Keanu Reeves fans have begun a campaign to get him named as Time Magazine's 2019 Person of the Year. The Hollywood actor's star power has risen this year, winning new fans for his performance in the John Wick movies and as the character Johnny Silverhand in the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077.
On social petition site change.org, a user named "John Doe" is calling for Keanu Reeves to be Time's 2019 Person of the Year, as he is the "most wholesome person alive." It's not known which of Reeves' performances this year led the anonymous user to create the petition, but the actor's presentation at the Xbox press conference at E3 2019 was named one of the most wholesome moments of the annual industry event.
John Doe created the petition a week ago, and it has quickly logged more than 10,000 signs. Many of the signatures on the petition have come in the last 24 hours, as fans of the actor have shared it on social media. A few of the people signing do seem to be Cyberpunk 2077 fans who watched Reeves call a fan "breathtaking" on stage at E3 2019. A user named "Awais Majeed" says "of course I'll be signing [sic] hes breathtaking after all," while a user named Lena Ricken calls Reeves a "breathtaking, immortal [smol] bean."
Some other signatures say he deserves the award because of how hard working he is. Reeves is a very busy man, and in Cyberpunk 2077, he has the second most amount of dialogue, after the player character. Developer CD Projekt RED estimates that Reeves' has recorded two weeks of dialogue for the game as well as the motion capture he has done for the character.
Time famously doesn't look at fan opinions when making its decision about Person of the Year. The publication does hold an online poll, but the winner of that poll isn't automatically the winner of the award. The decision is made by Time's editors. There are also six more months until Time will be announcing who its Person of the Year 2019 is, meaning that, as a character in Cyberpunk 2077 or the man behind John Wick, Reeves will have to sustain this popularity.
Not that it can't be done. Time may not give people the award because of what fans are saying, but the magazine does follow pop culture. Ninja, the record-breaking Fortnite Twitch streamer, was crowned as one of the world's most influential people by Time, so Reeves may well stand a chance of getting the Person of the Year award.
Source: change.org