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How was Michael treated in your country before and after his death?

teli-mj

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I had this question in my mind since MJ’s death and that explosion of “love” that we all viewed because of the tragic incident. But how was the public treating him before he died in your countries? Did they play his music, was he discussed in music debates, could you find merchandise concerning him etc etc. So, as the thread title indicates : How Michael was/is treated in your country before and after his death?
 
For the most part Michael was treated nicely where i come from. His music was always played often in nightclubs and most people gave him tons of praise. Yeah there was a few people who didn't like him but your gonna get that pretty much anywhere
 
I am from the United States. He was pretty much treated like dirt here in his own country. Though I might be wrong. But during the past nearly 20 years I had probably video taped dozens if not hundreds of news stories about Michael. And they all pretty much talk bad about him. The worst was well other besides him being called a child molestor. Was when he was making the They Don't Care About Us video. I have all the controversy about it on blank video tapes. And I just could not believe how the American media would not shut up about it. Going through by some of the lines that Michael had said in the song. I was in my mid teens at the time. And I just could not see what was so bad about the song. Maybe it was because of my severe learning disabilities was probably why I wasn't seeing it. All I knew at the time was that it was that I had like the song.
 
Well, overall, I would say fine. Some people like him, some not. Some people here talk about him like a ''faded mega star'' when he was so great when he was black and without surgeries. Usually people make jokes about his nose and claiming all BS about him wanting to be white and surgeries stuff more than his wonderful legacy and music he left behind. I find that rather stupid to believe some tabloid more than the actual man himself. Michael has stated the truth in various ways in his life. But it didn't pay off much. Media has huge influence and people rather believe them more than Michael himself. Read my siggy.

After his death, media of course showed some of his music videos and records, all that stuff. Of course they couldn't avoid mentioning about his ''sex scandals'' in 1993 and 2005. But overall, I didn't see much harassment back then. Only after his death I started to look up information about him and started to become MJ fan. Too sad only Michael's death made me explore his wonderful legacy. Before his death, I only knew Billie Jean song which I liked, but I didn't even know how it was called. All people told me about Michael Jackson was that he's some black guy who made himself white and did lots of surgeries and that his nose was falling off. Yeap, I know how it sounds. But that's all what I heard. Thanks to internet and this forum I know the real situation right now :)

I kind of made this text too long telling more about my own feelings and expressions than how MJ was treated here.

Anyway, overall I think he was treated ok.
 
well, BEFORE... They hardly played a song of Michael on the radio and if they did they NEEDED to add a bunch of crap to go with it :doh:
It was kind of tough getting stuff the last years Michael was here... We always got it LATE or we had to 'specially' order it or there were ONLY a few so it was 'first come first serve' base...

I was considered the :tease:eek:ne in my family for sticking to Michael even through all the 'dirt' and stuff...

Since, that :cry: day in 2009... I FEEL there is a whole shift of consciousness being created...
They play Michael's music WITHOUT the 'shady' comments...
You could get a lot of stuff in 2009 and still do... NOW, all his music is PRESENT in the music stores...
Even people 'changed' their attitude... They are much nicer and more tolerant towards Michael and me... They ask how I am?
Okay, they NEVER did that in 2008... I was like the 'outcast' of the family :smilerolleyes:

So, it has changed for the better but that's the MOST frustrating thing... WHY are peeps only appreciated once they are gone?
 
In my country....Michael-mania was all over in the 80-es. But he was allways the biggest. Yes...the media was treating him like dirt through all those framed scandals , but fans did not care.
I was allways so proud of loving him all these years.
After 2009 , you can hear a lot more of his music on the radio. But I am angry because it is allways Billie Jean or Thriller....
All those amazing songs , so many ppl will never hear. That makes me so angry.
 
In my country people didn't talk much about Michael before his death. People usually made jokes about him. Of course media was mostly talking bad things too. I became interested in Michael's music when he announced This Is It concerts. I was very excited about them. If I remember right media in here wasn't before his death. Only after his death they started saying good things.
 
In Russia he was huge during the 90s, when he came here with Dangerous and HIStory tours. He was the biggest star in the world. Even though his Dangerous show in Moscow was right in the middle of the Chandler scandal, I remember that most people supported him and even the media was mostly on his side. People simply loved him.
During the 2000s I didn't follow the news or fandom much, I think he became less popular since he stopped visiting the country. I googled up some local news from 2005-2009 - they are mostly covering his trials and lots of tabloid BS concerning his health, so mostly negative stuff, but those news are almost 100% translated from U.S. and U.K. sources. And although they are often sad and not factual, I don't see the snide remarks and mockery that is common for American news.

In 2009 I saw that most people remembered him fondly and talked about him being a genius and a consummate artist, though there were some that called him names. His music started getting air time again - and it still does pretty often. Before that I can't remember hearing his song on the radio since '96. Right now I would say of all people who care about him, about 80% have a great respect for him and 20% have misconceptions.
 
I don't think there was much of a difference in his treatment here. Though I don't listen to radio much as I remember they always played his songs. Typically Black or White, Beat It or Billie Jean. But that's the case with every artist on these commercial radios: they tend to play only their two-three biggest hits. It's a pity because Michael has so many marvels that people don't even know, but I don't think it was anything especially against him, it was just the policy of radios.

I don't think my country ever treated him the horrible way the US did. Yes, there are tabloids here too, yes they are just as crappy, but they usually just take over the articles from US/UK papers when they report about foreign stars and it's more out of ignorance than out of hatred. I have never experienced such intense hatred to Michael here as in the US media, where you could feel they were just hell-bent on destroying him no matter what. Really, it's a shameful, shameful eposide of American history, a 21st century lynching, not with stones, but with lies - and I hope the future generations will judge it as such!

After his death, we had a couple of tributes to him, in shows similar to American Idol. Maybe TVs and radios play his songs a bit more now, but there is no massive difference, since they played them before anyway.

And I have never experienced such an intense hatred to him when I read comments under articles either. When there's an article about him on an American website, it's better not to read the comment section - with people calling him a pedophile left and right. It's not like that here. Sure, there is the odd guy making some silly remark, but I don't see this coming as intensely and as hateful as on American websites. I think generally in Europe he was treated more fairly than in the US (maybe with the exception with the UK - at least the UK media).
 
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^^I agree. There's a reason why he tried to avoid the US as much as possible when he was on tour. Well, at least after '93. If I recall correctly he had a bunch of shows scheduled in New York, Chicago and Hawaii in '94, which were of course cancelled after the '93 allegations. Ever since, as far as I know, Michael only went to Hawaii a couple of times and had the two MSG concerts in NY. Those were pretty much the only US gigs he did after '93...

Oh, and then he chose Europe for his comeback, London specifically. So, eat that America!

No but seriously, it's a shame that the US media screwed the US fans from seeing him live in the 90s. Europe and Asia were happy though, they were getting huge doses of Michael Jackson.

One can only wonder how things would've turned out if the '93 and '05 allegations had never happened...

Oh, and I'm not even gonna bother with how Romania and its 7 levels of hypocrisy treated Michael after he died. The thing that bugged me the most was the large amount of useless half-arsed MJ merchandise that was trying to be sold... Ugh!
 
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T.N.A. said:
^^I agree. There's a reason why he tried to avoid the US as much as possible when he was on tour. Well, at least after '93. If I recall correctly he had a bunch of shows scheduled in New York, Chicago and Hawaii in '94, which were of course cancelled after the '93 allegations. Ever since, as far as I know, Michael only went to Hawaii a couple of times and had the two MSG concerts in NY. Those were pretty much the only US gigs he did after '93...

Oh, and then he chose Europe for his comeback, London specifically. So, eat that America!

No but seriously, it's a shame that the US media screwed the US fans from seeing him live in the 90s. Europe and Asia were happy though, they were getting huge doses of Michael Jackson.

One can only wonder how things would've turned out if the '93 and '05 allegations had never happened...

Oh, and I'm not even gonna bother with how Romania and its 7 levels of hypocrisy treated Michael after he died. The thing that bugged me the most was the large amount of useless half-arsed MJ merchandise that was trying to be sold... Ugh!
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I totally agree with you. It is one of the reasons why I hate my country so much. Is because of how badly Michael was treated here. And when I think back to the 80s where Michael mania was huge here. MJ haters were almost unheard of back then. I can't remember much of Michael mania since I was only 4 years old when it started. It still just makes me wish I was so much older back then. That way I had the chance to see one of Michael's concerts back then. Preferably one of his Bad Concerts. Since back then he was touring my country.
 
Yeah.....a man would guess that America would treasure Michael - he was the BIGGEST and an American.
You never know....envy is an evil monster.
 
Michael was and still is loved in my country (Ethiopia). One thing they remember about Michael is the song *We are The world* and how it helped out during the 84-87 famine in Ethiopia. Ofcourse there were tabloid stories that came from the US/UK and any other news source that talked bad about Michael in the 80's…. but everything was ok in the 90's. Most ppl. in my country did not believe the stories that came out about him in the early 90's and in the 2000's. Eventhough there were/are some very close minded people, before his passing, Michael was loved very much… I know that from experience. when i went to the country side for my last vacation before coming to the US, there were sooo many kids/adults that had a MJ t-shirt, cassette tape…ect. and one of the things they asked me was to send a pic. of Michael and me together… :lol: Back there, anything was possible in the US. :D

After his passing… there were a lot of people selling t-shirts, CD's, videos…etc to the general public
Like the pic below…:

View attachment 181

Thankyou for starting this thread… :)


L.o.v.e.
Romi

 
The Healer said:
Yeah.....a man would guess that America would treasure Michael - he was the BIGGEST and an American.
You never know....envy is an evil monster.
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I agree! Common sense would tell you to value your national treasure and NOT drive him away from your country...

F*ck logic, right?
 
I experienced both sides of Michael's stardom being an American fan in the 80s when his popularity soared and then witnessing the brutal media attacks with the first set of allegations and everything beyond that. It was horrible and never ending. There was always negative press to some degree (questioning his sexuality, for example), but US media slaughtered him after '93. I understand completely why he didn't tour here after all that and totally left after 2005. :( After his death, American perception has changed about him, I think, (maybe naively) for the better. And I think the children growing up now (mine, for example) see and appreciate his incredible talent, choosing not to consume all the tabloid trash that clouded his reputation for years in the headlines here.
 
I don't think I need to explain how he was treated in America. It's sad how he was treated better in other countries than his home country. Here a greater emphasis is placed on sensationalized stories I guess. Just taking a look at mainstream media and what passes for news here makes me gag. No, I didn't blame him for leaving the country either. :( I think after he died, America realized the icon they lost, but still the perception isn't the greatest unfortunately. I only know one person IRL who doesn't believe tabloid lies (at least most of them anyway) about Michael, and that's my mom. The ignorance is frustrating...still.
 
well people were some nice some hater. but Media and journalists were terrible. they were declaring all dirt about him. they were so cynical, unfair, and evil. I'll never forget this. they hurted me so much. I didn't want to switch TV on, especially during trials. But after his death, he became hero for them and immortal megastar. they are such hypocrites. for them I hate all journalists, and this profession is disgusting for me.
 
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I believe the media treated Michael like crap everywhere esp. the 'bigger' or more well known countries?
 
In the country I currently live in? Worse than dirt, and I'm sure he'd agree.

In my birth country? He was well-liked.

In the country my heart is loyal to? He was loved.
 
Severus Snape said:
In the country I currently live in? Worse than dirt, and I'm sure he'd agree.

In my birth country? He was well-liked.

In the country my heart is loyal to? He was loved.
Click to expand...

Let me guess... USA, Germany and Japan...

How off was I? :lol:
 
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