8 ms·
RIP Michael Jackson
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- bcater 17y agoCNN says that he is in the hospital: http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/25/michael.jackson/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/25/michael.jackson/...
- buugs 17y agobbc as well http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8119951.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8119951.stm
- abossy 17y agoTwitter states otherwise: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=michael+jackson http://search.twitter.com/search?q=michael+jackson The last tweet about it is 14 minutes ago. The search page was refreshing with 1000 new tweets/5 seconds when I first heard the news. This is such a hot topic that Twitter can't keep up!
- BRadmin 17y agoCNN just updated that link... confirms he's dead.
- paulgb 17y agoI think it's a pretty sure thing at this point, but for what it's worth, CNN still hasn't confirmed it, they're just reporting that others (LA Times and AP) are reporting it: "CNN has not confirmed his death." edit: they're now reporting on the broadcast that they have just confirmed it.
- swombat 17y agoAP, LA Times, and other reputable sources saying he's dead.
- icey 17y agoHow is this even remotely hacker news?
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- dabeeeenster 17y agoSurely if it's modded up it is?
- staunch 17y agoNo way. If we went by that rule the site would be full of [pic] submissions.
- swombat 17y agoComplaining about submissions is against the guidelines, I've been told.
- icey 17y agoIt's not a complaint, it's a genuine question. How is this even remotely hacker news?
- lyime 17y agoI hope this is not true.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- pg 17y agohttp://www.scoopler.com/search/#%22micheal+jackson%22 http://www.scoopler.com/search/#%22micheal+jackson%22
- axod 17y agoThanks, that's actually quite a bit more useful than search.twitter.com good job scoopler :) search.twitter.com - "25,415 more results since you started searching. Refresh to see them." - Refreshing to show 25,000 new results at once doesn't seem the best way...
- JulianMorrison 17y agoSeeing them at full speed doesn't either. Firehose much?
- johnnybgoode 17y agoI'm trying to figure out if you misspelled his name on purpose, to slow down the rate of results being returned or something. ;)
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- aristoxenus 17y agoFunny: after a couple minutes of watching that feed for both spellings, the "Micheal" one is actually a lot more active. And indeed if you look at the "hot topic" list, the wrong spelling is winning ;)
- gojomo 17y agoGossipy people don't spell very well?
- JMiao 17y agofor jmtame: "thrilla" http://www.thesixtyone.com/Villains/song/Thrilla/493/ http://www.thesixtyone.com/Villains/song/Thrilla/493/ "michael jackson (calvin harris remix)" http://www.thesixtyone.com/TheMitchellBrothe/song/Michael+Jackson+%28Calvin+Harris+Remix%29/1030/ http://www.thesixtyone.com/TheMitchellBrothe/song/Michael+Ja...
- jackchristopher 17y agoA guy hacked the NES and sent his wife this classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px06aFDlJrs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px06aFDlJrs
- apsurd 17y agoNever thought I'd see the day when any link from TMZ would be on hacker news.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- jmtame 17y agotmz was the first/original on this one -- not nytimes, cnn, or anyone else in this case
- JshWright 17y agoSo, is it just me, or has CNN been "Jackson-dotted"? Edit: It appears to just be the mobile site.
- Silentio 17y agoTMZ is a pretty terrible source but the NYT is reporting this as well: http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/michael-jackson-hospitalized/?hp http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/michael-jackson...
- socratees 17y agoI feel bad for what the media has done to him, calling him names and what not. It's all over now. Rest in peace Michael. we loved you.
- asimjalis 17y agoPerhaps the technology take on this is that Twitter was also briefly dead. Also this might have implications for marketing: did news sites that announced his death before it was confirmed get more page views than websites that waited?
- joel_feather 17y agoThat's just so...shocking. It always seemed like these type of people stay around forever to be made fun off and prodded - and then when you read about their death. It brings things into perspective - we're all just blobs of flesh, here by chance, and we will all be gone, washed away and forgotten before very long.
- rewind 17y agoShould be "RIP Your Posting Rights" for even considering putting that here. I'm having a good laugh over the fact that it's #1 though. I love hearing how people explain how something is relevant to hacker news when they post stuff like this. I don't even care that you posted it, but I'd love to hear what your rationale for doing so was... if for nothing else than to get another laugh.
- BvS 17y agohttp://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674621 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674621
- rewind 17y agoI think that can turn into a bit of a slippery slope form of justification, but on its own it's a good argument and you explained it well. And by the way, when MJ was in his prime, we were all running around elementary school wearing silver gloves on one hand and thought we were the SHIT.
- kingkawn 17y agoman made such good music in his prime it still gives you shivers.
- arien 17y agoRIP :(
- poppysan 17y agoI appreciate him and his quirks... RIP
- gnaritas 17y agoYou mean like liking children waaaay too much?
- gjizzle 17y agoi heard that they were going to melt him down to make toys so the kids can play with him for a change
- brianmckenzie 17y agoWell, now we know just how famous you have to be for the HN admins not to kill a TMZ link reporting your death.
- jmtame 17y agohe sets the bar pretty high: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_worldwide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_albums_wor...
- dinkumthinkum 17y agoYeah, probably most famous living person in the world would do it. I'd agree with you.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- diego 17y agoThis is somewhat hacker-relevant: During a 30-minute window, 22% of all tweets mentioned Michael Jackson (with the correct spelling). http://twist.flaptor.com/trends?gram=michael%20jackson&span=24&start=2009062519&end=2009062600 http://twist.flaptor.com/trends?gram=michael%20jackson&s... It's the highest peak we've seen for a person since we started tracking.
- delano 17y agoTwitter has now disabled search altogether which is the first time I recall that happening. I'm sure that's one of the reasons for the decline in the graph.
- diego 17y agoI'm not sure I understand what you mean. Even now, 8 hours after the news broke, 6% of all tweets are still mentioning Michael Jackson. That's comparable to the peak mentions for the Lakers when they won the NBA title and Facebook during the name rush.
- delano 17y agoOh, I was referring to the "Trending Topics" and search box on Twitter itself. They were removed and I suspect that would reduce overall Twitter activity (b/c it's more difficult for people to see what other people are saying).
- xsmasher 17y agoDon't read too much into that - "Twitter spammers" are already keeping an eye on trending searches and posting unrelated spam content with high-ranking keywords. Your data will be skewed by spammers trying to ride the popularity wave.
- ctingom 17y agoJust to clarify: The King of Pop died and not the King of Snap, Crackle and Pop.
- yan 17y agoAs much as I like to distance myself and really not care about the deaths of people I don't know, I do feel myself saddened by this. He contributed a great deal to a huge number of lives and completely changed what people thought of pop and pop stars. Hacker news or not, I feel having this space as a place for discussion is worthwhile imho.
- gruseom 17y agoI agree with Andrew Sullivan: There are two things to say about him. He was a musical genius; and he was an abused child. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/thinking-about-michael.html http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06...
- ComputerGuru 17y agoAnd 3rd, he was a child abuser himself. Downmod me only if you would have done the same while he was alive. Being dead doesn't forgive you what you've done.
- ErrantX 17y ago4th he was abused by millions of fans and continues to be abused after his death On the subject of child abuse (it had to come up at some point) all I will say is he wasnt a child abuser in the sense of pure evil (met some, he was nothing like that :)). More like unable to comprehend right/wrong and emotionally regressed. He needed help and no one gave it to him.
- gruseom 17y agoThat's a good point; many (though far from all) abused children turn into abusers later. Still, I decided a long time ago in the absence of first-hand information to withhold judgment about Michael Jackson. It could be that the terrible stuff that was reported about him was true, in which case it was probably the tip of the iceberg. But don't underestimate our society's capacity to demonize a weird person, especially when you throw in an inhumane media and extreme celebrity. It's easy for the popular conclusion to be wrong in such cases, adding one injustice to another.
- invisible 17y agoFurthermore, the speculative nature of parents should not be underestimated when they allow a weird, rich person to be friends with their child. So yeah, either he was very weird (definite) or he was a child molester (possible).
- chanux 17y agoSo many RIP news on HN lately :( . RIP MJ.
- dinkumthinkum 17y agoYou all complaining about this submission are being pretty ridiculous. Despite all the disgusting derision about so-called mediocre music, this is actually a big deal. Probably the most famous living person in the world died a few hours ago. This is not just some other celebrity news story. It's just a HN submission. It's not as if someone, heaven forbid, changed the Google home page in memory of Michael Jackson, that would be crazy (rolls eyes). Furthermore, he was very talented; though such an evaluation is subjective, it seems somewhat strange and incredulous to deny this much. I hope the people making these weird derisive comments aren't involved in any kind of social networking or related startups as probably your only hope is that understanding something about people has nothing to do with building social software for them.
- ErrantX 17y agoThe most famous living person in the world? Nah. Maybe in the past but in recent years before his trial he had slipped out of knowledge. Even after the trial he slipped back into obscurity until recently. I dont think he can be compared globally to, for example, David Beckham in modern times.
- Goladus 17y agoJackson had been famous since he was 10 years old. Sure, he hadn't been stealing recent headlines from Lindsay Lohan, but it's not like the millions of people familiar with him at some point during the 70s, 80s, or 90s just forgot about him.
- tptacek 17y agoThe best summation I think you'll read of Michael Jackson comes from Bill Wyman; today, abbreviated but current: http://www.hitsville.org/2009/06/25/michael-jackson-and-the-ultimate-crossover/ http://www.hitsville.org/2009/06/25/michael-jackson-and-the-... and from 1992, with much more detail: http://www.chicagoreader.com/michael_jackson/ http://www.chicagoreader.com/michael_jackson/ It's not a happy story (and not for the reasons you assume; for instance, search the latter story for "South Korea"). Bill Wyman tells it better than I think anyone else can, as an expert and well-regarded music journalist writing outside the confines of any mainstream music publication.
- nav 17y ago"Speechless", "I Can’t Help It"... "Another part of me" doesn’t want to believe it but as much as we want one can’t "beat it". You didn’t "stop till we got enough", "rocked our world" and "healed it"... - RIP MJ ...you’re "gone too soon"
- luckyland 17y agoMJ hacked music in his own little way during my childhood and I feel better for it.
- eterno 17y agolistened to free willy ost on way to office and then came the sad news. RIP MJ.You were as genius as humans come.
- zen53 17y agoWanna be startin something? http://bit.ly/aYDXm http://bit.ly/aYDXm R.I.P Michael
- johnyzee 17y agoStrange that he would have a heart attack at the age of 50, particularly considering that he cared obsessively about his health and was usually at peak physical performance for his shows. There must be more to this story.
- invisible 17y agoI guessed at the time of the event that he was on drugs. He lost everything and was in more debt than some may think is possible for an individual. Turns out that is likely the cause, but I'm sure we will be hearing about this for a long time to come.