ABSTRACT
Time magazine captured the hype of the social media revolution when it, in 2006, announced YOU as the person of the year. This choice acknowledged the impact of millions of people who were now able to share and consume online content. YOU became a celebratory example of the ideological discourse that dominated the expansion of social media towards the end of the 2000s. This ideological discourse, which still maintains a dominant position, combines features of technopian (Kozinets 2008) and libertarian social imaginations. Web 2.0 was portrayed as the new democratic frontier; as the arena that could foster the wisdom of the crowds (Keen 2007); as the place where identities could be reconfigured and reborn; as a plethora of fora for self-determination and freedom. Online communities were promoted as a means to solve democratic deficits and revitalize the public sphere (Dahlberg 2007). Virtual worlds were conceived of as separated from physical ones, as immaterial spheres of communication floating in space that could erase frontiers of personal, social and geographical character. A Utopian vision that borrowed elements of a science fiction imaginary, like in a futuristic dream, virtual worlds were there to provide the ultimate freedom from the constraints of bodies, materialities, socio-cultural structures and geography. For “seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you” (Grossman 2006).
