TIME: 4chan Founder Moot World’s Most Influential Person

TIME Magazine has announced the most influential person in the world in 2009 to be 4chan founder Moot, or Christopher Poole as he is sometimes known.

Moot received 16,794,368 votes and an influence rating which saw him beat such insignificant figures as Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin.

4chan itself likely needs no introduction, being long since reviled as a major vector of memetic contagion, each of its users a willing plague bacillus.

Moot himself can occasionally be seen trying to take credit for the tumourous development of the site, but is otherwise an insignificant figure scorned by his irreverent followers.

Moot for his part denies manipulating the drone like masses who inhabit 4chan into mindlessly voting for him in the same way the queen of a hive might influence the actions of her brood, but Time did report several foiled attempts to hack the vote’s outcome.

The results themselves were decided exclusively by a process of online voting, likely explaining the result.

Time.com’s overseer is embarrassed: “I would remind anyone who doubts the results that this is an Internet poll. Doubting the results is kind of the point.”

Via Time. Thanks to Geerie for the tip.

Its amazing that 1 man has THAT much power.

I think 2chan tried something like this once...


Though I have to say, this is one finely pulled off shenanigan, since it actually worked.