Hey! I'm Time Magazine's "Person of the Year"!

The annual honor for 2006 went to me, “citizen of the new digital democracy,” as the magazine put it. The recognition this year was for me simply “using or creating content on the World Wide Web.” Well, I'll be damned.

"If you choose an individual, you have to justify how that person affected millions of people," said Richard Stengel, who took over as Time's managing editor earlier this year.

The magazine did cite 26 other "People Who Mattered," from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il to Pope Benedict XVI to the troika of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And Stengel said if the magazine had decided to go with another individual, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the likely choice. "But it just felt to me a little off selecting him," Stengel said.

It was not the first time the magazine went away from naming an actual person for its "Person of the Year." In 1966, the 25-and-under generation was cited; in 1975, American women were named; and in 1982, the computer was chosen.

"I always love it when it's a person - and it is a person, not a computer or something like that," Stengel said. "We just felt Strumpette embodies this phenomenon."

Last year's winners were Bill and Melinda Gates and rock star Bono, who were cited for their charitable work and activism aimed at reducing global poverty and improving world health.

COMMENTARY

Mahmoud was robbed! That said, surely this pandering will help Stengel sell a few magazines. Ya think? Maybe not.