Michael Jackson, 50

[Loki[D.d.G]]

But still, it is not every day that a genius die. And he was a genius, no matter how stupid he became later.

I don't think i would refer to MJ as a genius. Einstein was a genius... not some pop star of the 80's and 90's

[Luis Antonio]

I don't think i would refer to MJ as a genius. Einstein was a genius... not some pop star of the 80's and 90's

Also replying to Fablicious,

Let history be the judge. End of file.

*lurks*

[dragon wench]

I am thinking that maybe some of this discussion boils down to personal definitions. Namely, that different people perceive notions like "genius" or "impact" in different ways.
For example, many people consider the Mona Lisa to be a work of genius. I do not, and I even know a reasonable amount about art.

I won't argue whether or not MJ was a genius for the simple fact that I really don't know enough about him or his particular genre of music/dancing to judge.

I feel, though, that the term "impact" is a slippery one. What is impact? Is it something that profoundly effects your life? Is it something that just has a significant effect upon how you think or feel about something. Or maybe, can something have "impact" because it shifts your point of view in some way?

I don't know... but I'm sure the debate can continue endlessly...

[fable]

Also replying to Fablicious,

Let history be the judge. End of file.

So what are you suggesting? That we wait 100 years to see if a popular entertainer who wrote a few numbers is judged "by history," whomever that is, to be a "genius?" A title that hasn't even been granted to any of the leading songsmiths of the 20th century who produced dozens of certifiable hits, as compared to the four or five Jackson wrote? And who is this history that will judge him at that time? A consensus of popular culture historians?

Or by history, do you mean "a lot of people who buy his albums because they like his music"? The reductio ad absurdum here is that this creates genius-by-sales-numbers: we look at the number of albums sold to tell us who are geniuses, and who aren't. So Buddy Holly wasn't a "genius" until a move about his life gave new life in turn to his records. And Mahler, one of the most popular composers today, wasn't a genius until the 1960s, when a few conductors began pushing his hitherto largely unknown music to the public.

I'm afraid neither choice makes much sense to me. But as you were the one who claimed Michael Jackson is a genius, let's leave history out of this. Perhaps you could provide your reasons for claiming Michael Jackson's one.

[Claudius]

is a fart subjective? not that I ever smelled mine.... MJ is a genius in childrens jewels

[Loki[D.d.G]]

That we wait 100 years to see if a popular entertainer who wrote a few numbers is judged "by history," whomever that is, to be a "genius?"

Perhaps a better question is; will people even remember the man called Micheal Jackson a hundred years from now?

[Giancarlo]

I think for most of his career he did a third-rate imitation of himself. And he was still really young when he was the biggest thing around..

[Ode to a Grasshopper]

The music world is just a little bit less interesting after this.

On a lighter note, as is so often the case [url="http://www.theonion.com/content/news/king_of_pop_dead_at_12?utm_source=b-section"]The Onion seems to have put it best.[/url]

[dragon wench]

Just thought I'd list this, one of the more thoughtful pieces I've read:
[url="http://www.reuters.com/article/wtUSInvestingNews/idUSTRE5624TL20090703?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0"]Fans overlook Michael Jackson's dark side[/url]

[C Elegans]

He is saying that MJ had a greater impact on people than any of us and he feels it is unfair to pay so much attention to an entertainer.
What do you think he is saying?
I can't see where he equated fame with influence. He did not.

Not did he imply that influence is directly proportional to fame. Hence my raised eyebrows.

Dave O posted that Jackson and Fawcell had a larger influence, or impact, on the lives around them than the average gamer. I don't think any of them had a huge impact on people's values, thinking or decisions. I think Jackson was very influencial in the genre of pop music, but not on individuals which was what I though Dave O referred to by writing "lives around them". Fawcett I am not familiar with, so I can't really tell but it appears to me that she was some kind of second rate actress. I don't define "influence" or "impact" (Dave O used both words) as being generally well known among a large number of people. I define influence or impact as having an effect on them, an effect that goes beyond the trivial. If 100 million people watch a TV-show and think "she's pretty" and nothing more, that does not equal influence to me. If 1 billion people hear a song on the radio and can identify it as a Michael Jackson song, that does not equal influence/impact either. That is being well known, or - famous.

That's a mouthful, CE.
Can't you see the difference between a simple awareness of X and fandom? I know the name "X" because I have to be blind and deaf not to. That does not mean I care about X. It might even happen I dislike X. You can call it essential if you wish. I am not going to argue semantics.

I have no idea what you consider "a high degree" of flexibility and individual variability.

Simple awareness is what I am referring to above, when I say I do not view Jackson and Fawcett as having had a large influence on people's lives. However, regarding orientation of attention I was, as you know, referring to mass media, not to any single entertainment artist. The influence of media in society goes far beyond the influence of a single celebrity. Thus, I think your example of "simple awareness" vs "fandom" is irrelevant, since those concepts have little or no bearing on the influence of mass media on people. Everybody is, willingly or not, affected by what we are aware how. You don't need to be a fan of Fox news to get deeply brainwashed by it, especially if you don't have access to international news. Michael Jackson's music hardly has the kind of political content that shapes people's worldview regardless if they are fans or "simply aware".

Regarding orientation of attention and flexibility:
That orientation of attention is essential since it selects what stimuli the individual assess as important and not. This is called salience.
Where to orient our attention has a high degree of flexibility; in our everyday life there are always hundreds and hundreds of stimuli around us that we could focus on, but only a few reach our awareness. The processes that follows after attention has been focused however, have a much lower degree of flexibility, because the variation in how people interpret the same stimuli is much lower than the variation in possible stimuli to focus on. To put it simple: the big difference is whether you focus on the apple or the pangolin. When 10 people focus on the apple, it is highly likely that they will all perceive an apple. They may like or dislike apples, they may be hungry or not hungry, but they will all percept an apple. The 11th person will see a pangolin.

Some people believe they are able to percept and experience media or pop-culture without getting affected. They believe they can "soar above" the influence of media with superior awareness and intellectual capacity. This is however a mistake. There are numerous studies of media influence that clearly shows people are much more affected than they believe, and that they get affected even when they believe they are not and even when they don't like what they perceive.

There is no effect without a cause. What effect and what cause are you talking about? And, with all due respect, this is a false analogy.

You said earlier:

Looks like you assign the media a highly influential role, rightfully so: media "shape peoples' world". You strongly suggest a cause (media's efforts) and effects (consumers' perceptions gradually change). At the same time you say it is meaningless to talk about cause and effect in relation to media's role in society. A contradictory statement, don't you think?

Not contradictory at all. Many complex interaction processes that lead to a certain effect, are too complex to be described as "A causes B". This holds true for example for how media influence people or how genes influence personality. The latter, btw, was not aimed to serve as an analogy, just an example of another case of temporal and causal interaction that is so complex so I think it's simplifying to the level of incorrect to say "A causes B".

The way media influence the audience is not as simple as "media make an effort and consumer's perception gradually change". It is a chain of events where media makes selections based on what they perceive that people want to consume that is also compatible with profit for the media, and what people want to consume is a reflection of what they have consumed previously and what they believe they want to or should consume. Media does not start from scratch, and neither does the consumer. It is an interactive process from the start, and thus I think it is incorrect to simplify it to "A causes B".

[fable]

Fawcett I am not familiar with, so I can't really tell but it appears to me that she was some kind of second rate actress.

Very much so. If that.

I don't define "influence" or "impact" (Dave O used both words) as being generally well known among a large number of people. I define influence or impact as having an effect on them, an effect that goes beyond the trivial. If 100 million people watch a TV-show and think "she's pretty" and nothing more, that does not equal influence to me. If 1 billion people hear a song on the radio and can identify it as a Michael Jackson song, that does not equal influence/impact either. That is being well known, or - famous.

John Maynard Keynes and (sadly) Milton Friedman have had a far, far greater impact on our lives than Michael Jackson; and they illustrate the difference between influence, and fame. Keynes and Friedman created macroeconomic theories that affected the ways governments operated to deal with the money supply, both in plush times and bad. Governmental borrowing to eliminate unemployment through the creation of jobs, the underpinning of Roosevelt's New Deal, was directly influenced by Keynes. In turn, Friedman argued that inflation was far worse, and that big business can be trusted to regulate itself. I loathe the sheer willful ignorance that governs that idea--a wholesale rejection of the historical past, in order to attack Keynes--but no one can doubt its impact today on the world thanks to policies pursued by the likes of Reagan, Thatcher, or Dubya.

To be influential, no one needs to know your name. That's the point. You don't need to know who Keynes was to be influenced by him. And although we don't know who the first smith was that created iron weapons, they were obviously a great influence.

On the other hand, Jackson and Fawcett were/are famous. The former influenced a few failed wannabes, and the latter had no discernible influence, at all.. But their names were well known. They will be forgotten in a few years, along with their fame. But influence doesn't fade that easily, and the principles Keynes uncovered will continue to influence governments whether they remember his name, or not.

[SupaCat]

Perhaps a better question is; will people even remember the man called Micheal Jackson a hundred years from now?

Ofcourse they will. Nowadays, information is kept alot better than 100 years ago and if you look at what we still have from a 100 years ago, you just know we will still know Micheal Jackson, if only for his major contribution to the video clip and his influential (is that even a word?) role towards other pop artists.

People in music are remembered not because of there role in that time, but because of their sheets of music, music on lp's... Who would remember Robert Johnson if he wouldn't have recorded his music on fono records? His influence was gigantic in the making of '60 music. Micheal Jackson will no doubt be an influence to anyone who wants to make similiar music like him. Sure, he didn't invent it, but neither did Nirvana invent grunge. They both were icons for the genre, like Beethoven is the person you get before your mind (have no idea how to say this dutch expression in english) when you talk about classical music, like the grateful dead are the band you think about when talking about jam bands.

I don't really know actually why people suddenly call him a genius, because he isn't. He was a great performer and a great singer, but so was Arthur Brown. People often forget the role of producers when making albums. Hell, in the 80's 80% of all pop music (mostly british) was made by a few producers. Micheal Jackson got a few brilliant songs on Thriller (4/8). But you shouldn't be supprised about that, he did have Quincy Jones as a producer back then and Quincy Jones was propably one of the biggest (not best) Jazz performers in the 60's. He shaped the songs on that overated album. Hell, all his other albums are simply made in the fashion that all mainstream 80's albums are made: a few great song to sell the entire album, that mostly sucks other than the well made singles. He wasn't a genius. He wasn't with the Jackson 5 and he wasn't as a solo artist. He may have been a great guy, but I honestly don't care about that. People talked alot about his personal life, but that has been done since the 50's (Chuck berry, anyone?). I'll remember him through his great songs, few as they me be in comparison to his total amount of songs.

With his dead we once again see human nature: suddenly everyone loves him, everyone buys his albums just to say 'what a talent we have lost', Neverland will become a place for fans to come to (for a fee ofcourse, why else would they bother) and I've read that someone of the Jackson family wants to make Micheals childeren into a group called Jackson 3. I'm proud to be a member of the human race.