Donald Trump's Time "Person of the Year" Tweet

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Part of a series on Trump's Fake TIME Cover. [View Related Entries]

About

Donald Trump's Time "Person of the Year" Tweet refers to a series of parodies, jokes and references to a post on Twitter made by United States President Donald Trump in which he says he was offered the title of Time magazine's Person of the Year but turned it down. Online, people were skeptical as to the validity of the president's claims, prompting Time to deny their conversation with the president.

Origin

On November 24th, 2017, President Trump tweeted,^[1] "Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!" The post (shown below) received more than 43,000 retweets and 160,000 likes in three days.

Spread

Shortly after the president tweeted, many online began replacing the specifics of the post with humorous and/or absurd magazine titles or situations due to the skepticism some had toward Trump's assertion. That day, Veep actress Julia Louis Dreyfus tweeted,^[2] ".@nytimes just called to say I was PROBABLY going to be named comedienne of the year but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!" The tweet (shown below, left) received more than 16,000 retweets and 109,000 likes in three days.

Additionally, Star Wars actor Mark Hamill tweeted,^[3] "Time Magazine called to say that I was DEFINITELY going to be named "Man (Person) of the Year" but I would have to agree to leak major #Ep8 spoilers. I said "no problem", but then they told me you turned it down and now I don't want it anymore. Thanks anyway!" The post (shown below, center) received more than 11,000 retweets and 53,000 likes in three days.

Get Out director Jordan Peele replied^[4] to a tweet by comedian Patton Oswalt with, "Patton Oswalt called to say that he was going to tweet that GET OUT was PROBABLY his favorite movie of the year, but I would have to agree to get lunch with him and do a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!" Within three days, the tweet (shown below, right) received more than 4,000 retweets and 37,000 likes.

Later that day, Time magazine responded on Twitter.^[5] They wrote, "The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year. TIME does not comment on our choice until publication, which is December 6." The post (shown below) received more than 185,000 retweets and 510,000 likes in less than three days.

That day, Twitter^[6] user @adamjwhitedc pointed out the numerous tweets Trumps has made about the "Person of the Year." He tweeted, "He gets worked up over Time Magazine's Man of the Year Award almost every year. Like clockwork." The post (shown below) included a series of tweets Trump has made about the Person of the Year and received more than 39,000 retweets and 89,000 likes in three days.

The following day, former Time editor Richard Stengel tweeted, "Mr. President, just to clarify things, I wanted to offer a few statistics. Number of times you were Person of the Year during the 7 years I was editor of Time: 0. Number of times you were on the cover: 0. Number of times you made the Time 100 influentials list: 0. Thanks anyway!" The post (shown below) received more than 100,000 retweets and 330,000 likes in less than two days.

Several news media outlets covered the response to Trump's tweet, including USA Today,^[7] CNN,^[8] The Atlantic,^[9] The Washington Post^[10] and more. That day, Twitter^[11] published a Moments page regarding the skeptism and response to Trump's tweet.