Let's get this out of the way first: I'm indifferent when it comes to the supposed King of Pop. My opinions of him have shifted faster than a transvestite can change their gender. When I was a kid, I thought he looked cool. When I grew older, I thought he was just a weirdo with a fucked up nose and strange taste in bed-partners.
But let's be clear: when a person dies, it's sad, but natural. It happens all the time. Which, as my friend Joe states, makes the beginning and the ending not as important as the middle. Death is just as natural as breathing. So when Michael Jackson died, I knew it was sad, but then I did a miraculous thing: I got over it.
You'd think Jesus Christ himself was crucified again what with all the publicity that's been going around the news. For an entire day, the radio was packed with Michael Jackson songs, the TV's were rolling with news of his autopsy (seriously guys, WTF? His autopsy? If I were to perform an autopsy on George Washington's corpse, I guarantee that no one will care and some people would probably label me a necrophiliac or something. Is the USofA so hungry of news that we are all craving for some guy's autopsy?). And around this time, I was beginning to get annoyed.
I realize that Michael Jackson changed the way that we all do music and influenced many artists in today's world (most of them I've never even heard of and play noises that can't possibly be called music in any sense of the term), but seriously, why do people care so much about it?
I know he's touched the lives of so many different people (and allegedly, small children), but most of these people who are apparently crying over his death have absolutely no business to do so. The reason being is the following word: fan. Yes, you heard me, they're fans. They are the consumers who buy his work and listen to them, relishing in his crotch-grabbing music that seems to appeal to so many people. And yet, these people are crying over him. WHY?!?!?!?!?!? They didn't know him personally, didn't grow up with him, aren't members of his family so why are they crying? And this goes for a lot of other people who cry over their beloved idols. These people have no business crying over them because they weren't connected with them at all.
What I mean by this is simple: fans are usually just people that like a person/companies products and continue to buy them regardless of whether or not they actually need them to exist in the next second. But in the end, they are not buying the person/company, they are buying the product the person/company sends out. How connected they feel to person/company depends on how much emotion a fan puts towards their product. I feel very connected to the book entitled The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho because I feel it has changed my life. It is this strong connection that pushes me to feel that Paulo Coelho has changed my life. I don't know him, I have never talked to him, I have never even seen him in person. And yet I feel this strong connection with this person through a book.
This is the main reason I dislike how people are crying over his death: most of these people don't know him personally enough to cry over his loss. They have only bought his music and probably seen him in person. But in the end you are not really connected at all to this person. The only connection you have to them is that you've listened to their music or read their book or seen their movies. This connection you may feel to them is superficial at best; at worst, a lie.
You can argue that when a person writes a novel, or writes music or acts that you are looking at a part of their soul. In this sense, you are seeing into a bit of their personality and soul (if you believe in one). And I guess, in this sense, there is a connection. But the connection is paper-thin. You can only peering so far into someone's soul through the words they write or the actions they make. These things don't make up an entire person. Only bits and pieces. Not enough to claim to know them and then cry over them when they're gone.
So now we get to my main annoyance: one guy's death going all over the news and radios. I know he was the supposed King of Pop, but seriously, he's getting more air-time than when the Pope died (at least it feels that way). There's so much news on him that now, he's taking the place of the other news that are (usually) news worthy. To get my point across, I'll note some of the news that you have failed to notice because of Michael's death.
- Jon Gosselin finally snaps (you know he wants to), kills his wife, Kate, and his 8 children, uses their bones as a makeshift fortress and spends the rest of his day flinging his poo at anybody who gets too close. Negotiations haven't even begun yet because "no one wants shit all over them."
- Billy Maes died (supposedly from one of his lungs collapsing from yelling at me to much).
- Farrah Fawcett died two hours before Michael Jackson (she was, incidentally, never heard of again, despite the fact that she was a hell of a lot hotter than Michael Jackson was).
- Gandhi comes back from the dead, cures cancer, looks around the world, says "Fuck it, you're all hopeless," and goes to Vegas. He is later kidnapped by four drunken guys on roofies, one of them missing a tooth. He is locked in the trunk of the car and when he does get out, he grabs onto the nearest guy and beats him with a crowbar. See "The Hangover" to find out what happened next.
- Spawn destroys Heaven, Hell and the Earth and transports the souls of the humans to another planet Earth, where he resurrects all of them, so that God and Satan can have their little bitch-fest without putting humans in the crossfire. No one thanks him for this.
- The Master Chief returns from space and destroys the League of Evil along with Brock Samson, Chuck Norris, The Incredible Hulk, and Thor. Dethklok provides the background music while the team is destroying the League.
- Kim Jong-il gets ass-raped by a nuke thrown by Alex Mercer and Cole MacGrath.
...the list goes on.
Halfway through the list, you've probably realized that I am, in all sense of the word, joking. But my point is set across nonetheless. The news is feeding the needs of the fans who are feeling a weak and infinitesimal connection with a dead musician. Noted: a very famous musician who revolutionized the music world but he is in all sense of the word...dead.
Death is sad, but a natural part of life. It would be awesome if we humans didn't die but if we didn't die, then I would probably be saying how it would be awesome if we died. Whatever.
Michael Jackson did great things, I guess. But there is no need to cry over him if you didn't even know him. That's the job of his family and friends, not you. You can feel sympathy, but it is not in your place to cry over him. Unless you feel sympathy for someone by crying. Then that makes you too sensitive. Like the people who want the National Anthem changed because they think the current one is about rockets and explosions and that there is no evidence that we are the bravest country in the world.
Do you want to change the National Anthem because of this bullshit reasoning?
Cheers
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