I was born in 1968 and when Living Off The Wall came out, I did, indeed, "fall in love".
When he took that terrible turn down the weird and damning path, I ignored it all and tried to live with the memory of the MJ I fell in love with. It was difficult.
Thanks for writing a piece that is so "spot on" Hortense!
I was just talking about this to my friends younger sister. Its not that its trying to be said that the younger people don't "get" MJ, like I told her, you can't grasp what a HUGE fucking star he was in the early 80s.
You hear "King of Pop" and it probably has as much relevance as Howard Stern being the "King of All Media".
MJ WAS the King of Pop for quite awhile, he was phenomenon. Thriller was the HUGEST selling album of ALL TIME for quite awhile.
I would imagine its hard to understand if you are younger because there are pop stars but there aren't mega stars like MJ anymore, there are a lot more people on your radar whose careers are much shorter lived.
I feel like MJ was the closest thing to the Beatles my generation ever had. I was never a superfan but he was inescapable. From the red "Beat It" jacket to the glove, to the moonwalk, he was larger than life and EVERYWHERE.
The weird anti-social guy was a totally different person than the star he was in the 80s.
I've said several times that I feel for his family and his children. I also said I'm sorry he died. And I apologized to hortense for jumping the gun with my comment. So continue the hate if you must, but you might want to read all of my comments before you criticize.
And I'll say it again: I'm sorry if I offended any Jacko fans. Cheers.
"I've seen people writing things like, "I feel like my childhood died," which is, of course, code for: "I just realized that there really is no going back and I'm mortal just like everybody else."
The night MJ died, I spent a half hour watching videos on YouTube, then I curled up in bed next to my husband and just stared at the ceiling. It took a few minutes but I finally figured out why I felt so wretched about the whole thing - it was just the latest in a series of events that have confirmed for me that I am in fact no longer young, that I am an adult, that I will one day die, and that I do not much of a say over when or where I will die.
It's all stuff I knew intellectually but when I guess it took having my first childhood idol die of a drug overdose to really hammer those truths home.
So even though I mourn the loss of MJ - although truthfully, he's been gone for nearly two decades now - what I am really mourning is the loss of my youth. I am not really sure how to deal with that, frankly. I know I certainly did not expect something like the death of a pop star to make me ponder my own mortality, that's for sure.
I think people get overly upset about the fact that the mourning over his death his on par with some kind of hero worship. I wasn't some HUGE MJ fan. I mean I liked his music but I wasn't one of those people who would be screaming and crying if they saw him on stage. But I don't see how anyone can deny the fact that this was not just a popular entertainer. MJ is a flat out world wide cultural icon. You really don't see how he can be compared to Elvis? People know the words to MJ songs the same way they know the words to Happy Birthday- all over the world. They are just that ingrained. I think for most people he was more icon than actual human being. Hearing he died is like hearing there's no more Barbie. From a pop-culture stand point that is just huge.
@librariesare4lovers: Even if he hadn't made amazing music, videos, and dance routines, the simple fact that he integrated MTV and pop radio would be reason enough to note his passing. It's downright mindboggling today to remember that MTV didn't play videos by black artists.
(Granted, it's a little mindboggling to remember that MTV used to play videos, but hey.)
@la.donna.pietra: I heard a snippet of an interview with Ebony last night where he was talking about how proud he was (and shocked) that he was able to get them to play his videos after they'd turned him down so many times, and how pleased he was when they started playing Prince shortly after. I'd never heard that before. It was pretty cool.
For me, it was the plastic surgery. MJ started *really* messing with his looks right about the same time that I was an awkward teenager with epically bad skin. I could empathize with his desire to change his appearance; from what I understand, it started with really bad acne, too. One of the reasons why I've never gotten dermabrasion or laser resurfacing (despite a lot of pressure from my mom to do so) is because I've seen what it can end up doing to skin pigmentation on a very large scale. I'm pale enough already, thank you.
On the one hand, I firmly believe that people should be able to do whatever they want with their own bodies. That degree of plastic surgery is not that much different from various other extreme forms of body modification. He went way over the line and into the next county, though.
Oddly enough, it's made me more content with my own lot in life. I have a lot of facial scars, but there isn't much to be done about them that won't potentially make my appearance a lot worse. Living with that is really not so bad.
Although I sympathize with the loss that many of you feel, I am a child of the 80's who absolutely never got Jackson at all. Even less so as he spiraled into unadulterated weirdness. I'm already sick to death of the coverage. I hope it's over soon, but I may have to skip all media for the next 30 days or so.
@whitelie: Dude, I was a fan and I am DYING over the coverage.
But then again I work in the media, and I kind of have to pay attention for my job. But still. The constant AP updates - "Moving vans are at the house! So is Janet!" - are killing me.
06/28/09
06/28/09
06/27/09
When he took that terrible turn down the weird and damning path, I ignored it all and tried to live with the memory of the MJ I fell in love with. It was difficult.
Thanks for writing a piece that is so "spot on" Hortense!
06/27/09
06/27/09
06/27/09
06/27/09
06/27/09
06/27/09
06/27/09
And I'll continue to post on this thread as long as I like. But hey, you are welcome to skip my posts, much like I'll skip yours. Problem solved!
06/27/09
You hear "King of Pop" and it probably has as much relevance as Howard Stern being the "King of All Media".
MJ WAS the King of Pop for quite awhile, he was phenomenon. Thriller was the HUGEST selling album of ALL TIME for quite awhile.
I would imagine its hard to understand if you are younger because there are pop stars but there aren't mega stars like MJ anymore, there are a lot more people on your radar whose careers are much shorter lived.
I feel like MJ was the closest thing to the Beatles my generation ever had. I was never a superfan but he was inescapable. From the red "Beat It" jacket to the glove, to the moonwalk, he was larger than life and EVERYWHERE.
The weird anti-social guy was a totally different person than the star he was in the 80s.
06/27/09
Anyway. Our differences make the world go 'round.
06/27/09
And I'll say it again: I'm sorry if I offended any Jacko fans. Cheers.
06/27/09
"I've seen people writing things like, "I feel like my childhood died," which is, of course, code for: "I just realized that there really is no going back and I'm mortal just like everybody else."
The night MJ died, I spent a half hour watching videos on YouTube, then I curled up in bed next to my husband and just stared at the ceiling. It took a few minutes but I finally figured out why I felt so wretched about the whole thing - it was just the latest in a series of events that have confirmed for me that I am in fact no longer young, that I am an adult, that I will one day die, and that I do not much of a say over when or where I will die.
It's all stuff I knew intellectually but when I guess it took having my first childhood idol die of a drug overdose to really hammer those truths home.
So even though I mourn the loss of MJ - although truthfully, he's been gone for nearly two decades now - what I am really mourning is the loss of my youth. I am not really sure how to deal with that, frankly. I know I certainly did not expect something like the death of a pop star to make me ponder my own mortality, that's for sure.
06/27/09
06/27/09
06/27/09
(Granted, it's a little mindboggling to remember that MTV used to play videos, but hey.)
06/27/09
06/27/09
06/27/09
On the one hand, I firmly believe that people should be able to do whatever they want with their own bodies. That degree of plastic surgery is not that much different from various other extreme forms of body modification. He went way over the line and into the next county, though.
Oddly enough, it's made me more content with my own lot in life. I have a lot of facial scars, but there isn't much to be done about them that won't potentially make my appearance a lot worse. Living with that is really not so bad.
06/27/09
06/27/09
On behalf of both me and Paul, I hope he lives to be 133.
06/27/09
I was inconsolable when Johnny Cash died. Inconsolable.
06/27/09
I'll just wait my turn for exclaiming how [insert celeb name] was really such a nasty person and can we move on now?
06/27/09
06/27/09
06/27/09
But then again I work in the media, and I kind of have to pay attention for my job. But still. The constant AP updates - "Moving vans are at the house! So is Janet!" - are killing me.
06/27/09
But I didn't run around yelling at everyone to shut up about Johnny Cash.
06/27/09
Sorry about your dog. Losing a pet is so hard. I have a very lame dog, and it upsets me to think about her dying.