The Michael Phelps Backlash

So, the more important issue of my post should be that Time Magazine, for their annual Person of the Year issue, picked Barack Obama as their #1 person this year. Deservingly so, the man got people of all walks of life excited about politics, and won the most exciting and history-making election of our time. But what I really want to talk about here is Micheal Phelps. He came in as one of Time's People Who Mattered in 2008, and also deservingly so. The man got the world glued to the Olympics, and shed a new interest in the sport of swimming, and kept breaking records along the way, and made the last couple of weeks of summer incredibly exciting. He is one of my entertainers of the year, for sure. Yada yada yada. What I REALLY REALLY want to talk about runs a bit shallower than that. Oh, Michael, I don't know what you did to deserve this, but someone in Time's photo department hates you. HATES you!!

Omg. I have no words for this picture. You know how sometimes on Facebook, your friends will tag you in a picture where it's like a really unflattering angle, or there's a flash of a double/triple chin, or your eyes are half closed? And you get all embarrassed and angry, and immediately detag yourself? Well, this is like that, except a thousand times worse. He can't detag himself, and MILLIONS will see this photo. Yeah yeah, I'm sure he's flattered that Time Magazine thinks he's so important, and they wrote a nice blurb about why he mattered in '08, but really? This picture is so awful! Now, I'm in the minority of people who actually don't think Michael Phelps is a bad looking man. I mean, yeah his face is kinda long and he looks kinda underdeveloped in certain lights, but overall, he's like goofy looking (not always a negative thing) and hence oddly cute.

But even I am appalled by this photo. The constricting goggles, the weird bug-like effect the eyewear creates, the thick neck, the dumb expression...do you really need me to go on?? And this comes at the heel of another 'We're honoring you man, but uh, we're also going to torture you at the same time' awful picture- his Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year cover. Yuck, yuck, yuck. I don't know, Michael... You might have had the best.year.ever, but I think this is just the beginning of your downfall! So, stop hanging around with Vegas cocktail waitresses, stop being douche-y, and get back in the pool and do what you do best!! And now I'm gonna go YouTube your exciting summer races to erase this awful image of you from my mind. Bleh.