Michael Jackson Fans Are Stranger Than Him

IRockUrSocks

I don't feel sorry for Michael Jackson. It’s hard to think of a celebrity who had less to do with the real world than him. In the real world, you don’t have pet llamas or roller coasters in your back garden. In the real world, if you’re 400 million in debt, people aren’t still lending you money. In the real world, you don’t buy human bones, wear lipstick as a man or sleep with other people’s children in your bedroom.

Still, as soon as he died, he — whom fans helped chase into his own private Neverland — was embraced as if he lived next door and inspired us every day.

The hypocrisy of the TV mourning is hard to stomach. Seeing Al Sharpton laud Jackson as some major civil rights activist or Christie Hefner celebrate his amazing business acumen is bad enough. (If he were so smart, how come he was so broke?) But the whitewash of opinion being spouted by the public outdoes anything he ever tried to do to his looks.

Weeks ago, when he was still alive, Jackson was perceived as a desperate, grotesque, off-the-radar, once-great performer turned weird, pathetic, possibly criminal and unable to sell records the way he once did.

A day later, he was a world-healer, a joy-spreader, a one-of-a-kind man of magic.

I know death has a way of aggrandizing life. But some of the same people mourning the King of Pop for the TV cameras didn’t do a whole lot for him while he was still here.

I won’t be a hypocrite and say sweet singing and dazzling dancing give you a free pass—especially if it involved abusing children. I will say it seemed almost predestined that he’d walk a strange path. But let’s be honest. Celebrating MJ more in death than in life doesn’t honor him. If anything, calling him Wacko Jacko, chronicling his surgically enhanced face and making him a national joke, then weeping for TV cameras about how much we’ll miss him makes us seem, for the moment, even stranger than him.

Who agrees?

Random

The guys dead, why are we still talking about him? Haven't we had enough Jacko threads at this stage?

It's another person dead. That's all.

Shane St.

A lot of them are over the top/ bordering on cult obsession

Acacia

Your post was more of a go at Jackson than his fans...?

Anyway, yes, some of the more 'devoted' ones are actually quite fanatical in their devotion to him...it's a bit un-nerving.

IRISH RAIL

There was a mj tribute night in the pub i was in you should have seen them all dressed up like him there was one guy in all the thriler leather :eek:

blow69

In the real world, you don’t buy human bones

If you're referring to The Elephant Mans bones, you're wrong. He didn't buy them.

and unable to sell records the way he once did.

Who can?


I know this is isn't the main point you're getting across, but just wanted to point it out.

I am a big Michael Jackson fan. Always have been, always will be. I never made fun of him so that doesn't make me a hypocrite who suddenly has this morbid fascination for him.

Maybe it's strange that you feel the need to start another thread about him, however.

It's been done to death. Let it go.