A Vice President being named as the person of the year happened for the first time in the history of TIME’s categorization. Being the United State’s first female and the first Indian-American Vice President elect plus the highest ranking female elected official, Kamala Harris inspires many and sets a great example for women around the globe. Her success shattered all gender and racial barriers. Joe Biden used Twitter to react to his achievement, stating “I’m honored to be Person of the Year with @KamalaHarris and grateful to be on this list with so many extraordinary folks. From the front line…” At 78, he is also the oldest ever to be named as the person of the year by the magazine. Also, read 6 Longest Standing Ovation Moments Ever The two made history by twice defeating Ex-President Donald Trump, first during the Presidential elections and second for the Time’s Person of the Year. “For changing the American story, for showing that the forces of empathy are greater than the furies of division…Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year,” wrote Time editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal. However, the TIME’s 2020 Person of the Year Reader Poll differed from the decision taken by the magazine. Essential workers won the title through the reader’s poll set by them. Nurses, doctors, cleaners, grocers, employees and others who continue to risk their lives during the Covid-19 pandemic won the TIME’s Person of the Year reader poll. The poll asked people to select one among the person or group of people who were the face of the year. These were people who had the greatest influence on 2020. Time chose four candidates to be considered for 2020’s selection of the “person who affected the news or lives the most, for better or worse.” Biden and Harris backed the title against frontline health care workers along with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the racial justice movement, and Donald Trump. They focused on how the Person of the Year is not just about this year, but the years we are heading to, as the next four years will be a test for Biden and Harris to keep up with their promises and ideologies. Being the President-elect and Vice President-elect, they are the most important personalities in America as of now. They are responsible for everything and anything happening in terms of unity, justice, and other issues related to the well-being of the country and its people and of course politics. TIME’s selection might be based on the faces that remained most popular and influential on television and news channels. But, people on the internet continue raising questions. At a time when magazines are struggling to maintain relevance in the world of media and communication, TIME continues to receive a certain fanfare with its categorization. Back in 1927, they named Charles A. Lindbergh, the person (or man) of the year. And since then, many groups and individuals have been titled by them.
TIME’s Person of the Year – list 2000 to 2020
2000 George W. Bush 2001 Rudy Giuliani 2002 The Whistleblowers 2003 The American soldier (representing U.S. sources around the world) 2004 George W. Bush 2005 The Good Samaritans 2006 You (representing individual content creators on the internet) 2007 Vladimir Putin 2008 Barack Obama 2009 Ben Bernanke 2010 Mark Zuckerberg 2011 The Protester (representing different global protest movements) 2012 Barack Obama 2013 Pope Francis 2014 Ebola fighters (health care workers who helped to stop the spread of the Ebola virus in West Africa) 2015 Angela Merkel 2016 Donald Trump 2017 The Silence Breakers (People who spoke out against sexual abuse including the Me Too movement) 2018 The Guardians (journalists who faced arrest, murder or prosecution for their reporting) 2019 Greta Thunberg 2020 Joe Biden and Kamala Harris
Δ
