Michael Jackson on the phone

his songs are what makes him appear an S, don't you think? I mean, they're not the deepest stuff are they?

There is the dancing also. That looks like it would take some great Se. No?

I mean, he was so traumatised as a kid it's hard to type him. He spent all his life trying to fight his childhood. So he's a tricky one. I wouldn't type him as an INFJ but then again you probably know more after having listened to those conversations. I guess the INFJ conspiracy theorist would work for him

 

Depth is not determined by S or N. It's not reliably indicated by any of the functions, in fact. It has more to do with life experience and intelligence. Perhaps you can tie "depth" to introspection, in which case introverted intuitives might have an edge, but implying that the opposite is "shallow" goes too far in making generalized value judgments, since by common usage, "shallow" = bad.

 

It's true, sorry bout that, I guess I used the wrong word

I should have said : his lyrics are not the most abstract now are they?

edit : It would be interesting to have a discussion about what depth is actually.... because depending on the definition I would have different opinions.

re-edit : damn it you edited in the mean time!! I guess thinking about loving everybody no matter what their skin colour is could be said to be "deep". I will think about what depth means for me and come back later. It is an interesting topic.

7. Intellectual complexity or penetration; profundity: a novel of great depth.
8. The range of one's understanding or competence: I am out of my depth when it comes to cooking.
10. The degree of richness or intensity: depth of color.

To me if you're talking about number 7 (which is what I had in mind) his songs are definitely not deep. I don't know, no, his songs are not deep, maybe he was but I was talking about the songs.

HOWEVER I admit that judging a person on the songs they write is stupid. But it still is a part of him, even if it might just be a small part - I'd have to know him to know.

 

I guess not, but what lyrics are? You can't get too abstract in song without losing the listener (even those intuitive ones).
I can see where you tie this to S, though. He was certainly an inventive fellow, but his real genius was in visual spectacle, indicating well-developed Se.

Good idea. I'm going to start a thread on that right now, in fact.

 

You can't get too abstract, but you can get abstract enough and people might read different stuff into your lyrics. To me lyrics are half of a song (except if the song is sooo catchy you can't help listening to it/or even better, the song is in a foreign language and you can't understand its stupidity anyway ).

 

I remember one discussion going around that typed MJ as an INFP, but he could definitely be in a different grouping. And I also have to say, Michael spoke from his heart and he totally changed music in the 1980s. The lyrics might not have been too deep, but his style was unheard of. He put his new on all sorts of things, and I think he could've been very IN.

He was unusual in the way he dealt with the outside world, but that doesn't mean a lot. Wounded folks can also express themselves in a unique way too.

 

Considering these are an invasion of his privacy, I refuse to listen to those recordings.

I will agree on the assumption that he was an INFJ though, but little more than a cursory glance is enough to tell you that much.

 

MJ is almost certainly an INF. Vicky Jo (a rather famous MBTI practitioner, also an INFJ -- has typed MJ as an INFJ)

 

The INFPs swear he's an INFP and likewise the INFJs proclaim him one of their own. I lean toward ISFP myself. He seemed to capriciously act upon his impulses rather than theorize about them in some abstract cerebral manner.

MJ shopping spree. Tell me this isn't an SF.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2poCP0qL4U

 

Oh no all the types want to claim Michael Jackson now that he is dead.

 

I'm more comfortable leaving the topic of MJ alone but...

I enjoyed this immensely. I've actually never come across this perspective but I know it is applicable to myself.

 

Waste of my time. Stopped the video. Who wants to see strangers talk about anything other then terorists?

 

it definately applies to me as well, but i'd also say i always had an erratically silly and reckless side to me.

 

Bob Dylan, Tori Amos, *some* of the Beatles songs, etc have a more abstract philosophical character. I agree that popular music is the domain of the SP in that it focuses it expertise on sensation, immediacy, and the concrete because it needs to affect large amounts of people on first encounter. When lyrics get too abstract or if they require a few hearings before their meaning is apparent, you could lose the sale. I can see that MJ had a gift for communicating sensation and he described his approach to lyrics as primarily being a storyteller. In this way his lyrics have more meaning and cohesion than some, but they also have a concrete clarity. They do involve some imagination on the part of the listener to respond to the story and fill in the details. I'm not suggesting a type with these comments, but am throwing out a few observations that could imply quite a range of conclusions based on how they fit into the big picture of more information.

I don't have a strong opinion on Michael Jackson's type, but remember Lisa Marie Presley talking about him in regards to how different he is irl compared to his online personae. She said when she first heard him talk irl in which he was a bit aggressive, her response was, "this is a very misunderstood person", and she also mentioned that she didn't understand why he insisted on projecting such an extremely gentle image. My primary impression of MJ is that he was quite buried in a media image partly created himself and partly created by the media, including his enemies. Because of this, I suspect most of the reality of it is quite buried.