Can You Feel the Zeitgeist? Michael Jackson’s Funeral Breaks the Internet

by Karen Archey on July 8, 2009 · 4 comments

POST BY KAREN ARCHEY
Michael Jackson, Karen Archey, Art Fag City, Facebook
Photo AFC

What may have been the most poignant day in recent history depressed the shit out of us here at AFC. But our melancholy was due less to Michael Jackson’s televised funeral than the weirdly banal status updates via CNN’s live video feed and Facebook status plugin. The memorial service of arguably the world’s most famous entertainer featured some real tear-jerker moments, but these were continually followed by empty sentiments — though sometimes sincerely felt — in the form of a global chatroom.  A few of our favorite status updates taken from the CNN Facebook plugin below:

Auria Abraham is not usually a fan of Al Sharpton, but THAT was Sharp!! Good job Al Sharpton!

Charylane L Chavez-Phillips (Referring to John Mayer): nice!! Love this John guy!

Nikki Cofield: did he kiss that monkey in da mouf???

Ty Burgee: IS THIS DUDE HIGH?

Karen Archey: lawrence weiner meets powerpoint right now

And lastly, various versions of: “RIP MJ” and “OMG Stevie! made me cry at work!”

I know new technology like Twitter supposedly brings nations together in a hug-the-world type fashion, but this sense of global connectedness wipes away humanity’s mystique, while highlighting the limits of language. Although we’ve never been so connected technologically, our codified methods of communication—in this instance, for grieving—elucidate the fact that it takes more than gadgetry to share experiences that effectively reveal our humanity.

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  • http://www.afeverishdream.com/ Brian

    Great entry, Karen. I love your conclusions in the last paragraph regarding technology vs humanity. It’s just so hard to adequately express some things in 140 characters of less, I suppose! Twitter and Facebook have given global voices to those interested in having one, and thus an internal “Rest in Peace, Michael Jackson” has suddenly become a very public “RIP MJ” on one’s social media platform of choice. Twitter’s Trending Topics could be equated to peer pressure in some respect, luring users into posting on topics just to be part of the biggest conversations.

    I’ve had Twitter on my mind a lot recently, and just this week launched a project that mines the Twitter stream for updates with the word “me” in them. The resulting feed is this stream of anonymous tweets ranging in tone, topic, emotion, language usage, etc. I find it personally fascinating in part because of its lack of humanity as you described. It’s all very distilled.

    Anyway, your listing of the diverse status updates from the Jackson funeral reminds me of the tweets showing up in my project. You verbalize what it’s all about so much better, of course. Thanks for a good read.

    PS. Hope you all dry out very soon!

  • http://www.afeverishdream.com/ Brian

    Great entry, Karen. I love your conclusions in the last paragraph regarding technology vs humanity. It’s just so hard to adequately express some things in 140 characters of less, I suppose! Twitter and Facebook have given global voices to those interested in having one, and thus an internal “Rest in Peace, Michael Jackson” has suddenly become a very public “RIP MJ” on one’s social media platform of choice. Twitter’s Trending Topics could be equated to peer pressure in some respect, luring users into posting on topics just to be part of the biggest conversations.

    I’ve had Twitter on my mind a lot recently, and just this week launched a project that mines the Twitter stream for updates with the word “me” in them. The resulting feed is this stream of anonymous tweets ranging in tone, topic, emotion, language usage, etc. I find it personally fascinating in part because of its lack of humanity as you described. It’s all very distilled.

    Anyway, your listing of the diverse status updates from the Jackson funeral reminds me of the tweets showing up in my project. You verbalize what it’s all about so much better, of course. Thanks for a good read.

    PS. Hope you all dry out very soon!

  • http://jenkinsdothatthing.blogspot.com/ Rondell Jenkins

    Ooh I hate that John Mayer! What’s wrong with his face?

  • http://jenkinsdothatthing.blogspot.com/ Rondell Jenkins

    Ooh I hate that John Mayer! What’s wrong with his face?

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