Immortality and Michael Jackson

In Foucault's "What is an Author," he states that writing has been linked death. I found this interesting when he wrote that an author gains recognition and popularity after he is dead and his work has already been published (905). This is interesting because we see this a lot today, usually with famous celebrities. Think about it, we continue to talk about the works of people like Aristotle and Shakespeare and they have been dead for centuries. When someone states their name, many of us can easily think of the things that they have written. They are more popular and known dead than they every were alive.

Examples of this happening today would be when singer/ songwriters die. Michael Jackson was and still is the King of Pop. Before his death in 2009, Jackson sold lots of albums but after his death, he gained more popularity. I remember the day that he died, the google site crashed because so many people were searching up articles related to Michael Jackson. His music was played on every music channel on television (ex: BET, MTV, VH1, etc). People began playing his music all the time, watching all of his music videos online, and there were many tributes made by many musicians (Janet Jackson, Beyonce, etc.) to honor him and his legacy. Michael Jackson is now immortal and his legacy will live on forever just like Shakespeare and Aristotle are both immortal and their writings will live on forever. It is clear to me that you will never be as popular alive as you would be dead.