People of the Decade

I was standing in the fine surroundings of my local supermarket over the weekend, waiting for my girlfriend to acquire her party provisions (wine, wine, some munchies and wine), trying desperately not to get in the way of the assortment of rambling folks scrambling for that third jumbo pack of toilet paper, when my eyes settled upon the magazine section. The Times was proudly listing their conteders for 'People of the Decade'. And the nominees were (cue drum roll...): Barak Obama, The Queen, Osama Bin Laden, Katie Price and Simon Cowell.
Now, the first thought that leapt to mind was something along the lines of 'you have to be joking'. A couple of heads of state are fair enough, but a terrorist leader, a girl who's breasts get as much if not more column inches than she does and a man who's been responsible for a sucession of terrible Christmas number 1's sung by glorified karaoke contestants? No way should they be contenders for a 'People of the Decade' award. However, as I continued to stare at the cover of the magazine, my reasoning was given a jolt, most likey initiated by the old lady hitting me with her shopping bag as she loaded up with a 4th jumbo pack of toilet rolls.
Firstly, consider the award title. 'People of the Decade' has no reference to 'Best People of the Decade' or 'Most Worthy People of the Decade'. It's just 'People of the Decade'. No inferrence is made one way or another. When you realise that, a whole other dimension is opened. Based upon impact on the decade alone, with no consideration of positive or negative tendancies, there's actually a pretty strong case for inclusion of all of these people. Which then results in a further question of just what kind of a mess are we in as a society and people when Katie Price has had a mammoth (mammary?) impact upon the decade. Her manipulation of the media for her own ends has made her millions, and could well end up as a case study of how to operate the world of celebrity when you start on pretty vacuous grounds.
Simon Cowell covers the same sort of ground that Katie Price does, but is actually more sinister. Whereas Jordan has made an admirable fist of coming across as someone limited who has made the most of whatever assests she has, Cowell is a far more openly clinical manipulator of the masses to his own ends. He occupies the position of someone who could probably do well in whatever field he chose, there's no denying his smart business acumen and ruthless streak, but what makes him personally so, well, ickky is the best way I can put it, is that he chose to exploit the masses for his job. And whilst there are many, many people who do that (politicians, companies, banks and executives), none do it whilst encouraging millions of people to watch in some sort of bizarre vouyeristic ritual. But it's that very thing which gives him his impact upon the decade, and makes us sorry collaborators.
Taking the award for ultimate bogeyman is Osama Bin Laden. For impact on the decade with minimal public phone-in votes, and no real need to extract his acres of cleavage whenever there's a camera near (not that that happens much), look no further than the man who hasn't been seen for nigh on ten years. If ever there was a maximum return from minimm effort, OBL's use of the media has been it. A fuzzy handycam sub-youtube quality clip every now and again, and the world media laps it up. None of the 'I'm on every chat show' kind of PR that Katie Price has to engage in. Just the odd 20 second video clip, and that's it for the next two years. Yes, Barak Obama and HRH have undoubtedely had a huge impact on world affairs and the man in the street, but have any had quite the resonance that OBL has managed? Certainly none of them on so little real work. And if the person of the decade really is Osama Bin Laden, what does that say about the state of the world as it is?