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You’re the ‘Time’ Person of the Year, and Joel Stein Has Penis Envy

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Oh, happy day. After weeks — nay, months — of buildup, Time’s Person of the Year issue is here. And if that’s not exciting enough on its own, it gets so much better: We’re the Person of the Year! (And so are you! And you! And even you, little Timmy!) Yep, that’s right: This year’s Person of the year is “You” — which is to say, the blogger, Flickr’r, YouTube uploader, Wiki contributor, and hive-minderer who the flagship title of a massive media company has now decided actually holds the keys to the Information Age. Naturally, then, Joel Stein takes a spin through multiplayer virtual world Second Life to find out what the hell You’re up to — which, this being Joel Stein reporting, is sex:

I spent the next 4 1/2 hours with Cristal as she took me to a waterfall, a snowy Christmas scene, a shipwreck and a sex club. At some point, she offered me a free penis. Much as I didn’t want to take it, it’s damned hard to tell even a fake woman that you don’t want the free penis she’s giving you.


The Freudian reading of this is unavoidable, that castrated Old Media is strapping one on just to stay in the nubile Web 2.0 game. It’s also terrifying. Because if print media’s wandering off to have sex online while leaving bloggers to handle the real reporting, we foresee much less coverage of Baghdad and much more of the Lower East Side.

My So-Called Second Life [Time]

You’re the ‘Time’ Person of the Year, and Joel Stein Has Penis Envy