Today would have been Michael Jackson's Birthday... if he hadn't died that is.
I was an obsessed Jackson fan as a child. The first Vinyl I bought was 'his'... 2 actually, 'Legend' and 'Triumph'... oh and I know they were both 'Jacksons' albums, but I was about 5... I wasn't there for Tito or Jermaine... I was there for Michael... and I know my Jacksons...
I stuck with him until the 90s, before abandoning him... for musical reasons... He'd changed his management, production team and even lost Rod Templeton as a song writing collaborator. He was given formulaic pop to sing, songs that could have gone to anyone...
I never gave those allegations much credence, believing that if even if hormone based medication given in his teens* hadn't actually 'chemically castrated' him, it had certainly altered his sexual drives. So although I do believe some of the the things that were alleged were inappropriate, and in fact someone in his staff should have grown a pair and told him to 'fucking pack it in with the kids sleep overs and stuff' I don't think he was a nonce... just foolish and coddled... it wasn't sexual behaviour... just lonely... and sad...
(*There are two versions of the 'hormone' conspiracy theory... one states that he was given a particularly powerful Hormone receptor inhibitor treatment for teenage acne, the dosage being enough to distort his hormone system permanently... the second version states the same, except that it was given to him with the intention of blocking puberty to delay changes to his voice)
But I respect his legacy... (maybe not as much as Prince, with hindsite.... although back in the day I would have cut my tongue out before saying anything like that)
When he died I was at Glastonbury. Tributes gushed from stages and jokes flew from tent to tent... some were good... most were not.
I remember seeing a man walking that morning, just hours after the announcement was made, with a T-shirt saying: 'Jackson 4'... That is a good joke. It is the best joke about his death I witnessed and is, to this day, the only one that made me audibly laugh. Most aren't like this, they're shockingly lazy, often recycled and with a nasty malice at the core...
So... why have I started a Blog about subtlety and the internet with a HUGE discussion about Michael Jackson?
Well, today... I posted a Michael Jackson Joke on Twitter and then on my Facebook. Facebook is fine. It's mainly real people I know and any douche is being a douche on purpose. Twitter on the other hand...
Well... let's just say it 'polarised'. Some were shrieking at me about whether I should even make a joke about him, whilst others tagged onto my post with a stream of exactly the bullshit, lazy, regurgitated pap-gags I just mentioned... and what was my joke? What was the group of nasty words, grouped nastily together to cause such ire?
"Today we commemorate the birthday of a legend, the late, great Michael Jackson and remember his gift to the world... jokes about Michael Jackson"
And how I wish I'd had this post, ready in advance, to send to both, equally dogmatic, ends of the spectrum.... it is the context... the life support system that allows subtlety to breath...
It's a horrible thing to dissect a joke... a joke reacts the same way as a frog woukd... i.e... it dies. But I'll do a few snips and hopefully leave it well enough to hop away...
At heart it's a simple misdirection gag. You think the 'Gift to the world' will be 'Music' if you're a fan, some bollocks about kids or plastic surgery if you're not... but it isn't it's 'jokes'... you are surprised and hopefully you laugh. That's the simple bit... the 'face value' bit...
It's also a joke about jokes, particularly the kind of joke that it is itself...
Honestly. That sentence does make sense. It's a joke about viral style celebrity gags and how they can blot out a genuine legacy... be honest, after Jackson died how many texts did you get discussing whether 'Off the Wall' is better than 'Thriller'?* No... you got texts about kids or surgeons... maybe Chimps...
*Off the wall is better than Thriller... fact
So that is what that Joke is about... it's neither pro or anti Jackson to be honest... it's a joke about jokes... and it's subtle. Which is why nobody on Twitter got the point... The internet can only deal in binary oppositions... black hat/white hat... like an old western. So to some I was a dick because I was making a joke that happened to mention their idol... to others it seemed I was inviting them to link a crass, stolen, ill thought out, gag, to mine...
No... I wasn't... I wasn't even starting a debate...
It was just a joke.... a subtle joke.
But, when presented with the evidence, I reckon it's time for me to give up on subtlety... so...
Duuur Duurrr Duuurrr Sex offences against kids are automatically funny whether they happened or not duurrr durr durrr you made a joke about someone I like so you know nothing and are bad durrr durrrr durrr plastic surgery is, by it's nature, hilarious durrr durrr durr durrrrrrrrr....
Repeat ad nauseum...
Die inside...
I was an obsessed Jackson fan as a child. The first Vinyl I bought was 'his'... 2 actually, 'Legend' and 'Triumph'... oh and I know they were both 'Jacksons' albums, but I was about 5... I wasn't there for Tito or Jermaine... I was there for Michael... and I know my Jacksons...
I stuck with him until the 90s, before abandoning him... for musical reasons... He'd changed his management, production team and even lost Rod Templeton as a song writing collaborator. He was given formulaic pop to sing, songs that could have gone to anyone...
I never gave those allegations much credence, believing that if even if hormone based medication given in his teens* hadn't actually 'chemically castrated' him, it had certainly altered his sexual drives. So although I do believe some of the the things that were alleged were inappropriate, and in fact someone in his staff should have grown a pair and told him to 'fucking pack it in with the kids sleep overs and stuff' I don't think he was a nonce... just foolish and coddled... it wasn't sexual behaviour... just lonely... and sad...
(*There are two versions of the 'hormone' conspiracy theory... one states that he was given a particularly powerful Hormone receptor inhibitor treatment for teenage acne, the dosage being enough to distort his hormone system permanently... the second version states the same, except that it was given to him with the intention of blocking puberty to delay changes to his voice)
But I respect his legacy... (maybe not as much as Prince, with hindsite.... although back in the day I would have cut my tongue out before saying anything like that)
When he died I was at Glastonbury. Tributes gushed from stages and jokes flew from tent to tent... some were good... most were not.
I remember seeing a man walking that morning, just hours after the announcement was made, with a T-shirt saying: 'Jackson 4'... That is a good joke. It is the best joke about his death I witnessed and is, to this day, the only one that made me audibly laugh. Most aren't like this, they're shockingly lazy, often recycled and with a nasty malice at the core...
So... why have I started a Blog about subtlety and the internet with a HUGE discussion about Michael Jackson?
Well, today... I posted a Michael Jackson Joke on Twitter and then on my Facebook. Facebook is fine. It's mainly real people I know and any douche is being a douche on purpose. Twitter on the other hand...
Well... let's just say it 'polarised'. Some were shrieking at me about whether I should even make a joke about him, whilst others tagged onto my post with a stream of exactly the bullshit, lazy, regurgitated pap-gags I just mentioned... and what was my joke? What was the group of nasty words, grouped nastily together to cause such ire?
"Today we commemorate the birthday of a legend, the late, great Michael Jackson and remember his gift to the world... jokes about Michael Jackson"
And how I wish I'd had this post, ready in advance, to send to both, equally dogmatic, ends of the spectrum.... it is the context... the life support system that allows subtlety to breath...
It's a horrible thing to dissect a joke... a joke reacts the same way as a frog woukd... i.e... it dies. But I'll do a few snips and hopefully leave it well enough to hop away...
At heart it's a simple misdirection gag. You think the 'Gift to the world' will be 'Music' if you're a fan, some bollocks about kids or plastic surgery if you're not... but it isn't it's 'jokes'... you are surprised and hopefully you laugh. That's the simple bit... the 'face value' bit...
It's also a joke about jokes, particularly the kind of joke that it is itself...
Honestly. That sentence does make sense. It's a joke about viral style celebrity gags and how they can blot out a genuine legacy... be honest, after Jackson died how many texts did you get discussing whether 'Off the Wall' is better than 'Thriller'?* No... you got texts about kids or surgeons... maybe Chimps...
*Off the wall is better than Thriller... fact
So that is what that Joke is about... it's neither pro or anti Jackson to be honest... it's a joke about jokes... and it's subtle. Which is why nobody on Twitter got the point... The internet can only deal in binary oppositions... black hat/white hat... like an old western. So to some I was a dick because I was making a joke that happened to mention their idol... to others it seemed I was inviting them to link a crass, stolen, ill thought out, gag, to mine...
No... I wasn't... I wasn't even starting a debate...
It was just a joke.... a subtle joke.
But, when presented with the evidence, I reckon it's time for me to give up on subtlety... so...
Duuur Duurrr Duuurrr Sex offences against kids are automatically funny whether they happened or not duurrr durr durrr you made a joke about someone I like so you know nothing and are bad durrr durrrr durrr plastic surgery is, by it's nature, hilarious durrr durrr durr durrrrrrrrr....
Repeat ad nauseum...
Die inside...
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