Pynx Media’s round up of the most influential figures and movements of the past year.
Gina Miller
As the Supreme Court delivered its judgement on Gina Miller’s legal challenge to the UK Government’s triggering of Article 50 in January, Miller manages to sneak it into this year’s honours list. With the Court agreeing with Miller that only the UK Parliament has the authority to trigger Article 50, she has been described as having “done more in practice to defend the principle of parliamentary supremacy than any MP”- no small feat for a non-politician during one of the most constitutionally and politically turbulent times in recent UK history. The reverberation of the court’s decision was immediately felt, rocking the perception of Theresa May as a safe pair of hands and continues to impact on the UK Government’s ability to steer the UK through negotiations with the EU. It is difficult to imagine one single person who has had more impact on Brexit so far.
#metoo
Following the October New York Times expose of the decades of sexual assault and harrassment perpetrated by and covered up by Harvey Weinsten, the hashtag #metoo, first used by Tarana Burke in 2008, was used by actress Alyssa Milano in a tweet that encouraged female users to use the hashtag to give a sense of the magnitude of everyday experiences of sexual assault. Thousands replied to Milano’s tweet, and in the first 24 hours 4.7m people had engaged in the conversation on Facebook, with over 12m posts, comments and reactions.
As the viral movement grew, what became clear were the distinct imbalances of power at the top of many industries that existed, allowing serial offenders to harass over several decades, and enabling men to cover up accusations.
Yet, perhaps the most meaningful part of the online movement was the creation of a global connected space that empowered women, and some men, to share their experiences, reinvigorating the public discussion of gendered power imbalances that continue to prevail. #metoo had one of the most profound impacts on 2017, the effects of which will no doubt continue on into the new year.
Donald Trump
As was inevitable with a self obsessed and deeply narcissistic man taking on one of the most powerful offices in the world, much of the world’s news coverage of the past year has revolved around Donald Trump, and his megalomania. Trump’s domestic legislative record is woeful, despite his claims to the contrary, and his first year in office has resulted in America becoming an increasingly isolated state. Trump’s most significant impact this year has been to tear up the rule book for domestic politics and international diplomacy. Threatening opposition politicians, insulting foreign leaders, Trump’s tweets are fired out with increasing desperation as Muller’s investigation gets ever closer. American politics may take some time to recover from the Trump Train.
Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos has had a successful 2017, by many accounts. After finialising the take over deal of WholeFoods by Amazon in June, Bezos briefly became the world’s richest man, and his drive as CEO of Amazon throughout the year has seen stock prices soar. Its share of the e-commerce sector is projected to amount to 44% of every e-commerce dollar spent in America, while it became the fifth-largest digital-ad platform in the USA. Providing Amazon Web Services to sites like Netflix, Hulu and airbnb, under Bezos Amazon has become a major player in an increasingly diverse market.
With a relentless energy for innovation and disruption, Bezos has given Amazon an cut throat edge, and it is perhaps no significiant stretch of the imagination to envisage a future in which Amazon has taken over the world.
Xi Jingping
Inducted into the Chinese Communist Party inner pantheon of party leadersalongside Mao and Deng, in 2017 Xi has strengthened his hold over the world’s most populous nation. Adding a new body of political thought to the Chinese constitution, Xi established himself as the most important CCP leadersince Mao and, in doing so, set out his claim for the most powerful man on the planet. With Trump’s belligerent and erratic diplomatic style not instilling confidence in America’s allies, Xi has taken to filling the voids left behind. Xi has forged stronger ties with Asian countries like Japan, while also expanding military bases into the South China Sea. Xi has pleged Chinese committment to the Paris Accord and delivers large infrastructure projects to poor countries. In a deeply uncertain year, Xi has positioned China and himself as a dominant force in world politics.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
With the release of ‘We were eight years in power’, Ta-Nehisi Coates has a substantive claim to having written one of the most influential books of 2017. A collection of The Atlantic essays written during Obama’s years in office, Coates provides a profoundly insightful evaluation of white-black power politics in contemporary America. Building on a comprehensive history of race relations throughout American history, Coates interweaves a gripping analysis of American race relations with his own personal reflections, setting one chapter within each year of Obama’s presidency. We were.. is an thoroughly engaging read and offers a thought provoking breakdown of Trump’s election in November of last year. If you haven’t read it, now is the time.
Conor McGregor
The McGregor-Mayweather fight was relentlessly billed as the biggest of the century, and while it was widely held not to live up to the hype, no one can argue with McGregor’s talent for self-promotion. A skilled MMA fighter who has held title belts in two divisions, McGregor is as well known for his quick tongue as his quick fists. McGregor heralded his cross-over from MMA to boxing as a revolutionary new chapter in fighting sports, and used the fight to build his already impressive brand as the most recognisable sportsman of 2017. Accusations of racism failed to halt McGregor’s momentum, and with a documentary film released in November, McGregor looks set to continue to exert his influence over fighting sports and entertainment well into 2018.
Elon Musk
As visionaries go, few come close to Elon Musk. With the self-proclaimed vision of changing the world and humanity, the ambitious innovator who heads up Tesla, SpaceX and The Boring Company has had a record breaking 2017. SpaceX made significant steps towards Musk’s mission to colonise Mars, becoming the first privately funded company to re-launch and land the first stage of an used orbital rocket and the first re-flight of a commercial cargo spacecraft. Tesla launched its Model 3, which will be able to run for 200 miles on a single charge, ahead of schedule in July and released the eagerly anticipated new Roadster, “the fastest production car ever made”. In October, Musk announced that The Boring Company would construct a tunnel between Baltimore and Washington, with the Hyperloop journey helping to provide high speed transportation.
No wonder Musk is reported to get just 4 hours sleep a night.
Take a knee
A protest started by the then solitary figure of Colin Kapernick in 2016 over police brutality and racial inequality in America, the take-a-knee protest spread throughout NFL games in 2017. Amid an increasingly divided and hostile political environment, large numbers of NFL players decided to take a knee before the game. Drawing harsh criticism from an embattled Trump, NFL stadiums became a proxy battle ground for America’s wider political debates. Images of NFL players, knelt, with heads bowed and arms locked in solidarity, will be some of the most memorable from a highly charged year.
Angela Merkel
Having reluctantly inherited the role as leader of the free world following Trump’s election in 2016, Angela Merkel has had a tough 2017. Faced with the inevitable fallout of the UK’s exit from the European Union, Merkel has been charged as the leading politician to steady the ship, a task helped somewhat with the election of Europhile Emmanuel Macron. Often surrounded this year by belicose and difficult European leaders, and with Trump in the White House, Merkel has continued to stand out as a a calm and serious international leader, a politician driven by pragmatism and an unshakable belief in the European project.
Facing down a growing domestic anti-immigrant sentiment that has also swept Europe, Merkel managed a recent win in a hard fought election. Still with no coalition agreement in place for German government, 2018 looks to be another challenging year for Merkel.
Nobel Physics Prize Winners 2017
In a year so often marked by negative news, the 2017 Nobel Prize for Physics was awarded to Rainer Weiss, Barry Barish and Kip Thorne for their work on the LIGO experiment was a welcome piece of significant scientic progress. The observation for the first time of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime first anticipated by Albert Einstein, was described by Prof Olga Botner, a member of the Nobel committee for physics, as “a discovery that shook the world”. The strongest waves are caused by catastrophic events, and the LIGO detector enables scientists to “see” what was previously invisible. As the detector develops, it will allow scientists to look further into the universe and gain insights into its origin.
