The Narrative Project — an evolving creative space exploring art, power, and meaning in modern culture. At its core: The Michael Jackson Essays — focused on the legacy, artistry, and cultural resonance of a singular figure in modern history.

Funny how the audience refuses to cooperate with the narrative. Imagine an album retrospectively portrayed as a commercial flop. Twenty-five years later, its limited-edition anniversary vinyl is SOLD OUT.

The Michael Jackson Effect On June 25, 2009, following the news of Michael Jackson’s death, Wikipedia experienced an extraordinary surge in traffic. The combination of massive demand for information and continuous edits to Jackson’s biography repeatedly invalidated cached versions of the page. Multiple servers began processing the same content simultaneously, overwhelming their combined capacity and affecting the availability of Wikipedia as a whole. Wikimedia’s technical documentation identifies this phenomenon as a cache stampede. Within its technical history, it acquired a name: the Michael Jackson effect. A lasting trace of a cultural shockwave, embedded in the language of technology. In response, Wikimedia developed PoolCounter, a mechanism designed to prevent similar overloads by coordinating how servers process highly requested content. On October 7, 2026, Wikimedia revisited the Michael Jackson effect, tracing subsequent improvements to its infrastructure back to 2009. The incident illustrates how a cultural event can expose the limitations of digital infrastructure and contribute to its technological evolution. The impact of Michael Jackson’s death was reflected not only in how people responded, but also in the digital systems that had to accommodate that response—and ultimately adapt to its extraordinary scale.

Let me take you back to 1987, when Michael Jackson was facing widespread criticism over the commercial use of Beatles songs. According to representatives of the Beatles, their music had not been created to sell commercial products. Yet, according to a Washington Post report published on November 25, 1987, Jackson granted publishing rights for Nike’s use of “Revolution” only after receiving assurances that Capitol Records and Yoko Ono had approved the arrangement. While Jackson was being criticized, the American press was pointedly reminding readers that Paul McCartney himself owned Buddy Holly songs that were also being used in commercials. The journalist’s ironic observation exposed the contradiction between the public condemnation of the commercial use of Beatles songs and McCartney’s own commercial exploitation of another artist’s music. As The Washington Post put it: “It's also worth remembering that all those Buddy Holly songs showing up in commercials are owned by none other than Paul McCartney!” Apparently, moral judgment only comes into play when our own interests are at stake. Source: [The Washington Post, November 25, 1987](washingtonpost.com/archive/l…)

It is time to put to rest a nearly 40-year-old narrative of betrayal portraying Michael Jackson’s acquisition of ATV Music Publishing as a moral failure toward Paul McCartney. What the historical record shows is that Jackson not only respected his friendship with McCartney; he recognized its significance and took the necessary steps before proceeding with the acquisition. In its 2021 decision, Estate of Michael J. Jackson v. Commissioner (T.C. Memo. 2021-48), the United States Tax Court recorded a significant detail about the acquisition. Jackson was concerned about purchasing what he regarded as the creative property of a friend. Before submitting a bid, he instructed his attorney, John Branca, to contact both Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono. According to the court’s account, both indicated that they were not interested in purchasing the catalog. Branca’s account provides further detail: Yoko Ono reportedly preferred Jackson to acquire the rights rather than a major corporation, while McCartney’s attorney considered the asking price too high. There is also a separate account documented by The Paul McCartney Project, citing Bert Reuter, who represented the seller, Robert Holmes à Court. According to Reuter, McCartney had been given the first opportunity to purchase the catalog but did not take it. What began as a legal and highly successful business acquisition, undertaken after documented consideration for McCartney, has been framed for nearly forty years as an act of personal betrayal. In the end, the problem does not appear to be that the catalog was under third-party ownership, as it had been since 1969. The problem appears to be who eventually owned it: Michael Jackson. Sources 1. [Estate of Michael J. Jackson v. Commissioner, T.C. Memo. 2021-48, p. 13](ustaxcourt.gov/resources/opi…) 2. [The Paul McCartney Project — Michael Jackson Buys Northern Songs](the-paulmccartney-project.co…)

What is well documented is that Aloha from Hawaii was broadcast live in just six countries, with a combined population of approximately 216 million. A detailed investigation published by Elvis Australia in 2018, conducted by two dedicated Elvis fans, identified broadcasts in 21 countries in total, including delayed transmissions, with a combined population of approximately 831.6 million. Even if every single inhabitant of those countries had watched, the audience could not have reached one billion, let alone 1.5 billion. And on top of that, the billion-viewer figure was originally a promotional projection made before the concert even took place, not a documented audience measurement. Even if Aloha from Hawaii eventually surpassed Jackson’s audience figures through subsequent broadcasts, we are comparing the Super Bowl, broadcast live internationally, with a concert that reached much of its international audience through delayed broadcasts on different dates. These are fundamentally different broadcast arrangements, so their audience figures cannot be directly compared. Source: [Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite — Fact & Fancy (2018)](elvis.com.au/presley/aloha-f…)

The Beatles’ publishing rights had been outside their control since 1969. Yet when they passed into Michael Jackson’s hands in 1985, the issue suddenly became a question of morality and personal betrayal. Lennon and McCartney themselves sold their remaining shares in Northern Songs in 1969. Michael Jackson did not buy “Paul’s songs.” He acquired ATV Music, a publishing catalog containing thousands of compositions, including those of the Beatles. Jackson and McCartney collaborated in the early 1980s. They had personal contact, visited each other, and shared a friendly relationship. Yet the public narrative often retrospectively inflates this relatively brief relationship into a deep, lifelong friendship supposedly destroyed by betrayal. In fact, it was a clean, legal, and extremely successful business move by Jackson. Everything else about “betrayal” is merely an emotional narrative.

A question: How is Elvis's 1.5 billion presented as a worldwide audience when Aloha from Hawaii aired live only in parts of Asia-Pacific, reached Europe later, and wasn't shown in the US until April 4? That doesn't appear to represent simultaneous viewership comparable to Jackson's. It looks more like cumulative viewership across separate broadcasts.

Predicting Michael Jackson's downfall has never been a particularly successful business. The industry made its predictions in 1985. Two years later, Jackson came back with Bad, outselling not only the subsequent albums of Springsteen and Prince, but everyone else's. Bad was the world's best-selling album of 1987 and 1988, and went on to become the second-best-selling album in history, behind only Thriller.

Michael Jackson's biopic continues. And with a second film now in development, I find myself wondering what Part Two will show us. I don't know. But I can imagine what Part Three could be about. A biographical film is usually structured around a human life. It has a beginning, a development, and an end. Even when that story requires two films, death generally provides its natural conclusion, followed by text on a black screen summarizing the aftermath. Here lies a fundamental question: how do you bring a story to a close when that story continues to unfold long after its central figure is gone? Michael Jackson's life ended in 2009. The cultural phenomenon did not. And this is not simply about a famous name surviving in historical memory. His music still circulates. His performances are revisited, studied, reproduced, and reinterpreted. New generations encounter his work. His public presence continues to generate admiration, controversy, debate, and competing interpretations. These are not merely memories of what once happened. They are cultural activities taking place in the present. The first two films may tell the story of the man, his artistic development, and his relationship with the world around him. And even then, I am not sure whether two films can fully capture a phenomenon of such historical duration, complexity, and cultural breadth. Yet in Michael Jackson's story, the aftermath is an equally significant chapter. It is the story of an echo that persists defiantly. Death is no longer the definitive end of the narrative. Perhaps that is where Part Three begins.

“Michael Jackson’s THRILLER Jacket — The Continuing Life of a Garment” On October 7, 2026, Julien’s Auctions announced that Michael Jackson’s original red-and-black Thriller jacket will return to auction on December 7 in Abu Dhabi, fifteen years after its previous sale. But behind the announcement lies a history that begins more than four decades ago. ◆ 1983 — Two Original Jackets Two red-and-black leather jackets, designed by costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis, were created for Michael Jackson’s Thriller short film. One jacket was worn during the sequences in which Jackson appeared without zombie makeup. The second was deliberately distressed for the zombie sequences, with torn leather and damaged detailing. The undistressed jacket was made from red-and-black calf leather, featuring sharply structured shoulders, a trapunto-stitched collar, silver buckles at the cuffs, and a red silk lining. Its distinctive construction created the exaggerated V-shaped silhouette that became closely associated with Jackson’s appearance in the film. The interior carried a Marc Laurent Paris label. Both jackets were original production garments, yet they would eventually follow very different paths. ◆ 1984 — Beyond the Screen The jacket’s distinctive design quickly moved beyond the short film and into popular fashion. Its striking appearance generated widespread demand for reproductions. The design was copied and sold commercially, allowing audiences to adopt one of the most recognizable elements of Jackson’s visual identity. In March 1984, TIME reported on 17-year-old Eric Evans, who purchased a red leather replica of the Thriller jacket for $550. The considerable price illustrated the commercial appeal of the design. Its visual identity was already circulating independently through fashion retail and everyday dress. ◆ From the Film to Jackson’s Costume Designers Following Thriller, Jackson brought the undistressed jacket to Michael Bush and Dennis Tompkins, his longtime costume designers, to serve as a reference for the concert versions they would later create. When the designers questioned whether he could move freely in it, Jackson reportedly responded: “Have you seen the video for 'Thriller'?” According to Michael Bush, Jackson initially believed that creating a pattern from the original jacket would require taking it apart. When Bush and Tompkins managed to reproduce the design without damaging the original, Jackson gave them the jacket as a personal gift. He signed its sleeve with “Love Michael Jackson” and added an inscription inside: “To Bush and Dennis All My Love Michael Jackson.” ◆ 2011 — A Record-Breaking Sale On June 26, 2011, the jacket was sold at Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills for $1.81 million, purchased by Texas collector Milton Verret. The sale was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most expensive jacket sold at auction. Ahead of the sale, Darren Julien described it as “the most iconic piece of pop culture memorabilia that will ever come up for auction.” Part of the auction proceeds benefited Shambala Preserve, where Jackson’s Bengal tigers had been housed. But the jacket’s history did not end with its record-breaking sale. Verret announced plans for an international charity tour to raise funds for organizations helping sick children. In July 2011, Verret presented it at Dell Children’s Hospital in Austin as part of a charitable initiative supporting children and families affected by cancer. The event was also associated with a reported $100,000 contribution to the hospital’s Superhero Kids Fund. These initiatives offered a meaningful parallel to Jackson’s own extensive history of philanthropy, which included his support for children’s hospitals and the establishment of the Heal the World Foundation. The jacket’s extraordinary recognition was being used for a purpose extending beyond its original artistic function and its value as a collectible. The second original jacket, the distressed version used for the zombie sequences, remained with the Michael Jackson Estate and has been exhibited at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. The two jackets had entered different contexts: one through private collecting, charitable activity, and the auction market; the other through the Estate and institutional exhibition. ◆ 2026 — The Return to Auction The undistressed jacket will be offered as part of Julien’s Michael Jackson: The Fashion Legacy evening sale at Rosewood Abu Dhabi. It carries the same personal inscription to Bush and Tompkins and Jackson’s signature on the sleeve. Its current seller has not been publicly identified. According to the German Press Agency (DPA), representatives of Julien’s Auctions, responding to an inquiry, placed the jacket’s estimated value at more than $10 million. That is more than five times its 2011 sale price, an increase telling in itself: more than four decades after Thriller, the jacket’s hold on the public imagination has only grown. Ahead of the December sale, the jacket is scheduled to appear at several locations, including the Palace Theatre in Los Angeles, where parts of Thriller were filmed, as part of the Heal Los Angeles Foundation’s This Is Thriller event. ◆ Beyond the Auction — Private Ownership and Public Access Created as part of the visual construction of Michael Jackson’s 1983 short film, the jacket became a recognizable cultural artifact whose history extends from fashion reproductions to charitable initiatives and public exhibitions. That history also raises a question about the relationship between private ownership and public access. Its owner after 2011 demonstrated that private possession need not prevent public access. Yet such access has depended on decisions made by individual custodians, rather than on any lasting guarantee. The appearances preceding the December auction will offer another opportunity for the public to encounter the original garment. What happens after the sale remains uncertain. What matters most is not how much the jacket will command at auction, but who will become its next custodian, how it will be preserved, and whether public access will be secured. Future generations should have the opportunity not merely to know its history, but to encounter the original garment itself.

"Michael Jackson, the “King of Pop,” and the Classification Paradox" How did the status-based title “King of Pop” become the definition of Michael Jackson’s artistic identity — and ultimately, a genre classification? Michael Jackson’s complex musical identity is often reduced to a single explanation: Michael Jackson was pop. But if “pop” is enough to define him, a substantial part of his musical history disappears. Michael Jackson was not an artist who was simply influenced by R&B. His artistic genealogy was rooted in it: Motown, soul, funk, and the rhythm-and-blues performance tradition. During his Motown years with the Jackson 5, the group placed seventeen singles in the R&B Top 10, while also carrying that R&B identity beyond the boundaries of the field. Musicologist David Brackett identifies “I Want You Back” as a classic example of crossover. With Off the Wall, the Recording Academy situates the album among the period’s “R&B crossover hybrids.” Elsewhere, the Academy describes it as the point at which Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones’s “pop dominance began.” What we see, then, is that Jackson’s ability to cross established boundaries expanded the field in which his music could circulate and be classified. It did not erase the lineage from which it emerged or the musical identity that continued to define it. Then came Thriller. One body of work received simultaneous institutional recognition across three formally distinct musical fields: Pop, R&B, and Rock. According to the Recording Academy, Jackson became the only artist to win Grammys in all three fields in a single year. What already had a long history now reached an extraordinary scale. Jackson crossed genre boundaries so extensively that the result of that expansion began, retrospectively, to function as a single musical category applied to the artist himself. And then there was the title: the King of Pop. A status-based, evaluative title — capable of expressing position, magnitude, dominance, mainstream reach, and the scale of crossover he had reached — gradually came to be read as though it defined a genre identity: pop artist rather than R&B artist. This was possible because “pop” can describe the broader field of popular music and popular culture, but it can also function as a narrower genre classification. A title describing Jackson’s position within the broader field could be retrospectively read through the narrower meaning of the same word. Here lies the classification paradox. The result of crossing multiple musical categories came to be compressed into one, and a statement about cultural position became a definition of musical identity. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame captures both sides of this movement: it calls Jackson a “genre-bending icon” who “redefined both the sound and look of pop, worldwide,” and states that “he took R&B into the mainstream.” Jackson became so completely identified with the destination — global pop — that the R&B lineage, musical identity, and history involved in reaching it could recede from view. When an artist carries a musical tradition deeply enough into the mainstream, history may eventually remember the destination rather than the tradition he carried there. Michael Jackson belongs simultaneously to R&B history and pop history because his historical role ultimately rendered the categorical boundary between them irrelevant as a definition of who he was. The boundary remained; his cultural position could no longer be contained by either category alone.

The truth is, when an institution like @MTV presents its own history, who it chooses to show or not show inevitably matters. This year, MTV has already introduced a new award, described as potentially even greater in stature than the Vanguard Award. That creates a new historical starting point. That’s what I’m examining today, and I’ll come back to it.

> Making a statement like “the Jacksons are anti-Black” and then not bothering to explain is quite something. Is it because some of the Jacksons married white women? Then what was David Bowie when he married a Black woman — anti-white? Or is the criterion cosmetic surgery, straightened hair, or departure from a “natural” Black appearance? Then are James Brown, Prince and André 3000 anti-Black too? Is Beyoncé anti-Black when she wears blonde, straightened hair? If that’s your definition of “anti-Black,” it collapses the moment you apply it consistently. So perhaps the problem is simply with the Jacksons. And I wonder why.

I definitely can’t wait to hear your definition of “anti-Black” In the historical record I know, the Jacksons are one of the defining phenomena of American popular culture. A Black family whose children carried Black music, and Black presence into the global mainstream at a scale almost unimaginable at the time.

"Michael Jackson and MTV’s Institutional Memory" How do you tell the history of MTV without showing Michael Jackson? At the 2026 VMAs, we watched a retrospective video. We saw the Rolling Stones, Bon Jovi, R.E.M. — archival footage from award and appearance moments. But when the timeline reached MICHAEL JACKSON — 1988, we saw the audience. His name appeared. He did not. Was this a problem of archival availability? Certainly not. Michael Jackson may not have been at the 1988 ceremony in Los Angeles, but MTV went to London, where he was on the Bad Tour, and Peter Gabriel presented him with the Video Vanguard Award. His absence, then, was not imposed by the archive. It was an editorial choice. Yet it was not a complete omission. I would argue that a complete omission would have been far more visible and far more likely to provoke a reaction. So what is the historical significance of this particular form of absence? We are not simply talking about a great visual artist who excelled within the medium. We are talking about an artist whose interventions altered the structure of both the music video and the institution built around it. Artistic form, cinematic language and narrative ambition; production scale, investment, marketing and programming; circulation, access, industry value and global cultural reach converged at an extraordinary scale. Crucially, the institution itself responded to that transformation. In 1983, MTV departed from its ordinary practice of not financing promotional videos, paying $250,000 for first-air rights to The Making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller — an arrangement that helped finance the larger Thriller project. Les Garland would later identify Thriller as the moment MTV realized that event programming worked. His work helped change what MTV understood a music video could do for MTV itself. Michael Jackson may not have invented the music video, but his interventions marked a historical point at which all these variables were changing simultaneously and at sufficient scale that the subsequent development of the medium cannot be explained while bypassing him. So when people ask, “Must it always be Michael Jackson?” Yes. When the subject is the history of MTV and the music video, there is a specific historical reason his name must keep returning. When an institution narrates more than forty years of its own history while removing from view a Black artist who was central to the development of the medium itself, the racial dimension cannot simply be excluded from the analysis. Race is already part of the documented history of Michael Jackson and MTV. The restricted access of Black artists to the network, Jackson’s position within the transformation of that reality, and his subsequent relationship with MTV are all part of the institution’s own recorded history. In 1983, David Bowie directly asked MTV’s Mark Goodman why the network featured so few Black artists. The exchange remains preserved in MTV’s own archive. When that same institution retells its history, whether that Black artist remains visible within it becomes a legitimate object of racial analysis. No one needs to issue an order to rewrite history. Cultural memory is constructed through selection: who enters the retrospective and who remains outside it; which achievements are repeated and which are forgotten; what language is used to describe significance; and, ultimately, who is presented to subsequent generations as the person who changed something. History is rewritten every time an institution decides which parts of its past it will repeat in the present — and which it will not. MTV co-founder John Sykes once put it plainly: “Michael Jackson was the reason MTV went from big to huge. He put us at the centre of the culture.” In 1983, MTV sold itself with his image. In 2026, it kept only his name.