The Most Influential Person of 2006: Me, The Blogger!

It's that time of year again, the time when we decide who should be the most influential person of the year. This is when people start looking up world leaders or celebrities or other Big Important People and nominating them for just such a title. Does anybody else get a little weary of hearing the same bigwigs' names over and over again? Yeah, me too. And that's why I am nominating myself.

Come on! I'd be great with the title!

Okay, I have a few people that should probably get at least a nod and here they are, in no particular order:

Tom Cruise: Never before has there been a better example of how NOT to act in public.

Oprah: Nobody can get people to read the way she can.

William Shatner: Captain who? That's Denny Crain! He's completely reinvented himself with his Boston Legal role (which yes, should include 2004 and 2005).

All those women and men who won things like Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes.

But really, it's all about me. The Blogger.

No, seriously. This article can be seen as tongue in cheek, but I have been proud to call myself a blogger for a few years now.

Blogs have grown even more in 2006 than they did in 2005 or 2004 (when the boom officially hit). Because bloggers have made themselves so present there is now starting to be an occupation known as the "Professional Blogger." They are standing up and demanding to be taken seriously. And while the blogger may have a billion or so faces, really it's the blogger who helps decide things from style to policy to the tenets of journalism. We challenge authority, like Thomas Jefferson told us to, way back when doing so was considered patriotic.

I often say that bloggers are the Pamphleteers of the new millennium. We are the evidence of "life finding a way." As our media became more corporately controlled, more and more people started blogging. We are proof that the "little people" will find a way to be heard. We've coined new vocabulary (dooced) and a new way of writing is emerging. As blogs have gotten more popular, a conversational tone has taken over in mainstream media. Formality is losing. Media is charging back toward the masses. And it's all thanks to us, the bloggers.

So, bloggers: let's stand up and each take our molecule of "The Most Influential Person of 2006" crown. Without us, who would hold the big-wigs in check?