[cue: Copland's 'Fanfare for the Common Man']
Congratulations, each and every one of you, for being selected as Time's Person of the Year. You must be very proud, I'm sure.
To be fair, some clarification is in order: Judging from the montage of representative images at the top of Time's online article, it seems that this really only includes hip 'n' trendi types with a comfortable, maybe even exciting life, disposable income, and free time. The sort of folks you see drive to Starbucks in their VW Beetle and whip out their Mac. So if you're a poor, working stiff, this accollade may not include you. Moreover, the award actually refers to user-generated content ('UGC'), so if you're not one of the users who generates content, then you are also not included. (Although if you're reading this, it's more likely that you are than not.) Perhaps you generate content, but wonder whether it's substantive or significant. If you're unsure, one way to gain a subjective perspective is to do a vanity search. You may be surprised at what comes up. You may be unpleasantly surprised. You may consider spending a few weekends dumping content with your name attached onto high-volume sites that will carry your name towards the top of Google, and push the less flattering hits farther down. (Tip: Amazon reviews are quick and easy to pound out, and it doesn't matter if they're accurate, intelligent or even relevant.) You may wish that you'd done this a long time ago.
Time concedes that the massive, unconstrained growth of UGC isn't all good: "Web 2.0 harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred." But, "This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person." I don't think I can put it any better than that.
Congratulations, and keep up the good work.
