In this personal vlog, Tom Guarriello, Ph.D., recounts a surprising mention of his YouTube nomination of the American voter for Time magazine’s 2006 Person of the Year. After seeing a comment pointing him to the editor’s note, Tom discovers the excerpt where Time’s managing editor, Rick Stengel, references his video. The exposure leads to a freelance reporter from the Stamford Advocate contacting him for an interview, which culminates in a kitchen photo shoot with the newspaper’s photographer, Chris. The video interleaves the behind‑the‑scenes photography session—light jokes about camera skills, technical talk about raw vs. JPEG, and the awkwardness of being photographed—with Tom’s reflective commentary on how user‑generated content is reshaping media, politics, and democracy. He closes by emphasizing the rapid impact of collective digital participation and expressing excitement for future developments.
Chapters
Hey guys, how you doing? What an interesting week. So Sunday, you know, I'm Sunday morning, I'm sitting in my kitchen checking my email, looking at YouTube stuff, you know, just sort of getting the day started. And I get a comment on my Time magazine Person of the Year video, the one where I nominated the American voter as the Person of the Year. I get a comment on that video, and hang on a second, I'm going to read the comment to you. So the comment was from Paul9951. Paul9951 writes me a, um, a comment on the video, and the comment says, congrats 'You were mentioned in the Time editor's note.' I, I didn't know what he meant. I actually responded back and I wrote, 'Is that right? Where is that?' So then I started saying, 'Well, I could probably find that, you know, if I look, try to find it.' So I went out to the, to the Time website and poked around and poked around and found the editor's note. And here we have the actual physical copy of the magazine reflecting in the reflection. I'll stop that. But, um, I went online in the editor's note, and I, um, uh, and this is what I found online. And here on page 8, by the way, of Time magazine, I find the editor's note from Rick Stengel, the editor of, uh, the managing editor of Time magazine. And the, in the edit, and it says The headline of his piece is "Now It's Your Turn," and he starts off the piece this way: The other day, I listened to a reader named Tom, age 59, make a pitch for the American voter as Time's Person of the Year. Tom wasn't sitting in my office but was home in Stamford, Connecticut, where he recorded his video and uploaded it to YouTube. In fact, Tom was answering my own video, which I'd posed on YouTube a couple of weeks earlier, asking for people to submit nominations for Person of the Year. Within a few days, it had tens of thousands of page views and dozens of video submissions and comments. The people who sent in nominations were from Australia and Paris and Duluth, and their suggestions included Sacha Baron Cohen, Donald Rumsfeld, Al Gore, and many, many votes for the YouTube guys. This response was the living example of the idea of our 2006 Person of the Year, that individuals are changing the nature of the information age, that the creators and consumers of user-generated content are transforming art and politics and commerce, that they are the engaged citizens of the new digital democracy. Wow! So I kind of went, wow, that's really funny. You know, here I am, I get a mention in the Time magazine managing editor's piece in the Person of the Year edition. Then Monday, I get an email. I get an email from somebody who identifies himself as a freelance reporter for the Stamford Advocate, our local newspaper here, saying that he wanted to interview me because he saw that my name was in the editor's note. So I said to him, "Well, how'd you find me?" He said, "Oh, it was easy. I just Googled Tom Stanford YouTube and you popped right up. And then I checked and found your YouTube account and found that you were 59 and you were from Stanford, and I figured that had to be you." Son of a gun. So the fellow was here yesterday and interviewed me, and now today they sent their photographer out to take my photograph to put in the Stanford Advocate. They say sometime over who knows when. So what I'm about to show you is my photo session with the Stanford Advocate's photographer taking my picture for the newspaper spread that they're gonna— or whatever the spread, listen to me, the article that they're gonna write about my being in Time magazine's Person of the Year. So let's take a look. Hi guys, this is a photographer from the Stanford Advocate. How you doing? I got this, so I figured, you know, you guys gotta be part of this, so here we go. By the way, Christian and I use the same camera, just to let you know, like, you know, I'm no slouch on this stuff. My man and I use the D200 here. I'll bet there's a slight skill gap, however.
Not bright enough.
I've heard that all my life.
Okay, let me have you turn your head towards the softbox a little bit. And let's see—
it's not my good side. The other side's my good side. I don't really have a good side. I'm sort of kidding. I bet this doesn't happen much where people are setting up their cameras while you're setting up yours. Oh, this guy, okay.
Okay, if I can have you, I don't want it to look like you're fake type thing. So like a portrait. So if I can have you—
Like look, I'm reading something.
No, no, no, I don't want that. I don't want to read anything. Oh yeah, I want you to look at the camera.
Oh yeah, okay.
Yeah, yeah, okay. And then if I can have you move your right hand just so I can see your hand a little bit.
Okay, like that?
Yeah, okay. And all right, um, let me just turn this flash up just a little more.
See what I mean about the pros? Guy's turning his flash up, he's turning his flash down. I have flesh.
Okay, that's better. All right, that's better. Alright, you gotta look happy again.
I am, I'm happy. Because my wife, she's gonna go like, "Oh, I missed it!
I missed the shooting!" You have a great view from your kitchen.
We sure do. I make videos out there to show folks.
Oh, really?
Yes, you know, a little Connecticut background, you know. What are you shooting, raw or big JPEGs?
Yeah, I was shooting raw for a while, but Since I shoot so much, I was archiving DVDs like every 2 days.
Yeah, right. Honey, this is Chris.
Hi. Hi.
Karen arrives a little tardy to do the shooting. To do the— okay. Where's the camera? What? In which Chris uses the same camera that I do. Probably slightly more skill.
I've only had that thing for about a week.
Oh, is that right? Well, I'll tell you what, it takes more than a week.
I'm a little nervous because if you would see my D2, it's pretty, uh, beat up. It's pretty beat up. Yeah, I'm a little nervous about the— how this is going to hold up.
Well, of course I don't, you know, beat it up, but it holds up pretty well.
This is recorded. I don't beat my company gear up either.
It's okay. See, even the photographers get nervous on camera.
See?
So you've been on YouTube before?
Uh, I'm not—
you haven't? Well, congratulations, it's your maiden voyage. Pretty funny, right? So here he is taking my picture in my kitchen to be in the magazine. You know, we've been having a lot of fun with this whole Person of the Year thing here. And, you know, despite the fun that we've been having with it, I think there is a serious aspect to it, and that is, wow, you know, the amount of impact that we've collectively made here in just a very short period of time has been really, really amazing. And I can't wait to see what we're gonna do from this point forward. So thanks a lot. I wanted to share that with you. I hope you got a kick out of it. Take it easy. Bye.
