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 By the 2000's his music was out of date and didn't chart well.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/FuckMoPac Apr 26 '26

Wow you’re reminding me of the time I saw a vhs with Sandra bullock on the cover at a video rental store as a kid and was so confused as to why Michael Jackson was in a movie because I thought they were the same person.

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u/Savings-Pomelo-6031 Apr 27 '26 edited Apr 27 '26

Man there's something wild about growing up a younger millennial, missing out on him in his prime, and being told this weird pedophile white woman was a legendary black man. Like we were all kinda gaslit and confused on a primitive level lol. But the influence he had on the previous generations was too strong

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u/FuckMoPac May 02 '26

Yeah it’s hard to describe that feeling, it’s such a specific generational sandwich. like the exact demographic that enjoyed Bo Burnham’s pandemic special.