4chan helps Kim Jong Un win Time's Person of the Year poll | Hacker News Reader

4chan helps Kim Jong Un win Time's Person of the Year poll

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91 pointspjclark64 comments

If i recall right, it is sort of a tradition to manipulate the Person of the Year polls by 4chan...

Once, they voted moot to the top and made the first names (?) spell a phrase (Marblecake, also the game) when read from top to bottom...

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1894028,00.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Poole

"The same problem exists with polls on the Internet as with quotes on the internet." — Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln was misquoted, or least he said so in his Geocities page.

Anyway, how stupid is Time to fall for this, unless they are doing it for the traffic and clicks?

Are you sure? His Wikipedia page has that quote on it.

It's in bad taste to edit one's own Wikipedia page, even if there is an error.

Fall for what? Did you read the link?

Yes I read it. Apparently the only reason they do the useless and manipulated web poll is for clicks and hits.

If you read the first letter of each name on the results list, you can see it spells "KJU Gas Chambers" (KJU being Kim Jong Un). There were 2 or 3 threads on 4chan about what to spell this year. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2...

Time could've changed the way they hold a poll, but didn't. This is an advertisement stunt, nothing more.

He is a very legitimate contender for person of the year. A thirty-something we know nothing about in charge of a failing state with nuclear weapons. 4chan may be trolling, but the levity about north korea and their slave labor camps isn't funny because it is a real tragedy that noone can do anything about it.

Yes, exactly. I don't understand the purpose of this. 4chan is trolling nobody. The person of the year award is not meant to mean the most likeable or best person. That's why Hitler, Stalin (twice), Khomeini had the title in the past.

Of course one can question whether Kim Jong Un had really such a huge impact on events.

4chan is trolling nobody.

I think you and amalag are misunderstanding 4chan's motives.

So am I, care to explain?

They are doing it "for the lulz".

but there is no lul if during the war Hitler was person of the year. it's not a popularity contest.

> if during the war Hitler was person of the year

It was before the war, but whatever... your point is still good.

the lul is that they can do it.

It seems like Kim Jong Un is last of Hitler and Stalin alike. Is there any other dictators like that?

There's quite a few (not saying that any of these are on the same level as Hitler or Stalin) currently around: http://conservapedia.com/List_of_dictators

See 'yyyy - Present' under Years In Power.

The most prevalent and similar to the above would probably be Robert Mugabe.

Here's a list from a less bonkers source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dictator#List_of_dictators_in_...

Good call, I didn't look at the homepage for the site I posted.

It wouldn't be my personal choice to give page views to people with these particular opinions, but the information appeared to be correct in terms of the topic.

I personally love conservapedia because it's such an amusing mix of trolls and genuine far-right Christians with the borders blurring everywhere, only the Internet can make such a "work of art" possible.

However, they list Kim Jong-Il as "1994-present" while he died in 2011 and haven't listed his son yet.

Your mistake is looking for a "purpose" to try to understand.

"the levity about north korea and their slave labor camps isn't funny"

Gallows humor is generally about the horror of the situation, not at the expense of the victims.

"Gallows humor" refers to the humor of those facing the gallows, not tasteless jokes cracked by comfortable observers.

Ah yes, black comedy then. I'm referring to the general feeling of futility from someone who has no ability to change the situation from afar.

Even still, most jokes from 4Chan or South Park are probably not the best examples of what I'm trying to convey, lazy snark when some consciousness and concern is required for the usage I'm suggesting.

Ok, call it cancer doc humor...

All the people on the shortlist were legitimate contenders.

A Chinese daily reported as a real story an Onion spoof about Kim Jong Un being 'sexiest man'. http://rt.com/news/kim-korea-sexiest-onion-700/

"With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman's dream come true. Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made this newspaper's editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile."

It happened with Indian media as well: http://imgur.com/a/ZweD5

One would think another Korean, a gentleman from the south, also of boyish chubby looks, and surprisingly anti-American as well, would be a greater contender this year.

I think another Korean gentleman from the south who's the secretary-general of a certain important organization is a great contender along with his Ghanaian predecessor and colleague.

I thought you might be alluding to the UN, but then you said the organization was "important".

Neither of them did anything particularly noteworthy this year, other than fail to bring peace to the Middle East for the nth year in a row.

No doubt this will be publicized greatly in NK but without the details.

Given the recent successful N Korean satellite launch (though some say it's falling out of orbit now), I'd say this could become reality. Hitler won once.

I think there's a common misconception that Time is anointing their "best person of the year" when in reality they're looking for:

> Person of the Year (formerly Man of the Year) is an annual issue of the United States newsmagazine Time that features and profiles a person, group, idea or object that "for better or for worse, ...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_Person_of_the_Year

It's a pity they've chickened out in recent years.

If "You" wasn't jumping the shark, I don't know what is. There was no shortage of bad ones before that, but I don't think any quite stack up.

2001, not choosing Osama.

"You" was just manifesting in the most complete way a farce that became apparent to all in 2001.

Wow, Giuliani? What were they thinking? Yeah, he got some press, but there were plenty of way more influential people.

In retrospect, Giuliani may not have been the most influential person of 2001, but in late 2001, his was the face of American resilience in the face of unthinkable assault on the nation. He stepped up immediately after the attack and did everything he could for his city.

Now, I don't necessarily agree with the sentiment, but it was a fairly reasonable choice at the time. Read the article:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2...

> has done the most to influence the events of the year."

That's exactly what I was referring to when I said it could become reality.

Absolutely. I'm agreeing with you... just trying to provide some more detail.

Why? What has he done? What has he influenced? North Korea is in the same situation as it was before. The worlds position to North Korea is the same as it was before.

Have you been keeping up with the news lately? Their latest rocket test shows that they have the ability to launch a nuclear missile that could hit the Western US.

First off, what did Kim Jong Un have to do with that? I mean, other then having his father die while the military was working on this.

Secondly, I assume you mean 'hit the western US' in the same way a blind hog finds an acorn. That rocket couldn't put a satellite into a stable orbit for the same reason NK's rocket program is described as a long list of failures - they can't reliably put anything anywhere after lighting the fuse.

http://gizmodo.com/5968007/north-korea-satellite-out-of-cont...

So even after this, they're still not any more or less a danger then they were.

Their latest rocket test merely shows that they can get something into orbit. For a nuclear missile they would need a reentry vehicle and a small enough bomb, that the missile can carry it.

Just to highlight it for anybody who scrolled past - Adolf Hitler was the Person of the year in 1938, for example.

I don't believe he fits that description.

The first rule of Magic should perhaps become the first rule of 4Chan - "never do the same trick twice"

Pretty sure that's isomorphic to rule 17: Every win fails eventually

The 1st rule is not to talk about /b/

My favorite thing about this is that the commenters all seem to be so angry at Time. They clearly did not read the article. I would put Time commenters ever so slightly above Youtube commenters on the intelligence scale.

The comment section is a place for people to work out their anger management issues. If you're not suffering from anger management issues, there's nothing there for you.

With the Israel attacks and this maybe the person of the year should be "Anonymous"

Which one? The one that manipulated the poll to read "marblecake..." or the one that imitated the same trick this year? I would be interested to know if they are the same and doubt it.

"The Protester" was already person of the year in 2011.

Does this mean that 4chan is Person of the Year?

You know what, if EU can get Nobel, why can't this guy be selected for person of the year, just look at that lovely round face :)

or Captain Euro:

http://www.captaineuro.com/

At least it wasn't the Mars Rover!

Why didn't they call it by its actual name? Were they afraid people wouldn't know what "Curiosity" is?

Humans in the future will look back at this year, if they ever chronicle TIME magazine, and find it either confusing or hilarious.

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