List: 'Time 100'

Today’s ‘List Friday’. Lists? I’m drowning in them. Figuratively speaking, of course. This week Time magazine released the 2010 iteration of its ‘Time 100’ – ‘the people who most affect our world’ [1]. I wrote of the 2009 ‘Time 100’ here [2]. A fair bit’s changed since then. No fewer than 31 of the 2009 ‘100’ aren’t in the 2010 ‘100’, thus earning a place in the list that Time euphemistically labels Alumnae [3]. And so, of course, the 2010 ‘100’ includes 31 newbies (though I haven’t compared the 2009 and 2010 lists to find out who they are). Who cares? Not I. Ho hum. More interesting – but only a tad (yawn) – are the ‘Time 100’ spinoffs, i.e. the list of ‘Least Influential People of 2010’ [4], the Influence Index [5], and the online poll for the world’s 100 most influential people [6]. In the online poll, the top five are (in decreasing order) Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Han Han, Yu-Na Kim, Rain, and Lady Gaga. Isn’t that enlightening. The major league ‘Time 100’ isn’t in ranked order, but rather is divided into four categories – Leaders, Heroes, Artists and Thinkers – with 25 in each [7]. Anyway, that’s enough. I can’t bear to write about this nonsense any longer.

P.S. I apologise to you, dear readers. Last Friday I promised you that next Friday’s (i.e. today’s) list would be much less soporific. I’ve broken my promise. Big time. So today I’m making the same promise regarding next Friday’s list.