Steve Jobs Wasn’t Made Time Magazine’s 2011 Person Of The Year

Steve Jobs has been mentioned as a possible contender for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year ever since he passed away in October, but in the end, Time has gone another direction: they have awarded their 2011 Person of the Year instead to “The Protester,” the abstract avatar for the political demonstrations in the Middle East, Europe and the United States this year.

Runners-up were U.S. Navy Admiral William McRaven, who led the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, artist and Chinese political activist Ai Weiwei, U.S. Congressman Paul Ryan, and Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge.

Steve Jobs wasn’t totally robbed of any recognition, though. Pixar creative chief John Lasseter recognized him in a fond farewell, and Apple CEO Tim Cook was named as one of Time’s “people who mattered.”

I know this choice is proving contentious for a lot of people, but personally, as important a human as I think Steve Jobs was, I don’t think he left a particularly huge mark on 2011. Steve Jobs was man of many previous years, but not as much in this one, for obvious reasons involving his health.

He’s still a better choice than an abstract entity like “The Protester” though. Yeesh.

Anyway, what do you think?

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