The World's Most Influential Person

Way to be on top of the times, TIME.

Proving once again that public education is churning out moron after moron.

What? I've never even heard of the website, much less the person..

See, this is why internet polls are worthless.

Regardless of whether you've heard of moot of 4chan or not, you have probably felt 4chan's influence. Plenty of the slang used and things referenced in the real world by today's teenagers originated on 4chan.

They should probably amend their title to 'most influential person on teh interwebz' ('influential' in that he did get online votes!)

Neatorama - you might want to put a NSFW warning on this in case people who have never heard of 4chan decide to go look for themselves. I'm imaginging a bunch of little old ladies clutching their pearls at the images of goatse, two girls one cup, and kiddie porn flashing on their computers.

Chandrielle,

Everything Neatorama linked to was SFW. You can't expect others to warn you of the potential for NSFW findings in your own independent research.

Also, if you actually just read the 4chan homepage, you would have seen that it has an Adult section.

Yeah, this poll is definitely false.
It's really entertaining to see the skill of the "Anonymous" hackers skill because they hacked the crap out of this poll.
Read this article and you'll see:
http://musicmachinery.com/2009/04/15/inside-the-precision-hack/

@feeling_madness
you never heard of 4chan?

here's a helpful and incredibly accurate fox news piece that will enlighten you

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,512957,00.html

Time's management says, "I would remind anyone who doubts the results that this is an Internet poll. Doubting the results is kind of the point."

And the point is therefore Moot.

there have been threads on 4chan for a loonng time getting people to vote for moot as many times as possible using a few programs

so yes, it was rigged. although for the internet, moot has had a very large but indirect influence

Look at TIME attempting relevance! How cute!

Colbert gets a space station and Moot gets Time. Enjoy the remaining wild west days of the internet before they put all the fences up.

@DaveL: You sir, are so right.

The fact that 4Chan and Moot are being recognized by TIME proves were all in a gigantic hand-basket headed right to H-E Double hockey sticks.

That being said, this poll was obviously photoshopped.

The whole poll was manipulated by hackers, in a very entertaining way. The first letter of the names from the top 21 places in the poll spell out:

MARBLECAKEALSOTHEGAME

This is not a mistake, it was done quite on purpose, and it actually does have meaning, though nothing profound (unless you find The Game profound).

It's attributed to "the group" Anonymous...which really isn't a group or organization of any kind. It's kind of chaotic, and completely decentralized. It's funny how the media can never quite get a grasp on this...it's just how the "underground" here on the internet works. No one is in charge, and there aren't really any leaders or followers, and there's no real prize in the end...it's all for laughs.

In any case, I find the whole ordeal very entertaining. It's very easy to manipulate online poll results in most cases, but in this case the ingenuity and skill involved is impressive. A lot of hard work went into manipulating that poll...and all for the lulz!

All of that said, 4chan is pretty influential on the web. Most of the popular memes you see originate or begin spreading from there. A good example is LOLcats, the scourge that they were (are?). Other examples you may have heard of; Caturday, I herd u like Mudkipz, The Rick Roll, Boxxy, these all originated at 4chan...a site which was created by the young gentleman who is now listed as Time's most influential person.

The Anonymous vids were spooky when they first came out but lost their edge when we saw what the members looked like IRL protesting Scientology buildings. In short, Hot Topic is not punk rock.

4chan has always had a huge following and is a primary meme farm... but Moot can't get ad sponsors because of the pron. I wonder if this will finally attract VC's that'll prompt Moot to put a shirt and tie on his site.

I didn't say Neatorama linked to anything NSFW, I said if someone decided to go check the actual site out they should be forwarned.

m00t_for_the_win

you_can't_expect_anybody_else_to_outvote_/b/tards

when_the_voting_is_done_online

and_we're_all_"super_hackers"

epic_obligatory_lulz

My God. Epic. I knew moot's appearance at number one was no accident, but I didn't even realize the other twenty until just now. I am impressed.

Of course Moot isn't the world's most influential person but everyone who is butthurt about the sanctity of a magazine publication list needs to relax.

"Enjoy the remaining wild west days of the internet before they put all the fences up." -- DaveL

I couldn't have said it better.

sometimes /b/tards are great...if only to make me laugh

If you've never been to 4chan, do yourself a favor and don't go. What has been seen cannot be unseen. 4chan is the meth/heroin of the internet. There are no weekend warriors!

Point Moot

@Kalel

Well, I snickered anyway.