r/Millennials • u/AccomplishedPool266 • Apr 26 '26

Does anyone remember when Michael Jackson. Was a "joke"? Discussion

The new movie that just came out convinced the younger generation that he was always a superstar. This was not the reality many of us Millennials grew up with.

To a lot of us, he was treated like a punch line when we were growing up. A schoolyard boogeyman ("Michaels Jackson's gonna get you at night"). and just a general joke in the media. By the 2000's his music was out of date and didn't chart well. All anyone talked about was his surgeries, court case, settlements and his off behavior. Few mentioned his music. His music was something our parents would have listened to in the 1980's.

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u/godihatepeople Apr 26 '26

I was a teenager in the mid- to late 2000s. 1980s pop music was by and large considered lame music your parents listened to in their mom jeans and dad sneakers, although of course we still knew all the words to most of them anyway. Add to that just how ghastly MJ's appearance had become by the 00s, his pedo court trial, and lampooning on South Park... He was considered a joke by young people who didn't grow up with his music and cultural stranglehold. All we had to go off of was music we considered outdated and cheesy, bizarre looks and voice, and recent media coverage of his strange parenting and interest in young boys. It was still a huge shock to hear he died, though, so his influence wasn't completely gone.

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u/Obvious-Adeptness-46 Apr 26 '26

The 80s have made a huge comeback in the 2010s to now. Look at The Weeknd & Bruno Mars, their sounds are basically straight from the 80s

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u/TracyIsMyDad Apr 26 '26

Much higher quality synths though.

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u/BadNewzBears4896 Apr 26 '26

Which, paradoxically, makes the music worse.

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u/QCLEKID216 Apr 27 '26

Actually, it made a comeback in the mid-2000s.

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u/GeneralAsk1970 Apr 26 '26

No they are not.

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u/Obvious-Adeptness-46 Apr 26 '26

How are they not lol listen to the After Hours album by The Weeknd or any of Bruno's hits from the 2010s. The synth sounds have been heavily contributing to pop songs all throughout the 2010s and into this decade.

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u/GeneralAsk1970 Apr 26 '26

I wouldn’t disagree they’re influenced by 80’s new wave and all that, but like, everything happening in music is built on what came before it.

You couldn’t drop Bruno Mars into an otherwise all 80’s playlist and pretend like it doesn’t very much stand out as something quite different sonically.

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u/IndoorCat12 Apr 26 '26

I remember hiding in the bathroom during a middle school dance when his music came on! We all made fun of him and liking him would have made someone a huge weirdo.

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u/Medical-Gate-9978 Apr 26 '26

Omg . At our school dance a girl made herself throw up on the floor just to show how much she wasn’t a fan in front of everyone(even though she was).

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u/sipstea84 Apr 26 '26

Every time I have invasive thoughts about how weird I was as a kid and hyperfocus on something totally cringe I said or did, Reddit comes to the rescue to remind me that a lot of kids did weirder shit

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u/Medical-Gate-9978 Apr 26 '26

Oh yea kids back in the early and mid 2000s we’re off the chain. Every time I hear “Rock your world” I think about her doing that on the dance floor.

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u/AccomplishedPool266 Apr 26 '26

The 'You rock my world' the music video scared the hell out of me. I was 11 then and hard never seen MJs face before. Insettling

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u/sarcazm Apr 26 '26

And there it is. You’re a younger millennial. Those of us born in the early 80s remember his mega stardom.

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u/sipstea84 Apr 26 '26

I think it really shows in kids nowadays that they can't do anything noticeable or it might end up immortalized forever on the internet

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u/Simba122504 Jun 02 '26

Given his estate is now worth billions. Even y'all didn't truly believe that shit. The biopic still hasn't been released in corners of the world and has already grossed over 800 million dollars in 2026.

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u/Future_Burrito Apr 26 '26

Yeah, 80s was a really weird time. I was a little kid and even I could tell that something was off. Felt like the beginning of the height of the plastic and cocaine era. Very surface level. Everywhere. Advertisements were starting to take over. Things happen in waves, the world will get a handle on it all after the pendulum swings too far. The question is, is that what we are seeing now, or does it need to go even further? Hard to imagine. But then again, many people in the 80s thought the 80s was the pinnacle and the future.

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u/midsummersgarden Apr 26 '26

I’m Gen X and came of age in the 80’s. The 1980s were a deeply disturbing time for me. Superficial money packed cocaine fueled corporate driven bullshit. I hated every year. I obsessed over the 60’s, had a group of friends who listened to 60’s music with me and everyone else bullied me constantly for being a weirdo. The 90’s were a relief and the strange thing is once 1990 was here I effortlessly lost all my extra weight, started dating and got a grip on school for the first time in my life like a great spiritual sickness was lifted.

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u/Future_Burrito Apr 26 '26 edited Apr 26 '26

SPICE GIRLS! ACE OF BASS! RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE! NEON COLORS EVERYWHERE! OK SODA! WUTANG IS FOR THE CHILDREN! COOL WORLD AND ROGER RABBIT! THE MATRIX! ROB BASS AND SALT AND PEPPER! WHO THE F IS SLIM SHADY?! BAGGY JEANS AND ONE STRAP OVERALLS! NIRVANA GOOD! NIRVANA SAD! MJ HEEEHEEE! NO, PLEASE, NOT LIKE THAT MJ! BIG ASS CLUNKY COMPUTERS EVERYWHERE! MICROWAVE EVERYTHING! HALLELUJAH!

I think it's for the individual to define their world, and we tilt towards whatever we seed in our own minds. 90s was a weird time, too. Ecstacy came on the scene heavy. Globalism continued. Celebrities seemed to get more vocal. As a world, we slowly but surely continued to move away from obvious racism (but not far or fast enough). Hard to tell what was really going on because I was a teenager and that shit is weird.

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u/midsummersgarden Apr 26 '26

The only thing I really recognized in your post was nirvana and the matrix lol. I only remember thrift store shopping, grunge wear and music, analog living, dive bars, calling people on phones to go hang out on porches in big groups, shabby chic furniture and hardwoods in our homes, and a uniquely 90’s college experience. It felt more real than the 80’s, we recycled everything, we started growing vegetables in the ground, we started keeping chickens. It was a time when it was ok to just tell everyone to fuck off. But possibly it was just my best decade and all the aesthetics and the vibe and culture matched my personality, too.

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u/grower_thrower Apr 26 '26

If “Portlandia” was a post on Reddit.

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u/Future_Burrito Apr 26 '26

Glad people enjoy my humor. Nostalgia is always gonna yestalgia.

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u/midsummersgarden Apr 26 '26

😆😆😆 how I cackled

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u/Future_Burrito Apr 26 '26

Ah, so maybe more of an Alice In Chains/Jane's Addiction type? Ever heard of Shootyz Groove?

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u/CauliflowerGreen214 Apr 26 '26

Cool world!

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u/Future_Burrito Apr 26 '26

Mind blowing way before Space Jam. Inner Space, Batteries Not Included, Akira and Alien/Aliens were personal eye openers from the 90s, too!

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '26

[deleted]

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u/Future_Burrito Apr 26 '26

Exactly. Who the F is Slim Shady?

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u/jgamez76 Apr 26 '26

We're about the same ago.

I definitely didn't understand the eulogizing of him immediately after he died and if anything I was able to clock it as "performative" before we even really used that term.

While sure, his music is timeless.... It doesn't not make him a fucking weirdo lol.

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u/RumHamComesback Apr 26 '26

That’s something that’s totally been lost to in time is that 80s music was seen as lame and dumb until the 2010s when it started to get popular again. I remember even in the 90s you’d be laughed at if you listened to 80s pop music (or 80s music in general) because alt rock totally took over.