In defence of Mark Zuckerberg as Time’s Person of the Year

• December 22, 2010

By Linda Forrest

That title alone is probably enough to put me in the crosshairs of many a critic of Time Magazine‘s selection of Facebook’s inventor and leader as its person of the year for 2010. But personally, I think that the selection is merited and that the vitriol detractors have spewed in light of his naming reflects more sour grapes than anything else.

Here’s why I agree with this recognition:

1. Zuckerberg’s creation is an influential force in more than a 12th of the world’s population’s daily lives. He’s responsible for changing the modern communications paradigm. Period.

The scope of his achievement is truly unparalleled. According to the Time profile, Facebook recently signed up its “550 millionth member. One out of every dozen people on the planet has a Facebook account. They speak 75 languages and collectively lavish more than 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month. Last month the site accounted for one out of four American page views. Its membership is currently growing at a rate of about 700,000 people a day.”

To put that in perspective, Time asked readers to consider the following: “In less than seven years, Zuckerberg wired together a twelfth of humanity into a single network, thereby creating a social entity almost twice as large as the U.S. If Facebook were a country it would be the third largest, behind only China and India. It started out as a lark, a diversion, but it has turned into something real, something that has changed the way human beings relate to one another on a species-wide scale. We are now running our social lives through a for-profit network that, on paper at least, has made Zuckerberg a billionaire six times over.”

When is the last time you did something that had an impact SPECIES-wide? I thought so. Let’s give credit where credit is due.

The fact that he’s achieved such a remarkable feat before the age of 26 is nothing short of, well, amazing.

The implications that his creation have had on our personal and our professional lives is astounding. Marketing plans almost without exception now contain a significant portion about social media initiatives, and that’s thanks to Zuckerberg.

2. This was the year that Zuckerberg emerged as a public figure: both as a pop culture caricature and important philanthropist.

The Social Network is a big blockbuster Hollywood movie about the creation of Facebook, one where an utterly compelling Zuckerberg character appeared on the screen for most of the film. Written and directedby the cream of the filmmaking crop, financially successful and at the top of the heap for the 2011 awards season, it’s an unfettered artistic and commercial success. Though Zuckerberg himself disputes the veracity of his portrayal – and he does come off as unsympathetic at a minimum – and the facts of Facebook’s gestation and launch, it’s inarguable that his story is compelling to the masses and that scores were anxious to learn more about how Facebook came to be, warts and all.

2010 also marked the year that Zuckerberg, whose wealth is estimated at $6.9 BILLION dollars, emerged as a philanthropist to be reckoned with, committing to donating $100 million to New Jersey schools and signing a commitment to giving away half of his wealth within his lifetime, an agreement that cements him with Bill Gates and Warren Buffet as one of the most significant givers of our time. This amount of money stands to change the world for the better in another arena from Facebook entirely; for this alone, he should be commended.

3. The man responsible for social media’s rise doesn’t need to exhibit good social skills.

And this is where I think the majority of the consternation at his being named Person of the Year comes into play. The guy, by many accounts, has poor social skills and is an alienating force; I suspect this is due to his dizzying intellect. He simply doesn’t seem to resonate on the same frequencies as we mere mortals with average to above-average intelligence. Socially inept is certainly how the character was played in the film, but that flies in the face of the fact that he appears to be almost universally liked by his Facebook co-workers… or at least those that haven’t sued him.

The Onion had a funny (R-rated for foul language) take on this accolade and I think it strikes to the heart of the matter: whether you like the guy on a personal level or not, you’ve got to hand it to him. He’s impacted the communications world more profoundly than anyone else, in the past year, and arguably, since the invention of other game changing technologies like the telephone. History will be kind to Mark Zuckerberg; he will be looked back on 100 years from now (potentially he’ll still be around, if anti-aging technology and medical advancements by that point support people living to 125), as one of the handful of real communications visionaries that not only had a brilliant idea, but was able to commercialize it and support it becoming an integral part of people’s daily lives. Even if Facebook flames out in the coming years – only time will tell if it’s a communications channel that will persist – astute historians will always look back on 2010 as the year of Mark Zuckerberg.