Is mourning for Michael Jackson’s death bad?

I’ve been reading news about Michael Jackson passing away. I mean how can you avoid it when everywhere on the internet, his name is posted in big bold letters. So one comment that irked me is

“America is messed up because people are mourning a pedophile’s death, Michael Jackson”.

While true that it is messed up to mourn for a pedophile’s death … the relevance of the person and his achievements far outweighs that. I’m not so certain about the result of his case, but the reason why people are mourning for him is not because he might be a pedophile, but because he definitely influenced the music industry in a worldly level. What I mean by worldly is not exaggerating either, his influence has passed the USA boundary, as far as Asia, Middle East (maybe), Africa, Australia … you name it, a person will know who he is unless he/she has been living under a rock or a cave. How can you punish a person for his wrongdoing and ignore the rest of what he has done for the world. You could say he is a legend; he became the most searched topic in the internet. And no matter what bad deeds he committed (you could say the same for Hitler), on every history book, Hitler’s name will always be mentioned. And in this case, on every music discussion, somewhere along the line, Michael Jackson’s name will be mentioned along with Elvis Presley, The Beatles, etc.

As a proof, here’s a youtube video to show how popular Michael Jackson is in Japan. He surprise visit SMAP and everyone was shocked.  And SMAP has got to be one of the most popular bands in Japan, but they still felt like they had seen a ghost.

– RIP MJ

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