The death of Michael Jackson has been a prime example for the mindset of the “Spectacular Death” , the fifth and latest phase of attitudes towards death. The mindset revolves around being in an age where society is interested in death while also keeping a safe distance from it. Another important aspect of this phase is that the invention of internet and new communication devices/types made people more exposed to death. Death became an item of commercialization and entertainement, provoking and looking for attention to increase sales.

In order to get a better understanding of why Michael Jackson's death is such a good example we will analyse what happened after his death.

The use of media and internet

The death of Michael Jackson caused social media and internet to literally explode, sites as google even had a hard time keeping up and had many error pages about Michael Jackson due to the amount of searches about his death. Some of the statistics for example were:

• Web usage went to 4.2m visitors per minute (normally 2million).
• 50% of top searches were related to Michael Jackson.
• Mobile searches spiked to their largest numbers ever and 5 out of 20 searches were related to Michael Jackson.
• 9 out of 10 popular topics were about Michael Jackson on twitter, with a total of 23% of all tweets dedicated to him.
• Provoking and attention drawing media also quickly turned their heads towards content that wasn’t as respecting to his legacy by causing a lot of discussion about: (1.) accusations of sexual behaviour in his past; (2.) conspiracy theories about the death causes (e.g. Doctor killed him).

Increased sales

In the year 2010 Michael Jackson as brand already made a billion USD in a mix of: Film/Tv, Music Publishing, Licensing/Touring. A quick conclusion of this is:

• Film/tv: Sony pictures bought the rehearsals of the last tour for 60 million from AEG, this same content was the base of the documentary of “This is it” that grossed 72 million at the US Box office. The same “This is it” made over 43 million with DVD sales.
• Music publishing: Jackson bought his share in Sony/atv for 90 million, but the worth of the company had a jump after his death and so the worth of his share became 800 million.

Change in ritual and ceremony

A Memorial service was held in the Staples Centre in LA and was attended by 17,500 famous people and close contacts of Michael Jackson. The whole service was broadcast around the world and watched by around 2.5 billion people. Another important part of the service was the performance of many famous artists that sang his songs as tribute, an uncommon thing to do in other phases of death (songs of the one whose death instead of songs of other people).