r/decadeology • u/247Twunk • Sep 05 '26
Discussion 💭🗯️ I wasn’t old enough to remember. How impactful was MJs dead news?
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u/an0nymyss Sep 05 '26
It felt like all everyone talked about that summer and later into the year. Farah Fawcett who died the same day barely got any attention. His live televised funeral was watched by more than 31 million people. His music was everywhere and social media wasn’t nearly what it is today. My little cousins learned his entire discography that summer because videos and music and This Is It was everywhere. People who had previously dogged him in the media, suddenly had nice things to say. He was the topic of conversation again when the Conrad Murray trial was underway too. It was basically Michael Mania and mass mourning. I remember the day clearly too because I was in a car moving to another city and it rained heavily the whole day
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u/fayemoonlight Sep 05 '26
It was watched by 1.5-3 billion people worldwide. And this is before streaming was accessible
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u/an0nymyss Sep 05 '26
Thank you for this! I was quoting the USA numbers but this is pretty important. It was probably one of the last truly monoculture events outside of Covid
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u/jiffy-loo Sep 05 '26
I came here to mention Farah Fawcett, but I knew she would’ve been mentioned already
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u/Fickle-Primary-3910 Sep 05 '26
Came here for this very reason as well. I remember the news of her passing that morning and all the tributes on tv. Then Michael was said to be hospitalized and it took all the attention away. But when TMZ confirmed his death hours before the “respectable” news outlets, shit turned into like a firestorm
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u/jiffy-loo Sep 05 '26
I remember that day so clearly too. I remember my mom crying about it, I was in shock because he was still relatively young, and I’m pretty sure I had nightmares over it (I don’t know why, the subconscious is weird like that)
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u/robbiegoodwin Sep 05 '26
I kinda thing farah fawcett's death was a lot more newsworthy than it would have been because it was so close to michael
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u/Common-Pepper-9677 Sep 05 '26
I remember vh1 and mtv playing Michael all day for the following week
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u/Packrat1010 Sep 05 '26
I feel like people don't understand the irony behind Farah Fawcett as much. Her death was anticipated a mile away and it was pretty consistent news coverage in the months and weeks leading up to it. I might be a little jaded, but it was more or less her last bit of attention from the news.
She died, the news somberly covered it for about 2 hours, then Jackson's death was announced and it was all over.
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u/MellowYellow212 Sep 05 '26
I was at the Mall of America when this happened, sitting on a bench. Like clockwork, I noticed that people were showing up everywhere and putting up kiosks. Dozens and dozens of kiosks just deployed in the hallways of the Mall of America, full to the brim with Michael Jackson merch. Then I looked on Facebook and saw that he had died. I’ve always wondered what other celebrity merch stashes they have just waiting to go.
But to answer your question it was huge. National news. Second only to Princess Di in my lifetime, I think.
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u/sdk676 Sep 05 '26
Ah.. Princess Di, that was the one for me. Just so sad overall.
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u/klayman69 Sep 05 '26
I still saw Princess Di merchandise when I went to England earlier this year. Didn’t know she was this popular.
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u/St2Crank Sep 05 '26
To be fair only tourists by that shit
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u/Expensive-Candidate4 Sep 05 '26
British royallists will buy the commemorative items, such as Queen’s Jubilee or a Royal Wedding plate or mug, especially the older generations.
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u/DrPoooooole Sep 05 '26
Second to none. I was around for both
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u/Gamblor14 Sep 05 '26
I guess I personally remember the Princess Di death being way bigger news than Michael Jackson.
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u/LimeSalty4092 Sep 05 '26
Yeah the MJ death news broke around noon on a Tuesday
Workday for many people and the last day of school for many kids
Regardless it was a lunchtime/daytime weekday breaking story
Princess Di news, by contrast, broke around 11pm east coast in America on a Saturday
In fact, they broke into Saturday Night Live with the news
So a weekend overnight news break. At the end of summer
While MJ was midday at the beginning of summer
So the way the world reacted was different due to timing
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u/Longjumping_Deer3435 Sep 05 '26
My French Canadian co-worker announced it to the office “well, My-kel Jecksun’s ded.”
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u/Longjumping_Deer3435 Sep 05 '26
Later I took the bus home and people were listening to his music everywhere. People were hanging out on the streets in front of their apartments and homes wearing merch and displaying albums. It was unifying.
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u/rbuen4455 Sep 05 '26
summer of '09, in 9th grade. The entire summer it was covered nonstop on TV, reruns of some of his music videos (I remember music videos such as ABC, Thriller, You're Not Alone, playing while I was at the barber)
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u/the-world-awake Sep 05 '26
They even brought back Captain EO at Disneyland for several years which was a choice.
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u/OdeToBlueRofl Sep 05 '26
I was also in 9th grade! It was the day of our middle school grad going into highschool and we all found out while getting ready. The news was literally everywhere for weeks and thats actually when I first got into his music
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u/jduisi Sep 05 '26
Michael Jackson died on my birthday. Every text I got that day was "oh my God Michael Jackson died!!" And then a couple minutes later "oh happy birthday"
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u/BeautifulStream Sep 05 '26
He died a few days before my birthday and I remember thinking I was glad that he didn't die ON my birthday, because then my birthday would forever be known as "the day Michael Jackson died." Sorry that you got that experience...
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u/cottonjoeeye Sep 05 '26
A family friend was born (I was in the hospital waiting) literally as MJ died. lol
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u/isdalwoman Sep 05 '26
He died the day before my 17th birthday and I had a very similar experience. I went on a mini vacation with friends for a week to get away from the barrage of Michael Jackson and still couldn’t. Then Billy Mays died right after that while I was at my friends’ place. Couldn’t win!
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u/Jaded-Channel-7169 Sep 05 '26
Yeah I wasn’t old enough either but my dad said it was everywhere. He said he was in the library on the computer. And all of sudden there was like an alert on his computer screen that just said “The King Of Pop has passed away” and he was freaking out like no it can’t be and then very shortly after everyone was talking about it.
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u/Fickle-Primary-3910 Sep 05 '26
I was at work, & a guy who I worked with that barely spoke English came in and said plainly “MICHAEL JACKSON….DEAD”. And he walked off crying. My manager at the time said only way we’ll know is the radio. Literally EVERY STATION were playing a Michael Jackson song of some sort. I’m in NYC so anyone who knows CD 101.9 know it’s a soft jazz station that barely play music with words. Yet Human Nature was playing on that station. That’s when we knew it was real
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u/notwriqhtsvillc Sep 05 '26
i wasn’t quite old enough (going into kindergarten) to remember when michael died, but i vividly remember being in the after-school program the following winter and an older kid i was around receiving the this is it dvd for his birthday! he was debating with one of the teachers if he should open it early or not.
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u/Admirable-Ad3408 Sep 05 '26
Like Dolly Parton last week times ten
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Sep 05 '26
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u/cwatson426 Sep 05 '26
I mean MJ’s death was unexpected and premature, Dolly’s death was more or less on time.
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u/crowsloft666 Sep 05 '26
While it's a genuinely horrible comparison the way I saw everyone react, it kinda felt similar to 9/11. Much lesser scale but it had the same ambiance
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u/Kitchen-Pass-7493 Sep 05 '26
I dunno. Probably depends on your demographic because for me I remember it being in the news and people talking about it right when it happened, but it hardly seemed like it captivated the nation for weeks and weeks. I remember 9/11 being all the news talked about for months after it happened.
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u/TF-Fanfic-Resident 1960's fan Sep 05 '26
MJ dying was a pure breaking news event, while 9/11 (and to an even greater extent COVID) were much more of a slow burn situation where there were constant new developments for years afterwards.
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u/Automatic_Cry6019 Sep 05 '26
9/11 was not a slow burn at all. The world saw the Twin Towers both collapse on live TV in real time. It was extensively covered in the media for weeks. It has led to several wars around the world with massive consequences around the world.
MJ's death was a bit shocking, but unless you were a massive fan it was not a big deal by comparison..
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u/whatevergirl8754 Sep 05 '26
The 9/11 thing was big in the US, for the rest of the world MJ’s death was much bigger
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u/Ichoseguitar Mid 2010s were the best Sep 05 '26
I'm still sad about this at least she lived a long life :/
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u/robbiegoodwin Sep 05 '26
Honestly it doesn’t even compare. It was more like robin williams
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u/kytheon Sep 05 '26
RW was amazing but nowhere near MJ in world popularity.
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u/robbiegoodwin Sep 05 '26
I was using the death as a point of comparison for OP who might have lved through it but not MJ. Besides michael Ithink rw and kobe are the only two that felt like they stopped the world in my lifetime. in terms of global news impact it was probably more like OJ's white bronco chase lol.
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u/kytheon Sep 05 '26
RW and MJ died about five years apart, not that big of a difference.
As a non-American I couldn't care less about KB but he notably died shortly before Covid.
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u/DrPoooooole Sep 05 '26
That really doesn't compare either. It was inescapable. All his songs on the radio all summer long. People talked about it constantly for a long time. I can't remember a bigger celebrity passing in my life time. Princess Diana was very big and this was still way bigger
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u/jp3172001 Sep 05 '26
I was eight years old. It was a HUGE deal. For weeks and weeks only MJ videos played on MTV and VH1. On the radio too.
I was at my grandfather’s barbershop and saw it on the Spanish news. The whole barbershop was talking about it, in Spanish. Doesn’t matter where you’re from, it was a big deal. It’s one of those moments I will never forget.
Unfortunately, this is how I became a big fan. I had heard of him before but nobody ever introduced me to his music. I remember feeling upset that I didn’t get to explore him sooner, but at the time it was the age of CD’s. By the time his funeral came around I was BALLING, especially when Paris spoke.
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u/p0tgirlsummer Sep 05 '26
I remember he had died and it was a really big deal. I was 9. A couple months later my family was chatting on the back porch and i overheard my aunt say she was 9 when elvis died and i chimed in "i was 9 when michael jackson died!" And my whole family laughed at me. I'm sure it was just funny to them because i was still 9.
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u/wencytheintern Sep 05 '26
I was at school, I was 12 years old and we didnt have phones or connections to the news and ongoings in the world except for rumors and murmurs from teachers and students. Basically I can remember that first day of rumors it being widely acceptable to still make the same jokes and mockery of his life that people had made for years, and almost felt normal as a kid to pile onto without a second thought. The next day however, after kids had gone home and presumably spoke with their parents about him as an artist and icon, the tone completely changed many kids and teachers were openly grieving the loss of Michael Jackson and that was basically what I remember.
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u/secondopinionosychic Sep 05 '26
I remember exactly where I was when I heard it on the radio. It was a huge event for monoculture.
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u/the-world-awake Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
Huge, probably globally. I was in India about 3 years after his death and saw a newspaper clipping about it tacked to a wall. Could still be there for all I know.
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u/IllusionsbyGOB Sep 05 '26
He was destined to die young, if 50 is young.
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u/wikipediareader Sep 05 '26
50s young if you're twenty or more years older and old if you're twenty or more years younger.
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u/Vegetable_Size_8066 Sep 05 '26
I remember when they announced that his autopsy confirmed his vitiligo and people were like, “oh, we had no idea.” 🙄 People were so shitty about him and then had the gall to get all weepy when he was gone.
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u/thecowboypigeon Sep 05 '26
Americans remember where they were in 9/11, people everywhere in the world remember how they found out about Michael's death. Probably comparable to Christmas in Christian countries
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u/Twitter_2006 Sep 05 '26
The internet crashed and stock markets crashed too.
It was massive.
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u/Accomplished_Put2608 Sep 05 '26
God I remember that. People couldn't look up if it was real or prank.
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u/kosmos1209 Sep 05 '26
I’m 46 yo, and I only remember Google going down twice: on 9/11, and Michael Jackson death.
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u/SluttyDreidel Sep 05 '26
I was 15 when this happened.
The media totally forgot about the accusations, the trials and the media frenzied that reported on them. Almost overnight, his entire image was sanitized and it remained that way until Leaving Neverland
Adult contemporary radio stations played MJ songs that they otherwise wouldn’t have.
Given how disgraced he had become and how younger audiences had basically only known him as the punchline for a joke, he garnered a lot of interest from me.
Don’t know what it was like for other young people but I’d say the fact that he’d never make another song again got younger people who didn’t know him before he was irreparably damaged by the accusations very interested and seeking to look over his work.
My grandmother was a big MJ fan but even she was dismayed at how much and for how long the media coverage around Michael Jackson’s death was. Saying something to effect “there were so many other stories going on in the world at that time that the news chose to ignore by covering MJs death.
From what I recall, you couldn’t escape a mention of Michael’s passing from news media until August. Michael died on June 25.
Social media was still mostly the domain of young people , teenagers and 20 something who were rather disconnected from older people and relatives, unlike today. So a lot of the takes people had of the situation were sort of isolated and not influenced by people who weren’t close to you in age.
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u/Oldandhalfdead Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
Well i will say the opposite. Kids now are more disconnected, back in the day you actually did stuff together as a family and not as now looking at the screen 24/7 . 2009 most ppl already was on fb and others at least in Sweden.
As you say it was all over the news and ppl talked about it everywhere, I was in Prague when it happened ppl of all ages was gathering outside to celebrate him. I was 28 when it happened and I saw him live when i was 14
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u/JazzmatazZ4 Sep 05 '26
It was seriously as if royalty had died.
The most famous man in the world. Even in the UK we wouldn't stop hearing about it for weeks.
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u/Erling01 Sep 05 '26
I remember I asked my parents who the most famous man in the world was, and they said Michael Jackson. When he died a few years later, it was huge in Norway.
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u/Liuniam Sep 05 '26
I was about 8 so i didn’t notice all the news and papers. But my family was a huge fan, kids at my school were sad people were talking about it for what felt like forever.
I recently watched a video where one of Micheal’s brothers found out that he had died from someone on the street just going around and telling people that he had died. Hearing that was jarring and i feel gives good context to how big it was
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u/Skybliviwind Sep 05 '26
let me put it to you like this. it was about as everywhere in the news in 2009 as 9/11 was in 2001. the media made it seem like a national tragedy even tho it was just one dead guy. guess that goes to show how much of an impact he had...
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u/Brett_Hulls_Foot Sep 05 '26
If they don’t understand MJ’s death, they for sure as shit don’t understand the impact of 9/11.
I’d say it’s like the death of Kobe but x 10.
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u/Mammoth-Lobster2028 Sep 05 '26
Significantly bigger than Kobe. I don’t know if American’s understand Kobe is not the same level of famous outside of the states the way Michael Jackson is. Michael died and it was all you heard about in Australia for the rest of that year. I heard the news story about Kobe and that was it, Kobe’s death did not dominate international news for half a year internationally - no disrespect.
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u/SpezticAIOverlords Sep 05 '26
That same media was portraying MJ as a freak show right up to his death.
Don't get me wrong, there was a lot wrong with Jackson, and that's putting it mildly, but the way the media treated him before, only to shift to posthumous reverence, was disgusting.
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u/SmellGestapo Sep 05 '26
It's really hard to describe how big it was, but it was everywhere for weeks.
MJ had unprecedented global, cross-generational appeal. He was a Boomer and first found fame during the Boomer heyday of the late 60s and 70s with the Jackson 5. Then he broke out as a solo artist and hit global superstardom during the Generation X and Millennial heyday of the 80s, 90s, and early 00s.
There were also not many Greatest or Silent Gens still around, and the Zoomers were barely two years old. So America, and probably the world, in 2009 was at its peak as far as raw number of Michael Jackson fans. He meant something to probably 90% of the population.
Add onto that how sudden and shocking his death was. He was only 50, and not known to have serious health problems. He was scheduled for a London residency. He was filming a documentary. People were completely blindsided by his death.
When the news broke, you could not escape it for more than probably five minutes. Everybody's social media feeds were about MJ. TV and radio broke in to report it. His family held a public memorial service at Staples Center in Los Angeles. 1.6 million people applied for tickets through a lottery. Over a billion people watched it worldwide.
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u/IAmSquashaFears Y2K Forever Sep 05 '26
When i say that the world stopped for a whole day, i mean it, it was THIS impactful, everything and everyone stopped moving, nothing else mattered, i remember my mama calling me, crying hysterically, saying "MICHAEL JACKSON IS GONE" and acted like we lost a family member, his music was played everywhere for his honor and the news were filled with tributes throughout the whole day, the internet crashed down, stocks collapsed, the music world and pop culture as we once knew it has changed, it affected everyone in one way or another
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u/umbrella_crab Sep 05 '26
I had a computer virus that summer and it would cause audio from his funeral to play from some invisible program and I'd have to hard rebook the laptop to make it go away for a couple hours so I could watch south park episodes on sketchy streaming sites
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u/Horizontal247 Sep 05 '26
I was traveling abroad in Italy the August after he passed. EVERY generic souvenir kiosk in every city had MJ memorial stuff for sale. I remember seeing memorial signs etc. in shops a few times. As an American teen at the time I knew his death was impactful but I didn’t realize the global impact until that moment.
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u/Lost-Association-809 Sep 05 '26
It was a "world stop" sort of news moment. I was in music college and the day after everyone just sorta gathered in the cafeteria and it was 50/50 if you ended up having real class that day.
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u/ECKohns Sep 05 '26
It was massive. I remember. Tons of people stopped what they were doing to tune in and learn about it. And then look back on his life and career and celebrate him.
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u/DeterminedQuokka Sep 05 '26
It was an extremely big deal. As a kid who never grew up listening to his music and knew very little about him outside rumors. It was culturally significant enough to take over even most of my life at the time. I was 23.
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u/nivekreclems Sep 05 '26
The most famous person who ever existed died….it went pretty much how you would expect
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u/fenix4701 Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
The closest comparison in terms of magnitude is when the Queen died.
And even then MJ felt so much more tragic.
Liz lived her life.
Michael was only 50.
The closest comparison in terms of tragedy is probably Prince or Amy Winehouse or Kobe Bryant.
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u/iconoclastic_glow Sep 05 '26
I lived literally around the corner from the house where he died in Encino. (Most of the Jacksons had property in the area, Janet was even closer to us.) I was working from home when it came on the TV that he’d died. I didn’t think much of it - not a fan, grew up knowing he was ‘off.’ Then a couple of hours later I went to my local grocery store (which was on the opposite corner of an intersection, about two houses down was Michael’s place) and there were already trucks in the parking lot selling shirts with his image, his name and his date of birth AND death. Literally within two hours of his death being announced on the news. That felt very macabre.
The whole thing was incredibly disruptive for months. People came from everywhere around the world to just stand outside the gates and cry. The grocery store eventually pushed groceries into one corner and the rest was all flowers you could buy to take to place by the gates. I ended up doing my shopping elsewhere for about three months because these lunatic fans were there 24/7. It was certainly next level and not like any other celebrity death that occurred in my years in Los Angeles.
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Sep 05 '26
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u/Sampsonite20 Sep 05 '26
Yeah, I basically grew up in the era where MJ was a massive freak and living off of the royalties and nostalgia of his past.
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u/chubby-checker Sep 05 '26
Yeah tbh what I remember most about his death was how weird it was that everyone went from mocking him and treating him like this weirdo/joke of a person. To all of a sudden fawning over him and calling him the king of pop
Like was just super weird to see the attitude about him immediately change
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u/B-Train_ATL Sep 05 '26
When Kobe died, it was similar. About nobody mentioned how he kinda raped someone. Nope, it was all “Girl Dad” after that.
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u/Jaded-Channel-7169 Sep 05 '26
Michael was named the king of pop back in the 80s though to be fair. That wasn’t a new title after his death. Like he legit is the king of pop no debate no matter how much of a weirdo he was.
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u/prince_vorkken Sep 05 '26
They didn't say it was a new title. It was barely used in the 2000s in tabloids.
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u/idrinkwaterwithlemon Sep 05 '26
Heard he played a lot of Michael Jackson’s moonwalker on sega genesis to cope.
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u/kexavah558ask Sep 05 '26
I remember a long documentary on his life, as well as ongoing updates on the legal procedure against his doctor, on news channels here in Portugal. It's certaintly didn't happen with many other foreign artists. Nor with national ones, at that, unless they were very politically involved for the very long left-wing hegemony of the time.
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u/AccountForTIFF Sep 05 '26
I graduated high school the day before he died and the anniversary rolling around each year is the only reason I remember what day I graduated is how big it was.
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u/Dirk_Diggler_Kojak Sep 05 '26
I remember hearing it on the radio and watching the (extensive) coverage on CNN. Everybody was in shock in view of his relatively young age, although he had appeared frail and unwell during his trial.
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u/House-of-Suns Sep 05 '26
Nowadays really big news is always followed by a flood of viral memes and reactions on social media. MJs death was the first time I ever recall seeing that happen.
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u/VirtualRiot- Sep 05 '26
I was 10 there was a tv station that played MJ music videos all day for like a week straight n we had it on the whole time
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u/slayalldayerrday Sep 05 '26
Didn’t it break the internet (from people searching it up)? I was just a kid but I seem to remember that happening.
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u/techvq Sep 05 '26
When he passed I was working at IHOP in Rio Rancho NM. A server I worked with named Becky was crushed I remember her saying he was a part of all her “highs & lows” in life. She was truly devastated. I have never experienced the same kind of loss that she spoke of and I don’t know if I could handle it. I often wander how she is doing- it sad when people as special as she was with such a golden heart enter and exit our lives.
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u/JamesantheGiantBeach Sep 05 '26
I was on patrol in BFE Northern Iraq with the Marines.
We didn't know shit about anything. We still heard about it the day it happened.
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u/Old_Hamster_9425 Sep 05 '26
It was so impactful that Farrah Fawcett, who passed away on the same day barely got any attention
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Sep 08 '26
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u/paishocajun Sep 08 '26
I think MAAAAAYBE the next non-political celebrity death that will be as big is Paul McCartney and, as a life long Beatles fan, I doubt it. If he outlives Ringo I think there's a better chance but part of why Michael's death was so big was because he was still (relatively) young. Both Paul and Ringo are, well, old
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u/Accomplished-Union10 Sep 05 '26
The only thing I remember clearly was seeing memorial t-shirts for sale at the mall one day lmao
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u/AuguryKnox Sep 05 '26
There used to be a website called Sickipedia, which just had loads of bad-taste jokes, posted by users, about almost any subject. Whenever a celebrity died, the website would crash for a few hours (sometimes a whole day if it was a more well-known celebrity) because of the influx of people posting fresh, “relevant” jokes. When Michael Jackson died, the site was down for over a week.
Edit: spelling.
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u/under-yourskin Sep 05 '26
I was 10 but remember that day so clearly. I was with my mom and grandma and they were glued to the tv, shocked and in tears. I didn’t know who he was at the time but remember they showed pictures of him throughout his life and i was confused why they were showing two different people. (Not knowing they were all MJ). Then i went on the computer to watch all his music videos. A few days later when his memorial service was on tv I watched it with my mom. Seeing Paris Jackson, who is close in age to me, cry about her father dying effected me so deeply. I really will never forget seeing that. It sticks out to me the most in my memories about it.
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u/Boston_Terriers Sep 05 '26
I remember attending the Red Sox - Nationals game when the news broke out. Word started spreading amongst the crowd and plenty of people thought it was a rumor at first and chose not to believe it.
Spread of news and verifying authenticity of that news is a lot more efficient now with smartphones everywhere.
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u/AphexOnlyChild Sep 05 '26
It took me like 10 minutes since it was announced to find out. At the time I lived halfway across the world, and had just moved a couple of days prior so I still didn’t have internet, and I was getting texts from friends telling me about it. Maaany texts.
For about a couple of weeks his face was plastered everywhere, it was literally impossible to miss it. About eight months after, many tell-all books and crappy documentaries were still coming out. Honestly, I’ve never seen any celebrity death even remotely compare to the magnitude of his.
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u/matthew_sch 2000's fan Sep 05 '26
My mom made me watch the funeral on TV
I had no idea who MJ was at the time
I was 8 years old
That’s how impactful it was
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u/hnelsontracey Sep 05 '26 edited Sep 05 '26
I remember this very well. I was 17, and it was my first summer having access to my own car. So I was driving a lot and that was novel and exciting. I would go to the gym most days, and I would listen to FM radio because it was an old car and this was before your own music in cars was the norm. FM radio only played the same Top 40 songs where within about a week, you could guarantee it would be playing one of about 5-10 songs on rotation.
And then MJ dies. The radio DJ makes a big drumroll type thing, and basically says: "we're stopping all other programming and we're going to play a who slew of Michael Jackson music until further notice." And for the next hour in the car (I was in traffic, driving to my dad's house), it was only Michael Jackson music. It was clear we were being told by this radio station (and soon after, all the tv news channels) this was a BIG DEAL. For the rest of the summer, Michael Jackson songs joined the Top 40 rotation intermittently - wasn't all the time after the day of, but suddenly playing MJ music was important enough for these radio stations to do it regularly alongside whatever new hits were there.
Now for me, this was whack, because for people in my age range, Michael Jackson was purely the source of jokes about his child molestation. Most of us only half-heartedly knew his music but knew plenty of jokes about him and had no goodwill built up towards him. Even if he didn't do it, my first memory of hearing about Michael Jackson was that he dangled his baby over a balcony which was messed up anyway let alone whatever else he did behind closed doors. It then unlocked that as a kid at some theater camp (not an overnight one just like a summer club kinda thing), I remember there being one kid (named Michael) obsessed with Michael Jackson who knew all his moves. Otherwise, I'll be honest, I really didn't care about Michael Jackson. He was a punchline who had released some music, which may surprise people to hear who are younger to hear my indifference.
But the day he died, there was ZERO MENTION of the child molestation, the balcony incident, his plastic surgery (which was also a point of ridicule), his very weird relationships, all that was muzzled, it was tragedy narrative only. One of the telltales that came that day later was that on Amazon, every top selling CD (still a thing then barely) was an MJ CD. This was such a weird juxtaposition. To be quite honest I felt told to mourn someone who the day before I was told to make fun of (not literally but that's how it felt).
The rest of the summer and the year he was in the news, again all sympathetic. They released his documentary which I never saw but that got a lot of press. It was all but forgotten about his bad/questionable behavior.
And then Leaving Neverland finally brought that back out.
And then this new movie that just came out seems to have erased it.
So we go back and forth on it.
Again as someone who was just a little too young to know Michael Jackson prior to the controversies (and whose parents didn't care about him), his death and where I was in my life when it happened do feel like a major moment. Like the ones you kind of expect to be remembered forever like 9/11 or what have you, but I was now a teenager. And yet it was weird to me that it was centered around this guy.
Longer answer than I expected to write, but you hit a nerve for me. MJ's death was a weird one. Dude was weird anyway. He was a big deal but it took his death for him to get exalted again, there was some news story a few years ago about how much more valuable his estate became after he died. And they know it, hence why they made that movie to rewrite his history. So it's a weird monoculture event that I'll always remember well whether I cared about it or not.
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u/achocholko Sep 05 '26
Jacko’s death might have been bigger than Princess Diana in America, marginally, but Diana’s death is unquestionably the biggest news story death in UK history. Nothing can compare.
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u/jittery_raccoon Sep 05 '26
I will always remember it as the "Twitter death". Twitter had gotten really big that year, but only among tech people and young people. The news broke on Twitter first and then was spreading around the Internet. I forst heard about it on Reddit. I told my mom but she didn't believe me. It took hours and hours for regular news stations to report it and for my mom to finally believe me
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u/MattWolf96 Sep 05 '26
I was on a cruise, it seemed like a dark cloud came over the ship for a bit among the adults, I was 12, I wasn't that familiar with him at the time so I can't remember if the ship started playing is music or not. Billy Mays also died while on that trip.
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u/sentientcardigan Sep 05 '26
It's the kind of thing where you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you found out about it, if that gives you an idea.
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u/Rickyspanish6666 Sep 05 '26
I was in Kenya and armed guards stopped my vehicle at a checkpoint. After they realized we were American they nearly broke down in tears and started apologizing for the sadness of MJ's death. This was way out in the country with little to no infrastructure. That was how I learned of it
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u/TF-Fanfic-Resident 1960's fan Sep 05 '26
One of the most intense and monocultural events since 9/11. The internet actually struggled to keep up with all the traffic.
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u/ClosedContent Sep 05 '26
It was undoubtedly the biggest celebrity death of my lifetime. There were some big ones: Prince, Robin Williams, Chadwick Boseman, and mostly recently Dolly Parton.
But MJ’s death was like the shot around the world. Nonstop coverage, tributes, documentaries, etc. I felt like I finally had an understanding of what people went through when Elvis died when it actually happened.
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u/mrsdoubleu Sep 05 '26
It's one of those celebrity deaths where most people above a certain age remember where they were and how they heard the news. It was huge.
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u/SpinosaurRingTone Sep 05 '26
People remember where they were when they found out the same way they remember where they were on 9/11
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u/London2toronto Sep 05 '26
I remember they told the inmates on UK Big Brother that he died when they weren’t supposed to get news from the outside world. Someone shouted it over the fence so the producers sat them down to inform him that he had died.
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u/The-Get-Along-Gang Sep 06 '26
I remember jogging in my neighborhood that day and cars going by, blasting Michael Jackson songs.
I was about to say that it doesn’t seem so long ago. But 2026 has been a particularly
draining year. Seventeen years feels about right.
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u/Both-Consideration56 Sep 07 '26
I am a millennial. I feel like, up to his death, we saw MJ as a joke due to all of the allegations. Movies and shows (like Scary Movie 3 and MadTV) would make tons of jokes at his expense due to said allegations.
When he died, it was like a switch flipped in my generation (for a bit). Suddenly, everyone was decrying the jokes they had laughed at just a day prior. Not only that, but we discovered that, regardless of the allegations, MJ was a talented singer with great music. Everyone in my generation seemed to be obsessed with Thriller, Billie Jean, Smooth Criminal, etc. I even remember one of the students doing the moonwalk at a school pep rally a couple months after his death. This would not even be an idea if it were not for his death.
TLDR: Millennials’ viewpoints on Michael changed due to his death.
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u/Outrageous-Emu4289 Sep 07 '26
Huge, in the UK it dominated the news for weeks. The day after his death there was nothing except this story. I was 9 and remember it well
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u/mutantandproud95 Sep 08 '26
I was 14 when it happened. And it was like over night he went from being a universal punchline to a guy that was apparently the greatest artist of all time.
Benefit of hindsight, truth was in the middle
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u/Norwegian_Madman Sep 08 '26
It was everywhere. I was 5 years old but i remember my mother being upset over it. She was and is a huge fan of Michael. Prior to this i remember her showing me all the music videos and she had collectibles scattered throughout the house. I remember that the funeral aired on television? It must have been the news channel but it was an extended clip where his kids stood. It’s a foggy memory but it goes to show his influence
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u/NutterDeluxe Sep 08 '26
His music sales went through the roof and it sparked this conspiracy theory that the elites plan celebrity deaths to cash in on them.
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u/David_Smith5262 Sep 10 '26
Imagine the entire world stopping everything at once and talking about one single thing for an extended period of time, exclusively. Not entirely unwarranted, but probably enough to rub some the wrong way.
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u/SequenceGoon Sep 05 '26
I was 19 in Australia, the guy I was dating popped out to the nearby shop to buy Mushrooms for our breakfast, took ages to come back & I'd been thinking where tf is he?
He finally gets back, ashen-faced, saying Michael Jackson is dead.
He was more affected than I was, in the late 90s/00s MJ was more portrayed as Wacko Jacko in the media, I didn't grow up hearing his music & was kinda creeped out by him, but still it was a big deal, heaps of media coverage
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u/Kurukuruchan Sep 05 '26
I remember his trial being a bigger event really. That seemed to go on forever, it was top story every night on the news.
When he died I was at University. I was actually in the middle of a field somewhere DJing at a rave. A few South Park/Bo Selecta jokes were made (Bo Selecta was a really weird British Sketch show during the 00s that had a weird impression of him), and then we kept dancing.
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u/thepointerouter Sep 05 '26
Ask anyone where they were & what they were doing when they found out & they can tell you
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u/GossipBottom Sep 05 '26
I think, after 9/11, this was the second biggest moment in the 2000s decade.
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u/shrekingcrew Sep 05 '26
I was 12 years old, and I was at Boy Scout camp. Being a bunch of teen boys, most of the discussion was tasteless jokes about him being a pedophile. I was home by the funeral. It was inescapable and it dominated the news for a couple weeks. Willie Mays died around the same time, and I remember being more bummed about him than MJ for some reason, even though I really only knew him as the OxiClean guy.
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u/Appropriate_Formal64 Sep 05 '26
He was preparing for a huge come back when it happened, so imagine someone who'd been omnipresent, kinda went away and then started showing back up in a way that looked and felt reinvigorated and the beginning of a new era for them- and then they just drop dead.
I'm trying to think of the closest modern equivalent- imagine if Robert Downey, Jr. had dropped dead right after Iron Man 1 came out- oh wait you weren't old enough to remember any of that.
Who'd be a good example of a modern day formerly huge star who's recently become super relevant again and then they, in this scenario, dropped dead after the first successful project back.
Brendan Fraser?
The Backstreet Boys as their Vegas residency kicked off?
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u/mil0wCS Sep 05 '26
Very tragic. I remember a lot of teachers and students in elementry school talking about it. People were talking about the michael jackson this is it experience a lot after his passing.
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u/Clokkers Sep 05 '26
I was 9, I’d listened to some of his songs but I wasn’t really aware of his impact on the world at that age and I’m British so it was even less impactful in my country than in the US but I do remember my mum shouting me down to watch the news and how dialled in my parents were.
Honestly I don’t care at all. Went to school the next day and spoke about it with a few kids, they also didn’t care.
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u/AnodyneSpirit Sep 05 '26
Imagine all the shit going on today in the world, (Trump, Ukraine, Middle East, AI) and then imagine it all not mattering for a few days. That’s what it was like.
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u/J2JC Sep 05 '26
It was inescapable. Literally everywhere, online, in every paper. It was huge news for weeks.