A Short History Of The Fan Communities

Originally posted on the forum at http://www.michaeljackson.com
Sunday, December 27, 2009 - 19:42

A short history of the fan communities

Before the interenet, the world of the MJ fan was very limited. Those who could travelled to see Michael in person and met other fans along the way. For many this wasnt an option and the fan community was very isolated and spread out.

Then a teenageer in the UK started a fanzine called OFF THE WALL, which he eventually managed to get published and sold in shops. This was spotted by a woman called Gloria Haydock and together with the teenager, who by now was in his 20's they created a fanclub called MICHAEL JACKSON NEWS INTERNATIONAL (MJNI).

This fan club grew and grew, They published a magazine called KING 4 times a year and organised fan events etc. In other countries in Europe, the same thing was happening, fans coming together to create unofficial fanclubs and offering an extremly professional service. The biggest of these were PLANET JACKSON in France and ANGEL in Germany.

The most succesful times for these fan clubs were from Dangerous era to History era. Then with the internet, the fan communites really were able to connect on a global scale.

For the first time, fans all over the world could talk in real time. MJIFC chatroom became THE place to hang out, in fact many of us who first chatted on MJIFC over 10 years ago are still very active members of the fan communities.

The traditional fan clubs created websites and forums for their members, sending out enews bullitions to members emails etc.

During 2004/2005 the online fan communites and in particular MJJFORUM and KOPBOARD became the centre of the globall fan support for Michael. Members of these forums became amautaur experst in the American Justice System. Members of the forums would be in court every day, taking notes. These notes were then put on the forums, thereby giving the fans accurate and reliable info about what was happening in the court every day. In addition to this court transcripts were also were obtained by members and posted on the forums.

Over the years, most of the unofficial fan sites have had personal contact with members of Michaels staff and MJJPRODUCTIONS. When fan clubs and sites held events, Michael was always contacted. Most of the time he would send a fax message and send over some merchandise as competition prizes. He would also request that the events would be videoed and sent to him. On a few occasions, he also attended fan events. The events he attended were
Adrian Grants MJ DAY 10 March 2001
MJNI's Killer Thriller party June 2002
45th Birthday Party LA 2003

This site, www.michaeljackson.com has never been part of the main fan community. For many years, SONY had only a basic layout with links to Michaels videos. The forum as you see now has only been part of this site since March 2009