Person of the Year

Yesterday afternoon, my host mom was asking me who I thought would be the Person of the Year. Jokingly, I just told her, "Well, it's me." She got a good laugh out of it, or maybe she thought I was so full of myself. But, hey, I was right. They announced it last night that "You" are the person of the year. "You" are me, you, or whoever hold Time magazine close to their faces and see themselves in the reflective mylar shaped as a computer screen on the cover.

Ah, I think the Time's editors couldn't decide who should be the Person of the Year. So they said, "Oh, well, just get this over with. Put the readers on there and then everyone is pleased. After all, nobody can complain because we give them the honor to be the POY."

A smart idea.

It all steams from the booming development of Youtube, Google, MySpace, and all other social networks existing out there in the world wide web. The users, "you", have the freedom to express themselves, to renounce what they don't like, and to hold on to what they cherish. Fixated on the computer screen, "you" find the freedom that "you" always like to have.

That's what "you" do in the virtual world. But how about the real world? There are wars, there are conflicts, there are struggles between people and people. "You" are tied down with social restraints, financial burdens, interpersonal responsibilities and millions of other things. And now "you" are honored with what "you" do on the Internet, not with what "you" do in real life. Time Magazine calls for "digital democracy", so what's about real-life democracy?

Well, still, congratulations "you" on being the Person of the Year. Take the world by storms, my friends, in both the virtual and real world.

Anyway, "you" are always the Person of the Year.