I was ready to go H.A.M. on Time for copping out and condescending to American audiences, mushing together the brutal visceral reality that is war and political dissent into one puffy word-clouded (neutralized) “protester”—the “You” of 2011—until a quick Google set me straight. Seems that this sort of thing happens every 5-7 years.

• 1950: The American Fighting Man
• 1956: The Hungarian Freedom Fighter
• 1960: American Scientists
• 1966: Baby Boomers
• 1969: The Middle Americans
• 1975: American women
• 1982: The computer (?!)
• 1988: The endangered Earth
• 2003: The American soldier
• 2006: You
• 2011: The protester