to Jobs in its “Fond Farewells” section.
John Lassiter of Pixar Animation Studios said Jobs wanted to leave Pixar, which he had purchased in 1986, to return to Apple because the world would be better with the company in it.
“That was incredibly touching to me, and it showed that Steve cared about people,” said Lassiter. “ He knew that his products and technology could improve people’s lives.”
About the decision of “The Protester,” Time managing editor Rick Stengel commented that the award isn’t a “lifetime achievement award.”
Why Steve Jobs isn’t Time’s Person of the Year 2011
Steve Jobs (1955-2011)
In a run-up to its big reveal, the magazine took a reader poll asking who the general public thought should be the person of the year and — perhaps unsurprising, given the outpouring of grief over his death — Steve Jobs was on the public’s short list.
Jobs, however, was not even a contender for the magazine’s cover.
Time managing editor Rick Stengel told the anchors of the “Today” show Wednesday that the award isn’t a “lifetime achievement award.”
Jobs had a somewhat rocky history with the magazine, as detailed in the authorized biography of the Apple co-founder released shortly after his death. Jobs believed that he was being profiled to be the Man of the Year in 1982, only to find when the magazine published that Time had run a harsh portrait of the then 27-year-old executive and chosen to honor the personal computer as “Machine of the Year” instead.
“They FedExed me the magazine, and I remember opening the package, thoroughly expecting to see my mug on the cover, and it was this computer sculpture thing.” Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson, who used to be a Time magazine journalist. “I thought, ‘Huh?’ And then I read the article, and it was so awful that I actually cried.”
Jobs is not overlooked in the latest issue, however, getting a (very touching) write-up in the magazine’s “Fond Farewells” section, penned by Pixar head John Lasseter.
“I thought of Steve almost as a brother, and he never ceased to amaze me,” Lasseter wrote. “He knew that his products and technology could improve people’s lives.”
The People’s Choice for Person of the Year 2011
Most Popular Person of the Year 2011
|
Rank |
Name |
Total Yes Votes for Person of the Year 2011 |
|
| 1 | Recep Tayyip Erdogan | 122944 | |
| 2 | Lionel Messi | 74415 | |
| 3 | The 99% | 61388 | |
| 4 | Anonymous | 34895 | |
| 5 | Steve Jobs | 30047 | |
| 6 | Arab Youth Protesters | 23262 | |
| 7 | Fukushima 50 | 15627 | |
| 8 | SEAL Team 6 | 12097 | |
| 9 | Ai Weiwei | 12084 | |
| 10 | Gabrielle Giffords | 11544 | |
| 11 | Barack Obama | 11165 | |
| 12 | Warren Buffett | 8854 | |
| 13 | Hillary Clinton | 6221 | |
| 14 | The 1% | 5288 | |
| 15 | Kate Middleton | 5135 | |
| 16 | Elizabeth Warren | 5008 | |
| 17 | Angela Merkel | 4910 | |
| 18 | Casey Anthony | 4268 | |
| 19 | Charlie Sheen | 3893 | |
| 20 | Herman Cain | 2988 | |
| 21 | Admiral Mike Mullen | 2446 | |
| 22 | Kim Kardashian | 1903 | |
| 23 | Silvio Berlusconi | 1786 | |
| 24 | Nicolas Sarkozy | 1643 | |
| 25 | Dominique Strauss-Kahn | 1155 | |
| 26 | Mitt Romney | 1064 | |
| 27 | Paul Ryan | 918 | |
| 28 | Michele Bachmann | 872 | |
| 29 | Eric Cantor | 839 | |
| 30 | Rupert Murdoch | 684 | |
| 31 | Reed Hastings | 442 | |
| TOTAL | 469785 | ||
Least Popular Person of the Year 2011
|
Rank |
Name |
Total No Votes for Person of the Year 2011 |
|
| 1 | Recep Tayyip Erdogan | 180578 | |
| 2 | The 1% | 34493 | |
| 3 | Casey Anthony | 28368 | |
| 4 | Kim Kardashian | 24432 | |
| 5 | Michele Bachmann | 22478 | |
| 6 | The 99% | 20023 | |
| 7 | Herman Cain | 17515 | |
| 8 | Silvio Berlusconi | 16845 | |
| 9 | Anonymous | 15890 | |
| 10 | Barack Obama | 15462 | |
| 11 | Kate Middleton | 15053 | |
| 12 | Steve Jobs | 14739 | |
| 13 | Eric Cantor | 14418 | |
| 14 | Hillary Clinton | 13978 | |
| 15 | Lionel Messi | 13348 | |
| 16 | Rupert Murdoch | 12671 | |
| 17 | Mitt Romney | 12399 | |
| 18 | Charlie Sheen | 12209 | |
| 19 | Nicolas Sarkozy | 11409 | |
| 20 | Angela Merkel | 11309 | |
| 21 | Paul Ryan | 10437 | |
| 22 | Reed Hastings | 10391 | |
| 23 | Dominique Strauss-Kahn | 9621 | |
| 24 | Warren Buffett | 9238 | |
| 25 | Gabrielle Giffords | 8309 | |
| 26 | Arab Youth Protesters | 8120 | |
| 27 | Admiral Mike Mullen | 7895 | |
| 28 | SEAL Team 6 | 7586 | |
| 29 | Fukushima 50 | 7302 | |
| 30 | Ai Weiwei | 6912 | |
| 31 | Elizabeth Warren | 5633 | |
| TOTAL | 599061 | ||
