I’ve been wanting to write a post about what Michael Jackson meant to me. And then I decided against it, because what can I really say that could even be remotely substantial to someone who isn’t a fan? And what is fan-dom anyway? Being a fan of a celebrity just conjures up thoughts of silliness, unimportantness, distraction in face of news that really matter, like wars, like poverty, like global warming, like [insert topic that actually cause suffering and kill people].
And it is. It’s entertainment. It’s distraction from issues in the world that “matters”. MJ is just a celebrity, yadda yadda yadda…but he was MY favorite celebrity. Hence this post. I think people don’t put enough value on entertainment. And I’m probably being absolutely biased here, but I draw a line between insipid, brain-cell killing entertainment (re: Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton, et al) and inspiring entertainment. Michael Jackson was enormously talented, that we all know. But, to me personally, I have had many many many hours of joy just listening to the music and watching him dance and being that magical, eccentric, out of this world guy. And I think that counts for something in my life. While he hasn’t released anything recently, there was always the potential future album or future performances to maybe look forward to. And now that’s gone. That bit of entertainment in my life.
I was that screaming teenager, camped out outside Raffles Hotel when he was in Singapore for the HIStory tour (yes! I did that! And I enjoyed every minute of it! AND, I was in the front row, thanks to, and with, 3 of my awesome MJ-fan friends, who remain friends today…eat that!). Unlike most people who are now professing to be a fan of MJ after his death, where they seemed to solely concentrate on anything Bad album and prior, I was never part of the Thriller mania days, or even the Bad era. I was too young. I only became a fan after my brother took me to watch his Dangerous concert in Singapore in August 1993. And then I started to pick up him albums and watch his videos. And that’s when it all began. Hence, I absolutely loved the Dangerous and HIStory albums, because that’s where I commenced my interest in MJ. People don’t seem to give them enough credit. But I suspect those songs will be re-discovered and given their due appreciation in due time.
I can’t explain why the 12-year old me was SO taken with MJ. After all, that was the time where the ugly allegations of child molestation first started to surface (p.s. I never for once believed he did. I don’t know how I could stay a fan if he really was. But all signs, to me, and believe me, I’ve read tons and seen tons as a fan, points to innocent). That was the time where people started to turn away from MJ, where his appearance was more often than not described as weird, or freakish. And yet, it was the start of my fan-dom. Upon hindsight, it could have been because at that age, I had yet to be impacted by other people’s judgment. I wasn’t a kid that was at all concerned about being “cool” (I was the nerd in glasses and braces and studied all the time…being cool really wasn’t a priority) or thinking what other people thought. All I knew was that I really REALLY enjoyed listening to his songs and I was really REALLY fascinated by the way he danced. And perhaps, his a-sexuality, that gentleness, that lack of machismo, was non-threatening to this young girl. Regardless of the reason, I was taken by him. I’d watch interviews with him and think he was the sweetest person ever. So cute. So magical. Where people saw freak, I, and millions of other fans, saw only that big amazing smile, beautiful eyes, and that all-encompassing talent.
As time passed, it became harder and harder to be his fan, particularly since he really wasn’t releasing much creatively. Invincible was, to me, an okay album, awesome by any one else’s standard, but not in the same level as the prior albums were to me. Plus, he wasn’t really promoting anything, which I took as a good sign actually (I loved that the world barely knew what his children looked like and he gave them some privacy to grow up in. I question how kids like Suri Cruise and Shiloh and the gazillion other Brangelina kids could ever grow up normally while having cameras shoved in their faces all the time and being on magazine covers since they were babies. It’s concerning that suddenly, after his death, there are all these new picture of his kids splashed all over the news). Naturally, the fanatical fandom lost my interest as I grew up.
Still, the music never stopped captivating me. As I got older, my appreciation of his music took on new meaning. I’d hear an MJ song I haven’t heard in a while (remember, in my teen years, his songs were pretty much all I’d listen to on my walkman, then discman) and go WHOAH! That’s friggin’ AWESOME! For example, I only recently started to really really like Off The Wall, which was too “disco-y” (I don’t know how else to describe it) for me when I was a teen. But given my exposure to soul/disco music in the NYC party scene, I heard new things in that album I never noticed before. And that is the genius of MJ’s music. And sadly, only after his death, people are discovering the same thing and having that WHOAH! moment. I’ve been hearing MJ’s music everywhere here over the weekend. People were blasting his music from their cars. Radio and TV had marathon MJ days all weekend. And it’s still amazing to me just how much good music he made. I find it a shame that it took his death for people to come out of the woodwork and finally say, without BS reference to unfounded allegations and plastic surgery etc, that he made GREAT music and he was a GREAT performer.
So I don’t know what the point of this post really is. I just wanted to write something to convey how someone I didn’t know personally had given me joy in my life, I guess. And how sorry I feel that he is gone. I won’t call this grief, because how I feel is obviously nowhere near how one would feel when someone near and dear passes. But there’s definitely that vague part of my heart that feels strangely hallow, because that person who had given me much joy and entertainment in my teen years and beyond is now gone.
