Is Michael Jackson the opium of the masses?

South Park episode #33, when it was still cool to make fun of Michael Jackson

I'm getting extremely sick of the hysteria that has been whipped up by the media over Michael Jackson's death. I mean, have we honestly fallen for this sick joke? Every idiot knows that the day before he died, MJ was for most people the butt of jokes about plastic surgery disasters, dangling babies over the balconies and paedophilia. Then suddenly the next thing we knew, the whole world was mourning as if their dog had just died when in fact, people were more concerned with the texture of their dog's runny poo than MJ. Now everyone's pretending like they've always been big fans (no... downloading his songs online the day after he died does not generally make one a long-time fan).

I wonder if this periodic public outpouring of grief is a way for people to externalise their crappy existence without actually changing anything.

You really want to celebrate the life of Michael Jackson? Why not smash the media that cashed off his misery all those years? Or at least stop buying their lies.