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As a product of the 90’s collective nihilism, I have no tangible connection to the decade before it, whose pageantry and excess would ultimately fuel the creation of history’s lone megastar, Michael Jackson.

Sure other iconic figures such as Elvis and the Beatles came before him, but none matched Jackson’s overwhelming mass appeal (especially in regions of the world that openly rejected Western ideals), allowing him to do what even Alexander the Great failed to accomplish, conquer an entire human race and sustain an empire under the banner of the still unrivaled multi-platinum smash, Thriller.

This is why Tuesday’s memorial service was significant and attracted an astounding 1 billion viewers world-wide, but if nothing else, it also offered a brief glimpse at how both society and history function.

Only a month prior to this landmark moment, Jackson was the object of ridicule, a cautionary tale told by parents and the punch line in nearly every late night monologue.

Then in one brief flash everything suddenly changed as the world converged on the Staples Center to celebrate the life of a father, son, brother, and influential musician.

The only variable to explain such an unforeseen shift in popular opinion is his lack of a pulse for it seems in death we are truly absolved of all past transgressions and remembered fondly as children of God, Xenu, or what have you.

Of course none of it really makes any sense, but it’s what we’ve unknowingly signed onto as human beings.

So it seems only fitting that in a lavish $4 million spectacle, bookended by inane Kentucky Fried allegories and shameless political rhetoric, that it would be the image of a justifiably awkward prepubescent girl sobbing into a microphone which will be forever engrained in our memories.

But such is the essence of tragedy, since inevitability it is the survivors of it that must linger on with the knowledge of a life that once was.

Although I’m not usually one to trot out clichéd sentimentality, I think Socrates said it best, “The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.”