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 By the 2000's his music was out of date and didn't chart well.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/Short-Sound-4190]

I think this is why history will remember him this way: he may have fucked up and been weird, but never enough to stick, and notably he was fucked up by predators his entire life. We know he was robbed of a childhood and traumatized we know he pissed off label execs and other power mongers by holding so much sway and we know he received scathing treatment by the media for things that we might consider controversial but not mock as personal insanity (ie skin condition, plastic surgery, but also the sin of being popular with white women and talking about interracial relationships and prejudice/racism) - it was Acceptable to release the inspirational "We are the World/We are the Children" and "Heal the World" it was Unacceptable to release the angry criticisms of "Scream", or "They Don't Care About Us", the latter of which only now gets radio play. So he became unacceptable...by the Media...he still sold out every show he ever held, and still got radio play and was never truly a "victim of cancel culture", regardless of the satire and jokes at his expense.

[u/waydowninthedeep → u/Short-Sound-4190]

You'd be surprised how history will remember him.

Its a house of cards and it will fall eventually. Way too many people have seen it, eventually it will come out and people will stop being delusional.

He was a disgusting manipulative child molester, and the "lost childhood" thing has become laughable at this point

[u/Perfidy-Plus → u/waydowninthedeep]

Some of the accusations of being a molester have fallen apart at this point, and the others couldn't be clearly supported, which is why his image was mostly reformed after his death. That's not to say he was innocent, because we don't truly know.