Ryan Gosling is TIME‘s ‘Coolest Person of the Year’

In the shadow of TIME magazine’s anointment of the generic protester as 2011′s “Person of the Year,”columnist Joel Stein has engineered his very own personal side-honor category.

After careful consideration, Stein decided that the combined impact of four very different movies and bravura personal behavior outweighed such troublesome downsides as Canadian origins, a Mouseketeer connection and some homeschooling. As a result, Ryan Gosling is his choice for “Coolest Person of the Year:”

We have no idea how Gosling will deal with this honor. A tattoo seems like the obvious way to go, though a commemorative diorama would probably be good enough for a spot on Access Hollywood. But that’s not why we pick a Coolest Person of the Year. We do it for the journalism.

Stein doesn’t think fans of Bradley Cooper will mount a protest, just as Gosling supporters did when People elected the former as “Sexiest Man Alive.” But just in case, he identifies the best street corner at the base of his magazine’s NYC headquarters on which to congregate.

[Photo: Cinemafestival/Shutterstock.com]

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