Every Fan Has A Story

kindofdisco

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Seeing as a lot of fans have made introduction posts and the like here, and I never did get around to doing mine, I thought I'd do a little something so people - who have berated and followed me everywhere on the forum - can find out a little bit more about my boring self.

I discovered Michael Jackson out of a pure feeling of nostalgia. I believe Black Or White was playing on the radio one day while I was in the car with my mum (I think I was 17, so roughly 3 years ago), and while we were bopping along to the song I remembered a comment I always used to make whenever I heard the song, in relation to the song title. It suddenly dawned on me then that I knew next to nothing about this guy, and I was intrigued to know what really went on in his life. I think around this time too Thriller 25 was getting big, so that probably inched me towards finding out more.

Over the next few days and weeks I read everything I could on him, I devoured every piece of information I could find. I went out and bought all the albums - albeit week by week, on my pocket money! - and sat there and soaked it all up. I became very attracted to his J5/Jacksons era, and for Christmas I got a best of the Jacksons. From there, I eventually found all the Jacksons albums which at the time, were pretty hard to come by here in Australia.

In 2009 I moved out of home to live with my dad in Sydney, and I remember the first thing I did was go and visit the hotel Michael married Debbie in, haha! I felt silly, but you know how obsessions go. I drew so much of Michael during this time that my teachers at University where I was studying animation started trying to pry me off drawing Michael, and virtually everybody knew I was the crazy girl who drew Michael Jackson, haha!

When Michael made his TII announcement, I got up at around 3 in the morning to watch it live on the internet, and of course Michael was a whole two hours late! I was also a mod at another major MJ forum, Maximum Jackson, and as part of being connected to MJ's team we were offered tickets to the opening night of the tour. Unfortunately I could barely afford the ticket price let alone the airfare, but I was pretty hopeful that Michael was going to come back to Australia.

June 25th was an absolutely shocking day for me. The night before I had stayed up and talked to a friend. That morning I was already late for class when my dad stopped me in the hallway on the way to the bathroom and said - very seriously - "Rhea, Michael Jackson's had a heart attack." At that point in time he was still enroute to the hospital, and nothing had been confirmed yet. I naturally thought my dad was pulling my leg and I laughed it off, but he grabbed my arm and said it again slowly and seriously. I spent that entire morning online following every move of what was happening, and I denied again and again that he was dead. I still believed the reports that he was in a coma, 100 percent. I must've gotten so many calls that morning that I replied to with, "he's not dead, it's just a rumour!"

When Jermaine walked out and made that announcement, I knew it was true. It was funny because that day, the sky was so blue and clear, more clear than I had seen it in ages. I didn't go to class for days after that, I know that makes me sound pretty damn weird for sitting at home and crying over someone I never knew, but that's how I felt at the time. When I did go back to class, I remember sitting on the couches outside the room and just sort of staring blankly, and my friends came in laughing and joking. They stopped when they saw me - jeez this sounds like a bad movie! - and my friend said to me that I looked like a piece of me had just died. That was pretty close to the truth.

Michael Jackson has and will always be a huge part of my life. He is an inspiration, an older brother figure (I'm an only child) and sometimes a friend that I wish I had. And to those that wish to press their level of fandom on others, who think they are more of a fan than the next person because they believe a certain thing, or because they were more upset than someone else when MJ passed, just remember this: everybody was affected by MJ's passing in a different way. It was a global effect. Nobody is better than anyone else as far as fans go. Nobody.

And that makes me miss so much how the fandom was before Michael passed. There was a feeling of togetherness, before everybody started fighting over reasons of MJ's death or what his family did or what Paris or the kids have done. I miss that. We used to be a family, but for me, that time has long since gone.

So there's my pathetic story, haha! Needed to get that off my chest!
 
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