Time's Man of the Year is.... Moot?

[tkinsley]

Ha ha ha!

Time's 'Most Influential Person' list hacked by 4chan



Time magazine reported on Monday, with a palpable air of embarrassment:

In a stunning result, the winner of the third annual TIME 100 poll, and new owner of the title world's most influential person, is Moot. The 21-year-old college student and founder of the online community 4chan.org, whose real name is Christopher Poole, received 16,794,368 votes and an average influence rating of 90 (out of a possible 100) to handily beat the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin and Oprah Winfrey. To put the magnitude of the upset in perspective, it's worth noting that everyone Moot beat out actually has a job.
Since Moot launched 4chan.org in 2003, the site has given birth to Internet memes as diverse as Lolcats and Rickrolling. 4chan averages 13 million page views a day and 5.6 million visitors a month; by some estimates it is the second largest bulletin board in the world.

Although Time was clearly attempting to put a good face on the matter by pointing to the undeniable influence of moot's invention, it quickly became clear that the magazine's understanding of just how badly they'd been gamed was as out of touch as that capital "M" they attacked to moot's name.