It didn’t take long for the conspiracy theorists to pop up all over the Internet and proclaim Michael Jackson’s death a hoax.
Several websites have been launched to track the whereabouts of the King of Pop. The themes are all the same: he’s not really dead, a lookalike was planted at the hospital to throw off the masses and the real MJ is living “happier than ever” in some tropical paradise.
How sad! This is how ill equipped some people are to deal with the reality that death happens, even to icons. I vaguely remember an Internet-less version of this phenomenon after Elvis died, too, and I’m sure there was some chatter about John Lennon surviving his wounds and jetting off to get away from fans, to live out his life feasting on coconuts and fashioning a crude island hut out of woven banana leaves.
One amazing MJ theory declares that the President of Iran had him killed to distract the world from the political protests going on in that country. Another claims to know that a stand-in has been in place for years and Jackson himself has been living in parts unknown and “finally, truly happy”. These are the same folks who think the moon landing was faked on a movie set in the desert and the government is poisoning our water to keep us docile and uncomplaining. (That’s not really working, wouldn’t you say?) We may not be able to say much for certain about Michael Jackson – the fallout from his death is already starting to debunk things we thought we knew – but one thing’s for sure: The King of Pop is dead.