The death of entertainment icons sends us to what makes us love them: their music, their words, their films, and other memories we can cull from the past. The sudden passing of Michael Jackson is no different, which sent millions of fans to online videos related to the King of Pop.
Although his impact on the world of entertainment has been virtually incalculable, we've been heartened by the outpouring of interest in Michael Jackson's music videos since his death. And while the viewership of all of his videos has spiked in recent days, we focused our research on Thriller, arguably Jackson's most groundbreaking music video and, in 1999, named the #1 music video of all time by MTV.
Since his death last Thursday, viral videos related to Thriller have generated over 8.5 million views. Prior to Thursday, Thriller averaged nearly 150,000 views daily. Since his death, view counts for Thriller have averaged over 2.8 million daily -- an increase of nearly 1,800%.
These videos consist of the original video above, an Indian version, a lego version, perhaps one of the few Filipino prison music videos ever produced, and many others, spanning nearly 300 unique video placements in all.
If we can perhaps find a silver lining in the sadness of an incredible life cut short, it's that it's allowed us to once again recognize and celebrate the genius of Michael Jackson. Online video has helped in this effort through making remembering The King of Pop easier and faster than ever before.
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The data used in this post was collected from our Viral Reach Database, a constantly growing video repository of analytic data on 100+ million Internet videos from 150+ video-sharing destinations.