TIME, a once-popular newsmagazine, has chosen “The Protester” to be its 2011 Person of the Year.
“There was a lot of consensus among our people,” TIME managing editor Rick Stengel said after revealing the pick on NBC’s “Today” show on Wednesday morning. “It felt right.”
“The Protester” beat out runners-up House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, and Osama bin Laden raid commander Adm. William McRaven. For some reason, British duchess Kate Middleton was also considered for Person of the Year.
The magazine does not differentiate between the many protest movements the world has seen this year, declaring that “massive and effective street protest[s]” have become “the defining trope of our times.”
Debating the merits of TIME’s pick has been something of an end of year tradition ever since the magazine picked its first Man of the Year, aviator Charles Lindbergh, in 1927. Since then, everyone from former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani to Adolf Hitler to “You” (yes, you, for advancing the information age or something in 2006) has been selected.
In related news, reporter Matthew Boyle was voted “best dressed” at The Daily Caller’s holiday party Tuesday night.