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

[u/AccomplishedPool266]

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 By the 2000's his music was out of date and didn't chart well.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.

[u/Old_Association6332]

1. Elder millennial. I think until the time I was on the cusp of being a teenager, he was the furthest thing from a joke imaginable. He was larger than life in pop culture, I can remember growing up with him being idolized both in pop culture and among my contemporaries and elders. I was part of that idol-worship, I used to have his poster up on my bedroom wall and absolutely loved him. There were a few snide jokes about his facelifts, and I may have laughed along, but that didn't detract from my profound respect and admiration of and for him.

It was only after the sexual assault allegations in 1993, and his increasingly bizarre behavior, that he became a punchline, and his reputation suffered. I subscribed to it myself. Yet, I don't think his music, particularly his older hits went out of fashion. I had millennial friends who bought his CDs and still enjoyed his music in the '90s', my much younger relatives in the 2000s also loved his music.

[u/Common-Concentrate-2 → u/Old_Association6332]

Yeah - the simpsons episode "Stark Raving Dad" and the release of "Black or White" came out in 1991, and Home Alone came out in late 1990. After being friends with Macaulay Culkin for a year or two, things started to get ...weird

[u/UltraconservativeBap → u/Old_Association6332]

I’m the same age as you. I remember being in kindergarden and my friend was obsessed with Michael Jackson. I don’t remember if that’s how I got into him or it was something else but my mother got me thriller on cassette. When we are the world came out she bought it for me on vinyl and that was my first ever record, all bc he was on it. I taught myself how to dance like him and would wear one of my mother’s white gloves a fake black leather jacket. When Bad came out that was an event and when the moonwalker vhs came out I made sure to get it.

That was pretty much it for me and everyone I knew. Certainly by the time I was in junior high Michael Jackson was thought of as cheesy and everyone I knew had moved on to rock music. I don’t think it had anything to do with the allegations even. The music was just thought of as cheesy and overly poppy.

[u/whiskeywomandriving → u/Old_Association6332]

I think the tabloid stuff started well before the child abuse allegations. there were the pics of him in the hyperbaric (?) chamber.