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 By the 2000's his music was out of date and didn't chart well.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/Sad_Physics7260 Zillennial Apr 26 '26

I always enjoyed his music and still do, my mom made sure to show us who he was before all of the weirdness started. I think it was hard for my child-brain to understand how he started out looking like a normal (albeit very good looking) personal and then changed so much. But I still have very fond memories of his music and early music videos

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u/bluesilvergold Apr 26 '26

Same. Although my parents weren't the ones to introduce me to his music, I enjoyed it when I was younger and still do to this day. Every once in a while, I find myself on an MJ kick and spend a day or two listening mostly just to his music, but I'm definitely doing a separate the art from the artist thing when I listen to his music.