The new movie that just came out convinced the younger generation that he was always a superstar. This was not the reality many of us Millennials grew up with.
To a lot of us, he was treated like a punch line when we were growing up. A schoolyard boogeyman ("Michaels Jackson's gonna get you at night"). and just a general joke in the media. By the 2000's his music was out of date and didn't chart well. All anyone talked about was his surgeries, court case, settlements and his off behavior. Few mentioned his music. His music was something our parents would have listened to in the 1980's.
u/AccomplishedPool266 — 18 days ago