She
was exaggerating — but only a little. Woolf saw a fundamental shift in
human relations taking place at the beginning of the 20th century
"between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and
children." Those changes, she predicted, would bring about
transformations in every sphere of life, from religion to politics to
human behavior. Few would say she got it wrong.
A century later, we are living through another transition. The
way we connect with one another and with the institutions in our lives
is evolving. There is an erosion of trust in authority, a decentralizing
of power and at the same time, perhaps, a greater faith in one another.
Our sense of identity is more variable, while our sense of privacy is
expanding. What was once considered intimate is now shared among
millions with a keystroke.
More than anyone else on the world stage, Facebook's Mark
Zuckerberg is at the center of these changes. Born in 1984, the same
year the Macintosh computer was launched, he is both a product of his
generation and an architect of it. The social-networking platform he
invented is closing in on 600 million users. In a single day, about a
billion new pieces of content are posted on Facebook. It is the
connective tissue for nearly a tenth of the planet. Facebook is now the
third largest country on earth and surely has more information about its
citizens than any government does. Zuckerberg, a Harvard dropout, is
its T-shirt-wearing head of state. (See portraits of TIME's 2009 Person of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg.)
Evolutionary
biologists suggest there is a correlation between the size of the
cerebral neocortex and the number of social relationships a primate
species can have. Humans have the largest neocortex and the widest
social circle — about 150, according to the scientist Robin Dunbar.
Dunbar's number — 150 — also happens to mirror the average number of
friends people have on Facebook. Because of airplanes and telephones and
now social media, human beings touch the lives of vastly more people
than did our ancestors, who might have encountered only 150 people in
their lifetime. Now the possibility of connection is accelerating at an
extraordinary pace. As the great biologist E.O. Wilson says, "We're in
uncharted territory."
All social media involve a mixture of narcissism and voyeurism.
Most of us display a combination of the two, which is why social media
are flourishing faster and penetrating deeper than any other social
development in memory. Social media play into the parts of human
character that don't change, even while changing the nature of what once
seemed immutable. (See pictures of Facebook's overseas offices.)
Like
two of our runners-up this year, Julian Assange and the Tea Party, Mark
Zuckerberg doesn't have a whole lot of veneration for traditional
authority. In a sense, Zuckerberg and Assange are two sides of the same
coin. Both express a desire for openness and transparency. While Assange
attacks big institutions and governments through involuntary
transparency with the goal of disempowering them, Zuckerberg enables
individuals to voluntarily share information with the idea of empowering
them. Assange sees the world as filled with real and imagined enemies;
Zuckerberg sees the world as filled with potential friends. Both have a
certain disdain for privacy: in Assange's case because he feels it
allows malevolence to flourish; in Zuckerberg's case because he sees it
as a cultural anachronism, an impediment to a more efficient and open
connection between people.
At 26, Zuckerberg is a year older than our first Person of the
Year, Charles Lindbergh — another young man who used technology to
bridge continents. He is the same age as Queen Elizabeth when she was
Person of the Year, for 1952. But unlike the Queen, he did not inherit
an empire; he created one. (The Queen, by the way, launched a Facebook
page this year.) Person of the Year is not and never has been an honor.
It is a recognition of the power of individuals to shape our world. For
connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social
relations among them (something that has never been done before); for
creating a new system of exchanging information that has become both
indispensable and sometimes a little scary; and finally, for changing
how we all live our lives in ways that are innovative and even
optimistic, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year
This country needs a massive smack in the face in order to come back into reality. Sad days indeed.
I'm starting to agree with the end of the world crowd that this world is $%^&ed up beyond saving.
I had to read the article to find out who Mark Zuckerberg was...
+10
He didn't invent the social network, just has the most popular one.
This company will have its hands tied as it tries to steal data to sell off and make money on people.
I thought he stole it from Justin Timberlake
Talk to any computer repair person. 90% of all viruses today come from Facebook. Stay away from that POS.
me too. god awful this event is.
i don't have any friends. my daughter hated me when i told her i wouldn't continue using her facebook page to view her photographs of various countries she travels to. she honestly told me if i didn't sign up on facebook and be her friend, i couldn't see her photos.
this is embarrassing AMERICA, just fcking embarrassing as a nation of supposed higher educated people, and sophistication.
get me out of this country, please someone H E L P.
This featherbrained award is especially unnerving when you consider that our very own, TMOSELY, was passed over for the award.
Nuckin' Futs!
TMOSELY told everyone a few weeks ago that his IQ was 165 (beyond genius), and that he had developed the cure for both cancer and HIV with selenium compounds that are similar to plaque remover for teeth. Not only is he brilliant, but amazingly charitable to boot - he revealed to us the secret molecular compound that was pivotal to his work. Just a little peak, because anymore information would have compromised his research. He's brilliant, charitable and such a flirty tease, too! Amazing!
Apparently, the only thing standing in the way of his "very important work" was all the red tape the FDA attached to his findings. In fact, he mentioned that if his work wasn't "so important to society" he would have emigrated out of America. His work is too important for the world, so he compromised his own personal wishes; the Earth needs him too much.
Here's a true American patriot, suffering through the hardships of our tyrannical, bureaucratic government so that he can provide Earth with both the cure for cancer and HIV.
Now, THERE'S someone who deserves the Person of the Year Award!
Zuckerberg has nothing on TMOSELY.
how's the sixth grade going?
LOL - outside the Matrix even.
As did I. I signed up for Facebook long ago because a friend would only post pictures to her page. The next day, I had thirty "friend" requests in my inbox. Some from people I'd never heard of, some from people I'd hoped never to hear from again. That was the end of my Facebook experiment.
If Facebook and its ilk are the social connections holding society together, we deserve what we get.
"Some from people I'd never heard of, some from people I'd hoped never to hear from again." - brilliant
you shouldn't of put your boobs as your profile pic
lol, welcome aboard
ive been long wishing someone would prove me wrong.
but with the passing of time, all i find is to be proven right time and time again..
I hear you on that Kyron.
Hoy Vay, Zuckerberg has one hell of a schtick. Page, Brin, Iger, Karmazin, Schemel,Balmer, Whitman, Zuckerman, Bloomberg, Sulzberger,Levin,Goldberg, Roth,Redstone,Bornstein, Katzenberg and countless other media mogels all have similar schticks.
no synagogue parking!
From this excellent site,
http://eriatarka.tumblr.com/
we have this picture speaking 1 trillion words:
http://zero1infinity.tumblr.com/post/2300713684/justice
its all very fitting...
one of the last nails n the American sociological coffin...fuck this place
Time couldn't name Assange because it is expected Wikileaks has all kinds of documents regarding diplomatic and business dealings with the Afghan leadership that includes "Dancing Boys".
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/dancingboys/
When Assange releases related memos et al on diplomatic/business expenses to curry favor with the Afghan leadership, the gig will be up.
Look what happened to the Brits when they tried to pass off that Pakistani shop keeper as a Taliban leader?
Time is simply hitting a mulligan and looking for better times.
Exactly. In order to maintain their mega-media paradigm of dumbing down the populace, they picked a guy who developed social networking.
Go figure.
Virtual friends, virtual lives . . . and full time obessive preoccupation with it all.
Such progress.
At least it makes profiling and tracking the population straightforward . . . and voluntary.
Hey, I just said something brilliant--better get this shit on my facebook page and tweet it out to all my virtual friends! They'll love this as much as the pics of my cat in the shower.
All hail Mark Zuckerman! He's made everybody a Star.
Virtual ideas, real beliefs though...
Ancestors back to Neanderthalian times. Because, before TV and radio, people spent quite a lot of time on streets, for any reason. And encountering only 150 people in a village populated by 1000, or serving on a ship manned by 200 sailors, 300 soldiers, 10 officers, new definition of encountering...
People encountering only 150 people in their lifetime, long, long time ago...
Quite a stretch, alright, maybe accurate in the Stone Age. Guess that's poetic license. Or marketing.
virtual democracy
Virtual reality. Thanks a bunch, Mark! The scarier the real world gets, the less we have to deal with it.
come on, knowing when the guy you went to grade school with is taking a leak is more important than getting pissed off here
ZH does need more cat pics.. what happen, is Blythe cornering that market too???
give em a break. they need the ratings. if they gave it to wikiposter the Air Force would not be able to read it...
Could Time have made a lamer choice? No! What an uttely ignorant populace Time is appealing to now-adays....
The avg age of Time subscribers must be what, 85 years old? These people have no idea what Facebook is but they're pretty sure it's amazing. I think Oprah talked about it once.
You mean 25, not 85. That's about the age I grew out of reading Time. So, yeah, to that age Group this is a good choice.
Does anybody even read it anymore? It's irrelevance ranks up there with Forbes.
There was always Hugo Chavez to consider...
awesome... congrats on sharing an honor received by adolf hitler in 1938 and B. Obama in 2008... Time magazine has been a rag of a shill of a POS for a long "time".
Then, according to Time, Suckerberg will be the next dictator.
lol... He kind of already is. He is head of the most popular/powerful form of information sharing on the planet.... during the information age.
don't forget stalin in 1939 and 1942. hardly a ringing endorsement...
Since someone threw out Obama as on par with Stalin and Hitler don't forget our other "temporary" dictator Bush in 2004! Yeah it should be called Douchebag of the year!
Also John Foster Dulles a Nazi Lawyer.
Nixon, Kissinger, Johnson, Ayatollah Khomenhi, George HW Bush, Clinton, Rudy Giulliani, Putin and Bernanke.
Yeah, quite often they are dead on, for Asshole of the Year: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year
Not to detract from all the fine detraction going on here, but the criteria for being named "Time Person of the Year" has nothing to do with the accomplishments (or lack thereof, in this case) of the person named, but rather how much they were mentioned in the public press.
Basically, whoever has the highest hit counter at the end of the year gets the prize. Except in this case they made an exception because the editor didn't want to get replaced by some DC flunkie if they went with Assange.
Has Zuckerberg even gotten laid yet? I think that should be at least one requisite to being named. How much you want to bet he reads everyone's Facebook mail in his spare time?
I am Chumbawamba.
+2010
My history memory is a bit rusty. Was it Richard Helms family (former CIA director whose granddaddy was a director at the Bank for International Settlements, B.I.S.) that once owned Time, or was it Newsweek, they owned?
Not that it really matters, as they both appear to be financed by the Pentagon.
Legends and leaders, bitchez!
Ha!
Odd names. I'm in the Legends. How about you?
I'm in the SEC East, and LOVE the fact that I now have "Legends and Leaders" to hold over the heads of my Big 10 friends.
Life magazine is for people who can't read. Time is for people who can't think
Very apropos!
every time I see Time on a news stand this comment will come to mind.
Combine the two and you create Facebook.
still holding my sides from laughing so hard
So true! And funny.
Well said, lol.
U nld it!
I think I'll delete my facebook account today.
"All social media involve a mixture of narcissism and voyeurism."
Bullshit.
I deleted my Facebook page three years ago. No kidding, it took about a month to make sure all contents were deleted.
I never signed up. Never been on Twitter either.
Twitter is ok only because I get info from the likes of ZH, Ron Paul, Jim Rickards, and of course Conan. I don't do much tweeting myself.
Good luck with that - it's near impossible.
Thinking folk should never use the site in the first place.
What an ugly MF'er. All that in breeding sure didn't help!
He should really be in radio!
The dude is clearly stoned....
Thanks for taking the words right out of my mouth.
+1
I wasn't going to say it but since you did +1.
td, i'll be back when that pic isn't at the top. the "face" of facebook is one ugly mofo. lulz
I wonder if he'd be charged with SEX WITHOUT A CONDOM in Sweden?
The lie has to be believable in order to work.
It is obvious he is gay.
Only in his fantasies.
I am Chumbawamba.
Ever see the movie "Mask"? That's what popped into my head when I saw the picture above.
Now that I think about it, this is the first time I've ever seen a close up of Zuckerberg. Seriously, every other picture I can think of has always been a full body shot from about 20 feet away...he's the Marla Hooch of the media...what a hitter!
No need to attack his appearance. Let's stick to the issues.
Oh, I don't know. What was the original purpose of Facebook again? A Harvard "Hot or Not" application, I believe...
Another good reason to not buy Time for another year....
Did anyone expect a different outcome from the Borg?
That article seemed to be telling me two things:
i) I am a narcissist
ii) In the future, I won't have to worry about privacy because there won't be any
I guess I'm supposed to just agree with that...
Connecting Facebook with an evolutionary leap forward is a reach.
Time staffers like rich people who give away stuff.
I liked your other "mind" better.
edit...thank you.
Does anyone actually believe that Zuckerberg created Facebook without a little help from a few 3 letter organizations? I look forward to the day when Time files for bankruptcy.
Why investigate and keep records on people when they will volunteer it instead?
That's exactly right.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B37wW9CGWyY
Bingo!
They are desperately trying to find another candidate to compete with Assange.
I think they could have chosen Michael Jackson if they are so desperate.
Michael Vick.
Our sense of identity is more variable, while our sense of privacy is expanding.
WTF is that?
Did someone biggie size the writer's skittles and kool-ade happy meal?
+100 . That was the line that stuck out most nonsensically to me.
very borg indeed
person = genderless legal entity.
yea... the Tea Party was the other runner up... that selection would have been the most telling of the decline of our society. Not because of the Tea Party's ideas... but because it is not human.
What the hell is TIME magazine? - a magazine for people who are into watches or something? Who still wears a watch?
But seriously folks - that's like a buggy whip manufacturer endorsing Ford Motor Co. in like 1904.
And, is there really a personage of greater power/significance on the planet right now than Ben Bernanke?
I am amazed though that Facebook seems to have created an AOL-like environment right when AOL was disappearing into obscurity.
P.S. When did Marla get demoted to 'contributor'? Is she zipping around the physical and virtual world like The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo, hot on the trail of the next big Wiki-event?
I wear a watch. What the hell is wrong with watches? Ah, I should reach into my pocket search for my phone and look at that instead? Too much work...
how else are you updating your facebook?? on your watch??!?!??!
Update? Why? Too much work for me, I'm an old fogey...I have other quests to conquer.
Good catch, did not notice that. Wasn't she originally listed as 'Foil'?
Yes, was that asterisk next to Tyler's name before? Perhaps Marla entered into an agreement TD didn't agree with? Or maybe her letter to Cryptome set it off? Curioser and curioser.
This idea was posted but never followed through.
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/introducing-zero-hedge-ombudswoman
There were two other ideas that were posted, but never followed through:
1. ZeroHedge premium content
2. ZeroHedge site redesign including, but not just limited to, moving away from Drupal.
If I am not mistaken all of those ideas were posited by Marla, but never implemented. And then, based on my observations, she gradually faded away. It is my opinion that a massive organizational restructuring has taken place within the power corridors of ZH. I wouldn't be surprised, if, one day, Marla's name and the names of a few other original team members of ZH disappear from the site entirely. Lately, I have noticed a few things with ZH that seemed, for the lack of a better word, odd, and I have been here a long time.
plus 1.
I miss Marla very much.
she's DJing in a virtual Tel Avi in Second Life
It could be that she decided to step down as a partner of the site and has moved on in life? Don't read too deeply into everything.
Bernanke was person of the year in 2009. GW Bush was same in 2000 _and_ 2004. Obama (all together now, "Chaaange"... NOT) was same in 2008.
That should tell you all you need to know about the sort of thought process that goes into selecting the recipients of that "honor."
Just ignore Time magazine. Whining about their pronouncements only elevates their status.
Oh man... The way they carry on about how facebook is 'reshaping our lives' etc. Unfuckinbbelievable. It's easier to keep in touch with friends. Has facebook made the world a better place? Are we all that much better off for it?
Is this really the most awesome person they could find for the year?
What next, Kim Kardashian for 2011?
It is just another attempt to goad more and more of the populace into getting online and sharing intimate details of their personal/professional life. The government loves having access to such detailed information... so do sophisticated criminals. (same difference? lol)
That's not fair to Kim K. She "enriched" my life far more then Zuckerberg with her body paint photo shoot. Zuckerberg is a tool at best. If they had chosen Facebook itself that would have been better, Zuckerberg hasn't done anything in years, just sat back and watched Fbook grow. He didn't do shit in 2010.
As a real computer programmer and amatuer artist, this is what galls me. Like every dink who runs a message board, this joker is taking credit for content produced by others. Whoever said thinking people wouldn'tve have used Facebook in the first place hit the nail pretty squarely on the head.
So in order for me to become a "Time Person of the Year", I would have to commit outright theft of intellictual property and profit greatly from it? On top of that, I can gather every detail about people and sell it off to the highest bidder? Great times we are living in indeed.
Anyone that thought that Assange would take top honors on an American media icon, were seriously kidding themselves. I was parsuing Google news and tried to find where Reporters Without Boarders, condemns western politicians for calling for Assange's assassination. Couldn't find much in American media on that. But found plenty in American media from August when RWB's lashed out at Wikileaks for the Afghan leaks. That alone shows that our free press is only free to print what the government wants.
"So in order for me to become a "Time Person of the Year", I would have to commit outright theft of intellictual property and profit greatly from it? On top of that, I can gather every detail about people and sell it off to the highest bidder?"
You'll also need to materially aid in the dumbing down of the US public through constant socializing rather than learning and have a popular movie made about you.
Zing!!!
I'm not a big fan of FB but realize it's a huge success. Does he deserve to be the 2010 person of the year? Of course not, but who takes TIME magazine seriously? They are pandering to the masses and only thinking about what sells. Pathetic.
I had to think for a minute to remember who the F zuckerbug was. Clearly not important enough to remember for an early round of Jeopardy for teens... but there you have it, Times person of the year!
That's a minute I will never get back.
Time (pun intended) for me to send wikileaks another contribution.
I'm with you on that. I thought at first he was an english soccer player.
*delete double post*
*delete triple post*
Kind of takes the fun out of trying to find a cure for cancer, or a new source of renewable energy.
Yeah, well you can get a Nobel for that...oh wait...
This is just so unfair to Tashiro who didn't get to be person of the year in 2001.
Fuck Time.
In my best Mick Jagger:
Tiiii iiiii iiii iiiime ain't on our side, not they ain't..
The high-water mark for Facebook; on par, in terms of timeliness and sheer contrariety, as the August, '79 BusinessWeek cover, "The Death of Equities." I would disagree with the premise that this is but one more indication of the sociological decay of America; what it is, I believe, is yet another indicator of the irrelvance of the mainstream [ in this case, print ] media. Lest we forget that Newsweek just recently sold -- for $1.
That said, the irony of it is: the majority of regular Facebook users are the age of Zuckerberg's parents, not the age of its founder.
Who reads Time magazine unless you're going in for surgery or at a dentist's office?
Is that like a numbing procedure or something so that you have to use fewer pain meds on the patient? At least Novocaine wears off. The dumbification that is Time says with you.
Thank you. I was writing something along the same lines, then I saw your post. I really don't see why some people are getting upset at Time magazine? I stopped reading it a decade ago because of their biases and subjectivity. Its total sum value; birdcage liner.
"empowering"? No, more like enslaving, but you keep inoculating the masses against the villainy.
Dentists' offices are where irrelevant publications go to die.
Last time I read Time was in a dentist's office a year ago, thought it was poorly written and unsubstantial, tossed it aside for the National Geo. Mag.
When a virtual thingy like Facebook is the second strongest company in your country, you know you are screwed for good.
Freaking hate that punk's "I am God like" attitude, paying himself for a movie looking for auto glorification.
This is Bad, most be a time of some kind of sentiment peak that wil be reversed on a few years when real and serious stuff start to matter again.
Time is just as courageous as Amazon, Paypal, Mastercard, Visa, etc.
Mark who?
sanhedrin gives away prices only to its chosen poeple...
To hell with Time magazine. They have sucked for years. Just like that POS occupying the Oval Office.
Of all that is made of the Patriot act and loss of rites, and here we have a voletary loss of privicy and rites in Facebook.
Total fad. They might as well have named the iPad person of the year.
Honestly, I'm shocked they didn't. Did they do Jobs yet?
MySpace is already passe...as went the CompuServe and AOL "chat rooms" before it -- which are the forebears of the current on-line "narcissism," and were, essentially, the original "social media" sites ( only without "profile pictures" and other personal links -- even Yahoo! message boards have that function now ).
+1
I was bettin' on Made Off.
What a disappointment.
All Zios' cursed him.
Bernie has limited shelf life, he will not make it by end of next year. Idiots from Time!!!
American Dream kaput
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q&feature=related
One more Jew? Well, the Yanks see no difference between da Jooz and themselves because they are so Yahezus lovi'n. Xtianity being a very Jewish religion.
But who isn't Jewish in the computer/Internet business in the US?
So why Time asks ppl to vote? Vote for what?
for page hits
Times by their own standards should consider themselves a piece belonging to the past.
A newspaper establishing itself as the authority reference to award the title of person of the year...
Oh wait, Times is american. Standards are to be applied on the others and certainly should not be used on oneself...
Last Time magazine I saw was about 10 pages thick. A pimple face kid on the cover. Great idea, glad I don't subscribe.
he is not an attractive person, but that picture makes him look even worse than normal.
And yet they photoshopped his eyes but not the pimples.
This is more of a testament to what Time is all about, than what Facebook is all about.
Western society grows more trivial every day.
We made the Holiday party tour this past week, and it never ceases to amaze me how many people do not know, do not care, cannot comprehend, or are afraid to know what it really going on. They sure as hell are tired of hearing it from me.
Sometimes I feel like Noah. The only good that I can do is to continue building my ark. Hmmm.....what shall I charge per seat?
Others' desire to stay in the dark is mind boggling. I've been preaching to my father since I first started following this site. Granted, it hasn't been that long since my eyes were opened, but no one came and offered me the truth. I had to search for it on my own.
It's been 2 years since the bailouts, which was the event that triggered my search for the truth. I've been talking to my father DAILY since I found this site, and he is just now getting curious to learn the things I've been telling him.
Unplugging myself from the matrix was easy because I desired the truth. Unplugging and saving others I care about feels like a losing battle every time I wage it.
I take the red pill every day while far too many others just take the blue (Viagra).
Perhaps I should just switch to the blue pill. A lot more fun. Ignorance is bliss. ;-)
Whats the red pill? Seconal? Where do you even get those these days, nigg?
<<...what shall I charge per seat?>>
Fifty American Buffaloes a head. "Sorry, no credit cards or checks accepted."
Great idea! I'll use them as ballast to steady the ship until the waters subside.
$2.50?
;-)