After surviving another year, the team got together to select the man, woman, or mutant that embodied 2012. We set out to honor the year’s most significant figure with our unique brand of thinly-veiled rage. As usual, we were unable to agree on anything. Our independent selections are as follows:
Sam “Mute Monkey” Lagow’s Man of the Year
Every year, I look at what America is angry at. Last year, they seemed to still be angry at the 1% when the year began, they got privilegedly pissed at Hosni Mubarek a little later, and eventually settled on shaking their fist at Michelle Bachmann for being an ultimately powerless voice for the dumbest of us.
That said, I find America to be as smart as its dumbest outrage, whatever that outrage may be. Whoever happens to be at the center of said shitstorm is the one I find most worthy of my nomination for Man of the Year. So, I will be giving the title of MWT’s Man of the Year not to Adam Lanza, Wayne LaPierre, Mitt Romney, Tarrlok, or Muhammad. The hatred they all incited might have had some interesting conversations surrounding them.
No, I’m going to have to give my nomination to Commander Shepard, for the controversy surrounding him this year has been a testament to just how word-slurringly retarded people are to get so upset over the ending to a game. A game. The fan backlash regarding the ending of Mass Effect 3 has served as a terrifyingly good example of how conducive modern technology has become to classic stupidity. Prior to this, many people were still in the dark regarding just how low humanity is capable of sinking over the trivial. Most of those people have since been filled in. Commander Shepard is my Man of the Year because of what he represents: the changing face of human stupidity in the silicon age.
Josh “Deaf Monkey” Crawford’s Man of the Year
Quetzalcoatl. Yes, he’s more of a god-serpent-thing than a man, but in addition to being the absolute most badass cover of TIME Magainze ever, Quetzlcoatl has done the unthinkable: spared us. Now, initially, I was going to write the bastard up as ‘public enemy number one’ and sic the Norse Pantheon on his ass because I can do that, I realize his wisdom now. He couldn’t let those stupid assholes actually be right, that’d be too easy. I can tell he’s biding his time. He has to be. He has to come soon. Please. Please come soon. I know we deserve all of this bullshit for being that awful, but come on, cut us a break, nuke our shit. Please? Pleeeaaaase?
Dennard “Blind Monkey” Dayle’s Man of the Year
Here’s the core question: who won? I don’t just mean this piddling award, but the year as a whole. Who walked away from the smoldering wreckage of 2012 holding a crown made of money? As far as I can tell, most of the masses are poorer, dumber, and more depressed than they were in January. Which is something of an achievement. So who came out ahead? Some of you are predicting Barack Obama. You’re wrong. Barack Obama has won a second round in the most stressful job our civilization has to offer. If I was him, I’d be loading up on Xanex and bourbon.
Walt Disney’s ghost is 2012’s king and god. Disney started the new millennium owning a third of your childhood through in-house properties alone. Then they picked up another chunk of cultural real estate by buying out Marvel in 2010. This year Disney fattened the Marvel cash cow with The Avengers, but that was just the beginning. Annexing Star Wars gave them a majority share of our generation’s cultural landscape. This is historic. There have been horizontal and vertical monopolies over steel, oil, and electricity. In 2012, Disney solidified the world’s first monopoly on the imagination. And Walt is laughing from beyond the grave.
