Personally, I sat this one out. That's not to say I've paid no attention to any of this. I certainly have. I just moved on before the rest of you. I'm not judging. In 1994, I was glued to the television for days in the aftermath of Kurt Cobain's suicide. Michael Jackson was bigger but Kurt was more important to me. Everybody's got their something.
The science, if we can call it that, of what we care about is a fascinating one, though. Why did you care about this and why did you care about it so much? Was this media manipulation? We've seen media-created circuses before, but if CNN and Twitter had their way we'd have overthrown Iran last week. It turns out middle America was too busy taking the kids to softball games and amusement parks to start a revolution. We cared about Michael Jackson, less about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Sarah Palin came within 10,000,000 popular and 192 electoral votes—which sounds like a lot until you consider it was probably 1/10 of the overall TV audience—of the vice presidency and had a nutty over the 4th of July weekend. We don't care about that, either. Can we afford to provide health care for everyone living in the United States, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, financial background, or immigration status? Can we afford not to? Should it be a matter of affordability in the first place? Is the world about to explode because of global warming? Do enough of us believe that strongly enough that we want to never be able to sell our house without shrinkwrapping it in recycled cellophane as mandated in H.R. 620?
If it sounds like I'm making a judgment about which one of these stories was more deserving of your attention, I'm actually not. Like I said, I don't mind if you don't mind. That's what separates me from a certain wretched Nickelback video. I'm not looking down on you with my moral superiority or my new found social consciousness. I'm encouraged by what I saw. America proved it has an attention span of at least a week. Look at the bright side! Thousands of Americans demonstrated a willingness to get off their asses to be a part of something. We can still be galvanized. We can still be impacted. We can still coalesce around something and there is power in that. Don't believe me? Think about this.
Article comments
1 - Lisa McKay
Good stuff, Josh. I've been puzzling over this one for the last couple of days myself and not coming to very many conclusions. I do think that as a people, we're much better at making the grand gesture than we are at doing any actual work.
2 - Josh Hathaway
Thanks, Lisa. That's a very good point about grand gestures. I hadn't really thought of it that way but I think there's an awful lot of truth in that.
3 - Ruvy
Is this the last of the flood of "news" about Michael Jackson? Or are there going to be post funeral re-caps. I'm sick of hearing the name already.
A man died of a heart attack before he reached 51. Boo hoo. He's been buried. Good riddance.
Enough already!
4 - MarkSaleski
josh again provides scientific evidence that it's impossible to write the word Nickelback without 'wretched' in close proximity.
oh wait, this was about Michael Jackson. sorry.
i didn't watch much of the coverage myself, feeling strangely disconnected from the whole thing. i was around at the birth of mtv/Thriller, etc. but he never had a whole lot of impact on me. obviously talented, just not my thing.
5 - El Bicho
that's a coincidence. I am sick of hearing Ruvy complain about the coverage. if you don't like it, STFU and move on. I didn't see anywhere anyone asked your opinion about it.
btw, as of the time my comment is posted his body has not been buried yet, but then why would you let facts start informing your comments at this point? rather silly I even considered it.
6 - Josh Hathaway
As I mentioned at the top of the article, I didn't actually bother to watch the service on TV, either. I am a grownup and I know how to work a remote control. Sometimes I care about what the majority of the world cares about. More often it seems I don't. I put in a DVD. Problem solved.
7 - Ruvy
I am sick of hearing Ruvy complain about the coverage. if you don't like it, STFU and move on. I didn't see anywhere anyone asked your opinion about it.
El Bicho,
Too bad.
Ear-plugs are availale here, if you do not like what I have to say about your empty, celebrity-ridden, pornographic culture, and the evil it unleashes upon the rest of us who have to tolerate its trash. That message will continue to come your way from the mountains of Liberated Samaria, ISRAEL.
Have a good week!
Love and kisses,
Ruvy
8 - Josh Hathaway
It's true, Bicho, we can ignore Ruvy just as easily as he can ignore the coverage he doesn't like. Let's set the example and show him how it's done.
9 - Ruvy
we can ignore Ruvy just as easily as he can ignore the coverage he doesn't like. Let's set the example and show him how it's done.
Go ahead, Josh! Show 'em how it's done! Plug your ears; turn your faces away. Turn the sound down! Turn the page! But read this comment first.
When William Talman was near his death in 1968, did the one act that will earn him a place in eternity. According to Imdb.com, Near the end of his life, Talman did something that, while common nowadays, was an extraordinarily courageous thing for an actor to do at that time. A heavy smoker for most of his life, he was angered by a newspaper article he read about actors being afraid to make anti-smoking messages for fear of losing opportunities to make lucrative cigarette commercials. He decided to do something about it. Talman volunteered to make a short film for the American Cancer Society, part of which was shown in late 1968 and 1969 as a television anti-smoking commercial. He was the first actor to ever make such a commercial. When the message was being filmed, Talman knew he was dying, was in a great deal of pain and was in fact under heavy sedation for it. The short film begins, "Before I die I want to do what I can to leave a world free of cancer for my six children . . . ". Talman, in that one commercial, did more than Michael Jackson, or all the other fools you worship as icons, did in a lifetime.
My mother-in-law, may she rest in peace, used to plug her ears and turn down the sound on the TV when those ads came on. She didn't want to hear anything that would take away from her pleasure from smoking. She smoked until her heart gave way, and she needed a triple by-pass and the constant proximity to an oxygen tank to just survive.
Your society and your culture suffers from a terrible cancer of pornography, violence and perversion of moral values. The economic collapse you are suffering is part of the result of that perversion of moral values.
So go ahead and ignore the message I bring you. It is no sweat off my butt. I don't live in that sick, perverted, empty culture of yours.
I left it, and I'm glad I did.
Have a great Tuesday!