Thursday, June 25, 2009

re: Michael Jackson

I am not sad (nor happy) that Michael Jackson is dead.
And while he was quite the character and deserved respect, not really taking a moment for Mr. McMahon.
OK, I took (a little) pause at the news of David Carradine, but let's be honest, that's because of my personal interest in him making more movies for me to watch.

It's not that it's not sad at all...it's just that I am not feeling any actual sadness.

I DON'T KNOW ANY OF THESE PEOPLE.

Okay, so anyone dying is sad and blah blah but we don't care about people dying anywhere else in the world (not enough here even) so why do people care about these guys enough to statweet about them?

Also, I am fully aware of my hypocrisy - I am commenting on it right now and I don't sponsor any African children and I don't give out soup so yes, I'm a jerk.

But can we just get a handle on ourselves please?

I don't call myself a blogger so I don't have to comment to keep up with my peers, but the Internet, man - gotta keep up with the webJoneses.
Posted by maegant at 4:43 PM
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2 comments:

ej said...

I didn't "tweet" or whatever about it but I'm sad! I grew up on his pop songs and danced along to his videos and listened to his music with my cousins when I was a kid.. and his music kinda made an impact on my life so it's sad that he died so suddenly, especially since he was young and was pretty troubled all his life. But I kinda always feel sad for child stars who grow up kind of weird and maladjusted. (Maybe because I relate to them.)

I also kinda cared when Princess DI died.. but only because it was an accident probably involving paparazzi, which is terrible, and she had two young children so that was sad... I also kinda cared when those 10 people died in protests in Iran because they were mostly students and were standing up for something that mattered to them, and I feel like that is at least noteworthy.

I'm not saying you have to care, or stat-update about it, I'm just saying that people have reasons for caring, you know? And..... I just wanted to have my say.

June 26, 2009 at 7:32 AM
maegant said...

That's good, and I wouldn't rag on it. If you had a personal connection to something and it's no longer in the world then sure, be sad. (Maybe not as sad as if you knew them, but sad in a wistful, "Oh, that is too bad, I will notice this in my day to day life" kinda way.)

I know that once you are famous your death is more "important" (i.e. newsworthy) but I think there need to be people to say "Hey, this was one person and that is too bad but let's have perspective." Otherwise it just becomes a circle-jerk. We are too close to our celebrities.

And let's be clear - in his later years, Jackson was not an artist he was a celebrity, like Jon and Kate are celebrities, like Anna Nicole etc etc. Not that it matters either way, but if ppl argue it's because he's an artist, well, no stream of great contribution has been ended early and mankind is suffering - to say so is just blatant nostalgia.

As you can see, there's a conflict here - basically, I do believe that it is unfortunate when work of any kind that benefits us (art, science, phil)is not allowed to flourish due to some accident or poor behaviour. But that is different than saying that it is more sad that that specific person died rather than some child or mother.

June 26, 2009 at 11:51 AM

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