There’s a scene in the 1998 movie The Big Lebowski when Jeff Bridges’ perpetually baked character, “The Dude,” finds himself staring at his reflection in the mirrored cover of Time magazine’s “Man of the Year” issue. But “The Dude” is the last person to do something noteworthy enough for a spot on newsstands. Link together millions of real life dudes, dorks, geeks and dabblers through the Internet and they start looking a lot more influential – enough to end up as 2006’s biggest newsmaker.

This year, Time picked “You” as its Person of the Year. “You”—or, more accurately, “We”—have earned the recognition of these old media stalwarts.

The cover decision was not entirely unexpected (NewAssignment.Net, among others, reported on it back in November) and Time has been known to lean toward the gimmicky before, but this selection is remarkable nonetheless. When an old lion of big media like Time turns to recognize the collective contributions of bloggers, Wikipedians, and open source programmers, it’s some sort of milestone, a clear indication that the Great Man theory is in demise.

Dan Gillmor at the Center for Citizen Media made an interesting observation about the magazine’s choice of words. “There’s a tiny bit of reality in the fact that the cover didn’t say “Us” instead of ‘You,’” he wrote. “In part because it was a vestige of the magazine’s traditional, royal thinking wherein they told us everything and we bought it or didn’t. If the people of the year are all of you, that leaves ‘we the deciders of what is news’ still inside the gates.”

This is precisely why NewAssignment.Net considers this an award for the collective “We” not just an external “You.”

In addition to a Mylar-mirrored cover, the magazine’s package includes a series of profiles on just who exactly “We” are. To be more precise, they are profiling a small part of the online crowd — the people who aren’t “satisfied with being an audience and willing to make things happen,” as PaidContent.org points out.

Perhaps the key story for advocates of citizen journalism is a column written by Richard Stengel, Time’s managing editor, which addresses the seeming incongruity of a major newsweekly trumpeting the success of amateur journalists.

“The new media age of Web 2.0 is threatening only if you believe that an excess of democracy is the road to anarchy. I don’t. … These new techniques, I believe, will only enhance what we do as journalists and challenge us to do it in even more innovative ways.”

But the idea isn’t quite as fresh as Time seems to think: Business 2.0 named “You!” as number one on its list of “50 Who Matter” in July, and ABC News named “bloggers” people of the year in 2004.

And some, including Jeff Jarvis, scoffed at the much-belated recognition. “I suppose I should give Time some credit for recognizing the power of the people,” Jarvis wrote. “Only thing is, there’s no news here. This is nothing new. We have always been in charge. This year’s cover reveals that the notion … of a single person of the year in the single biggest news magazine is such a social anachronism. It is a vestige of the mass era.”

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Kevin Friedl is a writer living in New York. He has worked at The Atlantic Monthly, Columbia Journalism Review, and Seed magazine. He is currently an assistant news editor at Forbes.com.

Afterthoughts:
(1. NewAssignment.Net intends to follow up on this post with original reporting has interviewed TIME’s deputy managing editor — to find out how Time deliberated on this choice.

(2. It appears Time didn’t give advertisers a heads up on who their final choice was for Person of the Year.