UK Times: “The Fans Killed Their Idol”

The Times of London featured a brilliant and brutally blunt op-ed piece by Janice Turner today on the maniacal Michael Jackson fan base.

The subhead to the headline quoted above gives you a feel for how Turner feels about the Jackson idol worshipers: “Those who professed to love Michael Jackson were vampires, feeders and jackals – their adulation hastened his end.”

Turner starts her dismemberment of the mindless Michael mourners this way:

Outside UCLA hospital they gather with their candles and their teddies, spooky lookalikes in full Thriller garb, wan teenagers wearing a single lace glove. They sway and sing I’ll Be There with sad faces to disguise the serotonin buzz from their frenzied collective mourn-in. Fans cry now for Michael Jackson, but they killed him. They always do.

Deeper into the lengthy essay we read a paragraph that could serve as the manifesto for this blog:

Fandom is the curse of our age. It has turned from admiration into obsession, respectful homage to idolatory. It is a virus to which no one seems immune. Once in New York, I passed a huge excited crowd outside a fancy hotel. What were they waiting for? Apparently Paris Hilton was inside having lunch.

Turner takes no prisoners but every word rings sadly true. Do read the whole thing.

~ by David Holland on June 27, 2009.