Congdon, Not You, Is Person of the Year

By Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/8/2007 3:32:00 AM

Time magazine may have named You its Person of the Year for 2006, but ubiquitous online It Girl Amanda Congdon doesn't think you deserve the honor.

Congdon, a 25-year-old actress who got her start as the coat-check girl on NBC's reality series The Restaurant, achieved Web celebrity last year as the face of quirky online news show Rocketboom. Now you can watch her geek-chic musings and trademark hair-flips in her video blogs for ABC News Now,
Blip.tv and, coming soon, a broadband comedy collaboration with HBO.

Just don't count yourself among Congdon's cohort of media revolutionaries. Her year-end video blog ("Please don't make Amanda mad by calling this TV,"we are warned) at starringamanda- congdon.com begins harmlessly enough, with Congdon asking passersby in Manhattan how they feel about seeing themselves
in the Mylar mirror on Time's YouTube-inspired Person of the Year cover.

But Congdon's magnanimity ends there as she goes on to clarify that "the collective 'You' is not Person of the Year," since "not everyone participated in the media revolution."

It's the millions of "bloggers, podcasters and video bloggers" like her who should get the credit. "We," says Congdon, "are the People of the Year, not You."

So much for the democratization of the media.