It's time for me to chime in on the Michael Jackson thing. I have been following the story since the day of his death, and I'm truly upset by this, like so many other people. Those who know me know that I'm a bit of a fanboy; not quite as much as those grown men that I saw on some recent footage on CNN, who were seen screaming and crying like footage you see of Beatlemania, but I've followed his career and his music since the release of Thriller. I have a few books and a more than the average person's knowledge of his timeline.

I saw this coming, and I realized that I would probably be alive to see his death come to pass, but I didn't think it would be this soon. Then again, I also could not picture Michael being an old man, and I seriously doubt he could have seen it either.

The reason I'm writing this now is that I have found myself sucked into the social media frenzy surrounding this event, and as a result have signed up for a Twitter account, so that I could see the world's reaction to this. I had already seen some of this through my Facebook account, and it is by now a well known fact that social media websites took the forefront in spreading this bad news throughout the world. So I wanted to experience the memorial I just finished watching from this perspective.

Most of the 'tweets' I read were what I expected. Heartfelt sadness and celebrations of his life, well-wishes to his family and so forth. I found LeVar Burton's (Geordi from Star Trek TNG) Twitter account by accident yesterday, and added it to my following; today he was reporting several times from row 19 at the Staples Center. Most people reacted the way I anticipated.



And then there were the others. Because Michael was the way he was, and he had the life that he had, he has never ever been safe from the ridicule of others. Depending on who you believe, he brought this on himself with his bizarre behaviour. 'Bizarre' is a word that, by some accounts, he actually instructed the journalistic community to use when writing articles on him -- specifically in reports of sleeping in hyperbaric chambers and so on -- being of the opinion that no publicity is bad publicity. I can't confirm if any of that is true. But it's just the kind of confusion that has surrounded him his entire life.

Making matters worse, you have this whole matter of the child molestation charges, which brings a whole new flock of haters to the table. You only have to mention this topic to bring out the rage. The facts are that he was acquitted of those charges -- twice -- and that is supposed to be enough to convince everyone that he is in fact innocent. But of course that doesn't happen on a global scale. There are those who will believe vehemently in his innocence, and those who will forever label him a diddler, and that's all there is to it.

I don't know whether he did those things or not. I don't pretend to know -- I wasn't there... which is why I prefer to concentrate on the good things he did - his music, his talent, and the good works he so obviously did for the world at large. I'm not saying he wasn't a weird guy. That's apparent. But with the reality of his death firmly established, some people still feel the need to express their oh-so-tired opinions of Michael in the world forum and stir up a bunch of bad feelings and cause trouble.

Some were more or less in bad taste -- a similar flavour to the jokes that circulated when Michael was burned at the Pepsi commercial filming -- such as this one scanned on twitter:

Wouldn't it be funny if Michael Jackson lept out of the gold coffin singing "Thriller" and then did the zombie dance?

I myself might be guilty of a similar exercise in possible tactlessness when I said to a friend in England that he could probably still sell out the O2 shows even if they just put his coffin on the stage. However, seeing the fervour around the memorial service and the amount of people who wanted to get in but couldn't, I'm not so sure that I was actually incorrect in saying this.

Some, I feel, really believed that the death was a hoax, and that somewhere, Michael was getting reconstructive surgery to cash in on his death and live the rest of his life in seclusion. Some people have predicted that Michael Jackson is the new Elvis, and sightings of him will be reported for the next 10 years.

Then there those who felt the need to ramp it up a little. I won't pay blog service to any of them, but some were actually happy the man was dead, and cited his alleged-but-not-proven child molestation as a justification for his death. One twitterer actually responded to Smokey Robinson's comment that Michael was looking down from heaven by saying that he was in fact screaming up from hell. So much for innocent until proven guilty.

And then there were those who had just lost perspective on what is actually going on, such as an L.A. resident who reported that

the traffic in LA is even worse than usual. Even in death, MJ still sucks.

There is more, much more than what I am relaying here. Pages and pages of people who really have no concept of karma, disrespecting a dead man, first and foremost. One has to wonder whether such people would react the same if a funeral procession of a so-called normal person was hindering their ability to get somewhere in a timely fashion... Are they just inherently cold-blooded, or was it the fact that Michael was probably the most famous and controversial entertainer in history and they had to add their voices to the fray?

Some in my age range might remember that at one point it was taboo to admit to liking Michael Jackson. I remember on several occasions I would be ridiculed on the playground for wearing a Thriller t-shirt and being called a fag. The battle between Jacko lovers and haters has been going on since the beginning, at a feverish pitch near the start, and then dissolving into a relative cold war in the 90's. Now it seems that some of it is back as the man's demise takes over the media and everyone has to pick their sides in this final chapter of the man's life.

It's truly saddening to realize that some people just don't get that a man is dead, and regardless of the life he led, it's not appropriate to publicly badmouth the man regardless of what you think of him. Of course it's the ease of social media that makes this possible, and prevalent in our society, the ability to express bullshit opinions to a much larger audience then was possible before. You're able to piss so many more people off nowawdays, and certain individuals just can't seem to resist the temptation. For their sakes, they should hope that karma actually doesn't exist, because I have to believe that dissing a dead man is probably among the worst offenses in this realm.

For my part, I remain a fan, and I was truly moved by most of the appearances at the memorial, and was completely blown away by Stevie Wonder who sung my favourite song of his, "They Won't Go When I Go." Over the next days, I feel that more information about the circumstances of his death will come out, whatever they may be, and sadly the detractors and naysayers will only get louder. Thankfully, I think, they are of the minority.

As a last message to those of you out there who feel the need to speak ill of the dead, I urge you to watch the last few minutes of the memorial where the Jackson family all got up to speak and the daughter of Michael began to cry while saying that her father was the best daddy ever. Only the most stone-cold bastard could watch that and not be affected by the sight of a little girl crying at the death of her father. Even if you don't like the man, you need to shut the hell up for the sake of those that remain, and have some damn respect. It's easy to sluff this off because he's a celebrity and you don't know the man or the family involved so why not say whatever you want? You need to check yourselves: real people are dealing with real loss, that's life, and you would only want the same for yourself if it were to happen to you... and it will -- eventually. That's all.