But whatev. I have to say E.D., I find this piece a bit uncharitable. The guy obviously did, ahem, touch huge numbers of people with his talent. My personal view is that Cobain’s was greater, but I think it is undeniable that this is the biggest pop-culture passing since Elvis. The main difference is in the declines. The King of Rock had a horrible one, but he kept making interesting music. Michael’s was more fully self-destructive, wherein he pretty much fully disappeared from the artistic scene. For that reason, his death had almost no emotional impact for me. He was almost already there — a hollow shell. But at the same time, that absence itself underscores the significance of the outpouring yesterday and this weekend. I’m not sure when you were born, but I think it’s possible you just don’t have a sense for the force that this guy was. That doesn’t make the celebrity-worship objectively any better from a moral-priority perspective, but I think it would help to put the reaction in context for you. You have to realize — Kurt went out at the apex of his arc. It shocked his followers. (I was a latecomer; I actually rejected the emotionalism at the time in a similar way you are doing now — for less good reason, as he didn’t touch children. I have come to see the error of my ways, relatively speaking.) But at the time of his death, as huge a star as he was, he was still a genre-specific (alt/grunge) phenomenon. It’s not an artistic defense, but Jackson simply dominated at a time when there weren’t very many outlets to pursue a different artistic sensibility in the pop realm. He was piped into people’s consciousness, and if you give him a second listen, I think you might begin to understand why, given the alternatives, people connected to him in a historic way (best-selling album of all time.)

So this week, we see not a reflection of what the man was at the time of his death, but what he was fully to people the world over across the course of a lifetime, concentrated of course mainly in a few remarkable years 25 years ago! Is it any wonder that the reaction seems out of place now, in a cultural setting removed by a quarter century from his moment of dominance?

“James Joyner thinks the coverage of MJ’s death is over the top, and I completely agree. I will, however, note that while the MJ coverage is over the top, it still pales in comparison to the three day self-absorbed wankfest that followed Tim Russert’s death.”

I think this is correct.

Now John Lennon – that’s a different – he deserved every second of TVEE time he received after he was murdered.

That’s exactly right, and the list of celebrities who’ve followed this pattern is a long one. Perhaps the only amazing thing is that more of them haven’t ended up in one of those white vans.

I wrote about that exact thing here:
http://bleakonomy.blogspot.com/2009/06/deformations-of-fame.html