There were many strange tragedies to Michael Jackson's life, but an unexpected sadness is that, in death, this huge global celebrity makes me think, not of Thriller, not even of the Jackson 5, but of a 47-year-old Scottish woman who was allegedly last seen in a hotel in Liverpool crying for her cat, Pebbles. Jackson's death and Susan Boyle's all too obvious unhappiness both stem from the same source: fame.
I have never believed, and nothing in the past few weeks has altered my certainty, that one can be famous in today's world of mass media and 24-hour paparazzi and lead a happy, mentally healthy life. How could it possibly be any different? You are isolated in a tunnel of paranoia where it feels like anyone with a camera phone is filming you for the celebrity website tmz.com, and they probably are. There are many examples one can cite: Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan. All are featured in celebrity magazines daily and, in this new warts-and-all world of tabloid journalism, their self-abuse is covered far more extensively than it was in the days of Elvis Presley. Never has fame looked less fun.
So why do so many people still want to be famous? TV schedules are now built on the scaffolding of this idea, with an apparently endless supply of people out there desperate to appear on TV, either to have their singing skills mocked by Simon Cowell, accuse their partner of infidelity in front of Jeremy Kyle, or have their bowel movements analysed by a dubious TV nutritionist. All of these kinds of shows are built on the same premise: public attention provides your life with some kind of tangibility and value. If it hasn't happened in public, it hasn't really happened. Wealth has become almost a secondary benefit: fame is now the ultimate goal.
The pathetic story of Michael Jackson cast a damning shadow over this need for fame long before reality TV even existed. Without wanting to indulge in armchair psychiatry, it's hard not to suspect that his aborted childhood played at least some part in his, shall we say, fascination with children as an adult. Despite the bitterly clear desire for love that kept Jackson in the public eye, it never, really, came his way outside the circle of his most devoted fans because of the fame-induced weirdness, and it still cannot come in death. As much as the media loves whitewashed eulogies, his obituaries are all topped with references to the accusations of child abuse, preventing this from being – to use that dreary phrase – another Diana moment. The 24-hour news culture and the explosion of the gossip magazine industry – both of which require either constant change or, more commonly, heightened emotion, combined with a fragmented media and the diminished importance of religion in most people's lives – have made the idea of a collectively shared Big Moment more desired than ever, as the media hysteria over Jade Goody's death made all too clear. But even Goody was able to claim better write-ups on the obits pages than Jackson. Perhaps immortality is overrated.
Even as Jackson became a garish warning about the perils of childhood fame, some parents still believed that the best route to happiness for their children and, of course, themselves was to push their kids in front of the camera. The results of this delightful approach to parenting can be seen in Britney Spears, whose last concert was considered a success because she didn't end up, again, in a psychiatric hospital, to say nothing of the children recently brought to tears on Britain's Got Talent.
Non-famous people can have tragic lives, too, of course – but fame does not, despite what Cowell TV might insinuate, protect against unhappiness. If anything, it heightens the risk simply because of access to wealth and that strange attitude now known in medical circles as Robbie Williamsitis that is defined by extreme arrogance countered by crippling neediness. The unfortunately timed and so overshadowed death of Farrah Fawcett (another risk of being famous: no matter how big you might think you are, you could always be overtaken at the final post) also showed what little protection fame provides in the obituaries, which made discreet if unavoidable mentions of domestic abuse and a son who couldn't be with his mother when she died because he is in prison.
In a recent interview in this paper, Ben Fogle – who is famous for reasons I find hard to define – posited a pretty good theory behind the desire for celebrity: "We as humans, we're not solitary people ... Fame is people trying to attain community on a mass scale, because when you become famous wherever you go people know about what you've done and what you're about to do. And it's like you're living in one massive community".
It comes from something else, too: a childlike need for attention. Anyone who has ever spent time with a five-year-old who jumps up and down in the middle of the living room crying "Look at me! Look at me!" will have feelings of deja vu when reading the tweets of the ignored likes of Demi Moore, Lily Allen and Lohan.
Fame promises collective appreciation, or at least acknowledgement, and, to Jackson, it probably looked like the way to find that sense of familial love denied to him as a child. In the end, though, it just isolates the person, and the only things they rightly feel they can trust are cats and chimps. It encourages them to have the mentality of a toddler, and promises a happy ending, even as they die alone.
Hadley Freeman, the fashion and features writer for the Guardian.