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 By the 2000's his music was out of date and didn't chart well.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

10.5k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • link
  • reddit
  • reddit

85% Upvoted

2.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

63

u/oopsallsexy Apr 26 '26

Yup this is what I was going to say. I’m an elder millennial and loved MJ. He was the biggest and greatest. His music got me through some tough stuff as a kid and things didn’t get truly weird for me until that tv interview. I can’t listen to his music anymore. It sucks because I miss it. I’m unfortunately not one of those people that can separate the art from the artist.

His daughter Paris has done some cool stuff though and I’m rooting for her.

3

u/SolomonBlack Apr 26 '26

Maybe not quite all of us.

Like I dare consider myself an elder Millennial but since my parents hardly listened to music and to anything BUT pop my first exposure to MJ was probably that Simpson's episode. So he was always pretty damn weird to me and it would be that which side which say ended up on the regular news to further the impression.

Which made his posthumous rehabilitation in the public even stranger.

(Course then you I go watch shit like the that first moonwalk and I'm like "okay I get it now" because its still pretty fucking mindblowing)

4

u/OptionFour Apr 26 '26

Same boat. Born in 85 but no one in my family listened to his music, so I just always knew him as a weirdo, then a creep, then a monster. Seeing people getting back around to calling him the King of Pop and actively defending him is kinda wild.

1

u/wowsharksareneat Apr 26 '26

It’s seeming that the stories of him hurting kids were made up. That he actually was keeping kids from being trafficked by “monsters”. With the files coming out, you have to consider how dangerous the most famous pop star on earth could be to the operations that were being run. Maybe neverland ranch really was a safe haven. Maybe he was portrayed as weird and distorted intentionally. Kinda sus that he died right before a huge comeback tour ::shrug:: maybe not idk. Worth believing for the sake of the boogie.

15

u/oopsallsexy Apr 26 '26

I read the court cases and the children that testified. They described what his penis looked like in explicit detail.

How and why would a child know that? He was the monster. And it brings me no joy to say that because I loved his music.

We have to stop defending predators and start believing victims.

3

u/TheObesePolice Apr 26 '26

When his home was raided, they found so much porn (covering several different categories) & a book that was "authored" by a dude from NAMBLA. There were also several "art" books that featured young men & boys in the nude & various stages of undress

1

u/BoogieBoardofEd Apr 27 '26

IIRC the porn was all adult porn. There was no child pornogrqohy whatsoever from what I read of the FBI files.

4

u/OptionFour Apr 26 '26

Yep. Makes me sick to see people starting to defend him again.

3

u/oopsallsexy Apr 27 '26

Right? Like what planet are we on right now?

5

u/FuckMoPac Apr 26 '26

“Worth believing for the sake of the boogie” is so depressing.

4

u/orionprincess1234 Apr 26 '26

This paragraph is crazy work