What one topic has seen more news than anything in the last decade? More than the most controversial Presidential election in history? More than the war in Iraq?
Michael Jackson’s death, of course. Since his death on June 25, there have been hundreds of articles a day in papers around the world.
Why is this? Who cares? Everyone had seemingly forgotten about MJ. I found a brief mention of him one month before his death, but other than that, he had not been mentioned since December of 2007. It seems like everyone got concerned when he died and couldn’t stop talking about him (he’s still a trending topic on Twitter).
Even though I was in Australia when Jackson died, I still got to read about him in the paper everyday. If half the issue wasn’t devoted to his cause of death, doctor’s prescriptions, place of burial, estate management, kids caretaker or his childhood abuse, there was always at least one page.
The day he died so many people were searching for the truth about his death on Google, they slowed it down, Wikipedia was “temporarily overloaded” and Twitter had multiple “fail whales.” There were more tweets per second about Jackson on the day of his death than since Barack Obama was elected, which pretty much means the most tweets ever. In one hour alone (9 p.m. to 10 p.m. EDT) there were 279,000 tweets or roughly 78 per second (according to webecology.org). The Los Angeles Times Web site got 2.3 million hits in the hour after the story broke. Is anyone on earth really worth that kind of attention? What merits that many comments?
I never understood it. So the man died. OK, thanks for letting us know, but why does it need more coverage then the Iranian elections? Or the climate bill congress was trying to get passed? What about all the others who died right around the same time – Farrah Fawcett (who died earlier the same day), Sky Saxon and Billy Mays? There were rumors Jeff Goldblum fell off some cliffs in New Zealand (he didn’t), and that Harrison Ford fell off a yacht off the south of France. 21,000 troops were moved into Afghanistan just a couple days after Michael Jackson death. I didn’t hear too much about it though.
In the several days after his death, news seemed to be focused solely on him, as if nothing else mattered. Why? I was sick of reading about him the next day and wanted to know about other current events going on, but it was quite a scrape to find them. The media didn’t seem interested in reporting anything else. Well, excuse me if I prefer to read things with substance.
There is a whole article on CNN.com devoted to the fact that “Michael Jackson broke down racial barriers.” I’m sorry, what racial barriers? I believe he was an African-American who wanted to be Caucasian. He fought against his background for almost his entire career. What kind of a uniter is that? He may have been a pop sensation for some time, but what great humanitarian efforts did he undertake? Did he help society in any way? So many other celebrities give of themselves to help the needy or champion causes and are praised for it. While I don’t necessarily agree with all the publicity they get because of it, at least it is positive things which are being recognized.
The last album Jackson put out was Invincible in 2001. It didn’t even sell very well – only 12 million copies compared to 110 million for Thriller and just 20 million for Off the Wall. In the last 15 years he’s hardly been talked about from a musical standpoint. Most of what people remember about him is the child molestation accusations and hanging his son, over a hotel balcony. What kind of legacy is that? And why does it deserve so much media attention?
Isn’t anyboy else sick of hearing about a has-been star? How about the media start reporting real news and stop sounding like the tabloids at the grocery store?
Hannah Kaase is a senior majoring in animal and dairy science. She can be contacted at [email protected].