Outpouring over Michael Jackson unlike anything since Princess Di

Nostalgia for a musical prodigy seemed to trump the pop star's dark side, as albums sold out and fans swamped social media with tributes.

from the June 27, 2009 edition

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With virtually no offstage in his life, "Jackson became a canvas on which fans projected all kinds of fantasies – about proper gender behavior, about racial norms and what we should do with our bodies."

Jackson also gave more than $300 million over the course of his life to charities all over the world, which may have something to do with tributes coming from several world leaders, from Britain's Gordon Brown to former president of South Korea Kim Dae-jung and South Africa's Nelson Mandela.

Other cultural anthropologists and researchers suggest the current economic downturn has accelerated global notions of nostalgia.

"We mourn the loss of ourselves through this pop icon," says Tracy Johnson, Research Director of Context-Based Research Group which studies consumer behavior.

"We recognize that we, particularly in America, have lost a little bit of what we were all about," she says. "Someone like Michael Jackson who so embodied the American Dream just makes that loss all that much more palpable."

Above all, it was his music and unique, energetic performance style that attracted fans around the world.

"One reason Michael Jackson's death is having such a wide impact is because his music had such a wide, and even sustained impact," says John Covach, a music historian at the University of Rochester. "Few artists have so completely saturated the market as Jackson did during the 1980s. It's comparable to the Beatles in the 60s or Elvis in the 50s. When an artist or performer is so well known and loved, the reaction to his or her passing is bound to be strong and widespread."

"One important difference between Jackson's career and those of many others is that he was a child star who became an adult star – a very difficult transition to pull off," says Professor Covach. "Even those who were too young to be fans of Jackson when he was a child have seen the clips of him performing with a mastery far beyond his years. The adult Michael Jackson that fans loved in the 1980s thus already had a bit of history – people felt like they knew him already."

And so, people from around the world continue to talk with friends and strangers about this musical legend, their voices spread more widely by new means of communication.

In the hours after Jackson's passing, AOL's instant messaging service was down for 40 minutes due to an increase in traffic. In a statement, AOL also noted that, "Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We've never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth."

As if to connect the two major icons of celebrity lost in recent years, the Telegraph in London reports that Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed has announced that he will erect a Michael Jackson Memorial at the store to join the one of his late son, Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales.

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