Who was the first Time’s Person of the Year? The tradition’s history, explained

Between her record-shattering world tour and her unique ability to remain conversationally eggshell-neutral by never giving interviews on controversial topics, Taylor Swift was more or less a lock for Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. 

It’s a great honor – an indelible freckle on the cheek of history in the form of the pop sensation’s name and countenance. It is also, in a world where Swift fans will descend on the unenthusiastic like a tidal wave of social media tsetse flies, a very real excuse to type the following sentence without saying anything that could be argued to be untrue: “Taylor Swift is to 2023 what Vladimir Putin was to 2007.” But first, some history.

How Time‘s “Person of the Year” got its start

The Time Person of the Year – originally the Time Man of the Year or Time Woman of the Year – started out as a sort of combination consolation prize/retroactive whoopsie doodle on the part of a rapidly on-the-rise publication. The magazine had established its cover as a conversation starter and status symbol – the “trending” section of the English-speaking world, if you want to be a cool teacher about it. Reaching the tail end of 1927, the folks in charge realized that they’d forgotten to put Charles Lindbergh on the cover of Time. Lindbergh had completed the first nonstop transatlantic flight in May of that year. This was a big deal back then. Prohibition was still in effect, and people were bored.

To rectify their mistake, the editors at Time put out a special edition “Man of the Year” issue, adorned with a sketch of both Lindbergh’s cheekbones and the rest of his face. The idea struck a chord, and the magazine made the issue an annual tradition. At the end of each year, they would print an issue dedicated to “the individual who most shaped the headlines over the previous 12 months, for better or for worse.” This means, among other things, that Taylor Swift has now been honored with the same award that was given to Joseph Stalin. Twice. 

Clearly, the history of the title has been hit and miss. In 1930, it was bestowed on Mahatma Gandhi. In 1938: Hitler. 1999’s cover went to Jeff Bezos. 2001’s was Rudy Giuliani. Sometimes, Time goes conceptual with it, awarding the title to “The Peacemakers” in 1993, “The Computer” in 1982, and, in a move that in all likelihood solved even one problem, “The Endangered Earth” in 1988. Three out of the last four popes have been labeled “Person of the Year,” which feels like a real junior high, “everyone’s invited to my birthday except you” burn on Benedict XVI.

All of which is to say that anyone can be Time’s Person of the Year, even you. You just need to either do something really great, do something terrible, or, as was the case in 1966, be a Baby Boomer. Yeah, the magazine gave the title to an entire generation, just for being themselves. And people call Millennials “entitled.”