Ahh, those wild kooks at 4chan, always up to no good…My favorite genre of story to report on is typically the “hacktivists against the establishment” type of thing, where a bunch of shadow marauders set out to right the perceived wrongs of the world, but also have fun doing it. Christ, 4chansounds like a new iteration of the Ninja Turtles. This time though, they may have misfired their “justice torpedoes.”
See, 4chan, on the heels of The Onion speciously conferring Kim Jong Un with the title of “Sexiest Man Alive” (and a Chinese newspaper that completely bought it), has decided to up the stakes and sabotage the public voting for Time magazine’s “Person of the Year.” They even call it, get this, “Operation: Kim Jong Un For Time’s Person of the Year.” Bold, right?
My only issue with them doing this is that I feel they are thinking they are subverting the system like they did when they got 4chan co-founder Chris “moot” Poole onto the finalists board for “Person of the Year” in 2009. There is this “Kim Jong Un would be hilarious because he’s this evil dictator and it would be ironic to have him be on the cover of Time as their ‘Person of the Year’” because he’s so ‘not a typical ‘person of the year’” type of vibe going on with their campaign. Except that Time already did this un-ironically back in 1939 when it made seriously evil dictator Adolf Hitler their “Person of the Year.”
See, they don’t just give the distinction to positive people like me or Tay Zonday, they give it to anyone who is the most influential — good or bad. And considering some of the bold diversions Kim Jong Un has made from his late father’s brutal policies over the past year, ironically, 4chan’s pseudo-ironic “operation” might be right on. Keep up the unintentional good work, hacktivists.
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