I wasn’t planning on writing this column about Michael Jackson.

Why would I have? Despite recently selling over one million tickets to a series of 40 shows in London, the man hasn’t been relevant for some time, culturally.

Of course, after his death from cardiac arrest this past Thursday, I really had no choice but to write about Michael Jackson. I mean, my column has the word “pop” built right in it; I really didn’t have a choice.

I’ve never had anything more than a normal, passing familiarity with Jackson’s music. I know his first three albums pretty extensively because, well, who doesn’t, but beyond that my knowledge mostly stops at the greatest hits collections.

So I find it quite odd just how much his passing saddened me.

It saddened me not because I was a huge fan and considered his music a big part of my life; obviously I didn’t. It didn’t sadden me because I feel particularly shocked; his sort of passing feels inevitable, and really, because of the constant media coverage over the last few 10 hours or so, any shock there might have been has been replaced by a feeling that it’s been a lot longer than it has.

So if I wasn’t shocked, and I didn’t have a real emotional connection to the man or his music, why was I so sad?

Because his passing has made me reevaluate his life, and in doing so I’ve been forced to accept just how harmful our culture is on the people we shine the spotlight on most.

He spent the first 40 years of his life on stage (when he wasn’t being physically and mentally abused by his violent father), and by the time he tried to get off the stage, he was so woefully unprepared for life as an adult that he reverted back to the childhood he never had.

It’s a story that has been and will continue to be used to explain his strange actions later on in life, and while there’s no doubt his upbringing truly affected him in deep, profound, and harmful ways, it’s not really for me to judge.

We simply don’t know what happened for much of Michael’s life behind closed doors, so I’ll try to avoid that topic as best as possible.

However, one thing you will have heard thousands of times by the time you read this that I will address is that we will “never see another Michael Jackson.”

I’m not so sure this is true.

Oh sure, we may never see another performer that matches his incredible talent, charisma, and drive, but I wouldn’t bet on it. People thought we’d never see another combination of those same traits that Elvis had, and Michael came along and proved that wrong, so I’d say we’ll have another performer like him before long.

The reason I don’t think it is true is because Michael Jackson became the personification of a new type of celebrity obsessed culture that hadn’t existed before, but has become the norm now.

The information age has changed the consumer’s relationship with artists and performers, and Michael Jackson was really the first truly global superstar of his era, and subsequently the first one to have off the stage troubles.

The most ironic thing about Jackson is that he embodied the pop obsession that he ultimately help usher in, and in doing so became its first victim.

Michael Jackson was always an entertainer, and he didn’t and couldn’t understand how to turn that switch off and that is what unraveled his life in the end.

The comedian Dave Chappelle has done a number of bits on Jackson in a number of ways, but he always closed with the joke “Remember, he did all of this for you, somehow.”

Unfortunately, I’m not laughing anymore.