So Michael Jackson died a little over a week ago and it seems every aspect of the media world had something to say about it, including the video gaming press. Mega popular gaming blog Kotaku posted a story announcing Michael Jackson’s death. Shiny (makers of the awesome Earthworm Jim games) founder David Perry wrote about Jackson as well and described an occasion where he met the pop star. It’s hard to be sure why gaming media outlets decided to cover the Jackson story. Was it because Michael Jackson was just that big or was it because the industry felt it had a connection to Jackson? After all, Jackson has ties to the video game world. He had his own Moonwalker game for the Sega Genesis and appeared in Space Channel 5 and Space Channel 5: Part 2 which were also Sega projects. He also had a cameo in Midway’s Ready To Rumble: Round 2.
Whatever the reasons the gaming press had for paying attention to the story, there is no denying he had an impact on the world we live in. He was arguably one of the first, if not the first, African American to really appeal to all people during a climate when that generally wasn’t the norm or even in the realm of possibility. He sold copious amounts of music and set and broke numerous music related records and was considered by many to really be the “King of Pop”.
His death also marked the first time that social media really flexed it’s muscles when it came spreading the word about something quickly. News of Jackson’s death was spreading like wildfire across sites like Twitter and Facebook while traditional news outlets like CNN and Google News we’re playing catchup. Users rushing to update Michael Jackson’s Wikipedia page caused disruptions for the entire Wikipedia site. The surge of users performing Michael Jackson related queries on Google led system administrators believe that some sort of attack was taking place. Most importantly though, Michael Jackson’s death allowed fans to come out of the closet with people declaring their fandom on their Facebook, Twitter and MySpace pages.
I was never the biggest Michael Jackson fan but still appreciated some of his bigger hits. Like most people, I was taken aback by the fiascoes that surrounded him over the last few years. Mainly his lavish spending on crazy and useless items, the rumors of plastic surgery and the child molestation accusations. I think the saddest thing to come out of this is that my children won’t really get to know the spectacle that is Michael Jackson like we did. I think it’s safe to say that Mr. Jackson will be missed.
