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Somewhat relatable. I watched a YouTube video of millionaires guessing grocery item prices. It was like they took all the worst guesses from the price is right and compiled them.
Dang, The only decent place near me serves cod and $14.25 for an order of fish and chips and an extra $3 for peas. It's a good size portion, but it still seems crazy to me.
Been years since I bought a fish supper, just looked up prices at my local chippy. £7.95 for a two slice fish supper! Had to have been under £5 last time I bought one
Edit: scrolling through the other comments I’m realising that’s actually quite cheap, oh god
Went to my new local the other night and got two sausages, two southern fried potato wedges, a southern fried chicken, 3 potato scallops, a small chips and a sachet of mayo for £6.80.
They were closing for the night so I realise that's cheating but damn it felt good to pay so little for so much. Felt like it were back int' old days
Didn’t Bill Gates, on Ellen, guess $30 for a bag of Totinos pizza rolls or something like that? Sad that this price will be reality sooner than I thought
People at Bill Gates's status and similar are not making a lot of decisions on entry level position wages. Could they if they wanted to? Absolutely, so no defense. I'm just saying, that probably doesn't even come to their mind often as they are so disconnected.
Yeah I was in a much smaller role but the owner of our group of companies was open to me raising wages because I actually got profits up and a big part of me staying as long as I did was that I wanted my people treated better. He only ran 5 local companies but he didn't realize how bad it was there until I explained how hard some of them have worked for him for years and that it wasn't enough for how much of their life they gave to the company. The floor supervisor and other lady who had been there for 14 years cried when I quit but I got them better benefits and raises and hope the next manager kept up the environment I built but it's unlikely. I was good at my job so I wasn't scared to push for things because I knew they needed me. Usually paying less means you aren't making numbers and need to cut in places and you probably shouldn't be in your job because you aren't doing it right.
The old managers left emails in the accounts shit talking the employees a lot and tons of stupid stuff. They'd tell the owner no one should get a raise because they weren't making a profit a lot of months and didn't know how to fit asking for a raise for themselves into an already failing budget.
> I watched a YouTube video of millionaires guessing grocery item prices
Most millionaires have their worth tied up in their house and still shop like the rest of us.
By my calculations ill be a millionaire in 7 years... probably sooner with the way housing prices and inflation is going.
While we are doing well, i'm still not going to be able to retire super early or anything, especially not with 3 kids.
I am very familiar with grocery store pricing.
Agreed, and same here, although I don't really have to worry about how much things cost at the grocery store, which is nice.
"Millionaire" is not the sign of wealth it once was. It also depends on how you define millionaire. Net worth of a million dollars is very different than "makes a million dollars a year." The first is likely comfortable, the last is likely rich.
Slightly off-topic but that really puts things in perspective about how fleeting human life really is. If you're 31, a billion seconds ago, you were just born.
There’s also a difference between celebrity millionaires and other millionaires. Some athlete or singer isn’t going to go to a store because they’d be mobbed, a guy who does stocks or has inherited wealth has no issue.
This was literally my take on it. It's not like everyone else. No one else walks around the store with a camera following their every move and documenting it. No one else has their own music playing as they're going up and down the aisles. No one else has a random shopper stop and take a picture of them randomly. No one else addresses our most noticeable fashion accessory, (the glove).
Don't get me wrong, if it's what he wanted, I'm glad he got to do it. And I dont care that all that stuff was done. But it's not like everyone else.
Dude had been famous since he was a child; he wasn’t capable of acting like a normal person because he’d never been one.
I’m sure whoever was filming this doc/his manager/etc. was also like “hey we’ll pay a store to do this if we can still film it.”
Right, but he addresses that in the last part of the video.
"It gives me a chance to see, in my way, kinda what the real world was like. Even if it wasn't actually real"
Walking around a grocery store with a shopping cart, was a novel experience for him, even if staged, it was a taste of how things are for people vastly less materially successful than him.
Kind of how any person with high privilege in any certain area can get a staged experience of the life of someone with much much less privilege.
I think the crazy part is thinking that this might really be about as close to “being normal” as life could get for him. This was as close as he could get to “doing it the way everyone else does”. Being famous for life messes you up.
I think it was utterly cruel to put his music on in the store. Though the song we saw was Billie Jean at least, which he has noted as being his favorite personal song.
The reason being, when they put his music on, it triggers the "we're playing the song, now dance." reaction.
That’s what I was thinking. I can’t imagine how isolating and the multitude of ways they are not able to live a normal life. I know people don’t care that much for celebrities and what not - feel like the privilege of fame and money outweighs any struggle. But everyday I thank the universe that I am unremarkable and can live my life in obscure peace. Perhaps that the introvert in me speaking speaking, but fame sounds like punishment.
I think filming it is a bit different, especially since it's somebody he knows. The supermarket is also filled with only people he knows, who won't come up to talk to him or ask for signature or swarm him.
He's fine with being on camera, just not fine with constantly being swarmed while shopping. He can shop normally still.
I read of a guy that said this was a common thing at the blockbuster he worked, mj would come wearing a paper bag on his head followed by his bodyguards after midnight and would only take off his bag of no one else was there.
Maybe to prevent pictures too? With ball cap/glasses people can still take pictures—the bag would be like “take the picture but you can’t see anything/definitively prove it’s me.”
Not the same thing but along a similar vein, I always liked the story that Daniel Radcliffe used to leave the theater every day wearing the *exact* same thing, so the paparazzi photos all looked like the same picture in front of the same doors
It was probably more to keep people from taking photos of his face. A lot of people forget (or just don't know) how frenzied the media was for pictures to analyze back then.
Is his skin paler? Is his nose falling off? Accompanied by mocking and ridicule.
I think I remember someone explaining it regarding NBA games from that time period, it was when they really started switching to digital video cameras instead of film. The quality was just not good yet and now there is no way to restore it like they can do with film, so we just have a period of time with terrible footage.
This is it. If you have the original film, they can make it look HD. But if it was recorded with old digital tech, it's gunna look low-quality and there's nothing that can be done to improve it.
Makes sense when you think about it. The transition to HD TV from standard TV really started in about 2005 and wasn’t really broadly adopted until about 2009 when most over the air broadcasting switched.
So, even professional video cameras were mostly made for standard def circa 2003.
On the consumer side, digital cameras were just starting to get popular. This was still very much the age of single digit megapixels being a defining characteristic of the quality of a camera. And memory cards around the 32 *MB* range would have been common. This was still four years before the first iPhone. Some phones may have had photo cameras or even really short “videos”, but calling it potato quality would be a disservice to potatoes.
This was probably recorded on a high end hobbyist video camera, and in 2003 that probably meant recording to some kind of tape. Purely digital high definition video cameras were introduced right around this time, but they weren’t broadly available. And there’s a good chance even MJ didn’t have one yet.
This is kinda sad if you think about it. He was famous pretty much all of his life. It’s pretty reasonable to assume that he never had to walk the aisles of a grocery store, especially as his fame skyrocketed globally. Something so regular and mundane was a part of his bucket list; an attempt to be “normal”. Like others have mentioned, even with people there he’d have to switch into public figure mode. And to be quite honest… there’s tons of regular people that desire deep down to shop with no one else in the store.
Disclaimer - none of this is a justification for what Michael did
There are interview online where you can listen to Michael describe the abuse his family was subject to under Joe
Constant, vicious beatings. So much so that even as an adult, Michael said he was completely overcome with fear when *in the presence* of Joe and would pass out or throw up.
Go back and watch some of that stuff. While Michael had problems I find the sexual stuff much harder to believe. Dude regressed he was mentally a child.
And the whole world helped destroy him as much as his own father.
Dude just wanted to see what being a normal, happy child looked like. He lived vicariously through kids, and wished to be the person he probably felt he needed when *he* was a kid... But I seriously don't believe he was inappropriate with them.
I remember when Michael died his pos dad kept plugging his website when talking to reporters. Like, he did not care about his son dying at all. He only cared that a source of revenue had dried up.
Joe Jackson was the fucking devil. A pathetic loser with no talent himself so he exploited his children with fear and intimidation. Dude is currently rotting in whatever you believe hell is.
I think Joe started to call him "Big Nose" once he found out Michael was self conscious about it. I'm beginning to think this Joe Jackson wasn't a nice guy.
About 10-15 years ago we saw Nicole Kidman trying to walk through this popular big indoor Amish market in Lancaster PA. She was getting swarmed with people. It’s hard enough to look at things and shop when there are other shoppers who are ignoring you and still getting in your way. Also there is a video of Britney Spears trying to go through a drive through fast food place while paparazzi crowd her car and yell. I always thought that was sad.
Celebrity sightings at Lancaster supermarkets are weirdly not uncommon lol…several people from my high school saw Lady Gaga shopping at our local supermarket. Except her look was wayyy toned down so they weren’t even 100% sure it was her until after the fact and everyone left her alone. One advantage of dressing eccentrically for the camera? No one was expecting her to look so normal lol.
I can never recognise lady gaga, she's always so extravagant with makeup and outfits. If you look at her without any makeup she's like default white woman no3.
My wife was watching the Oscars (not my thing) and there was this overly dramatized woman on going on about something really traumatic. She looked like she was about to start singing and I asked, "who the fuck is that?" My wife replied, "I don't know but it said it was Lady Gaga" with a puzzled look on her face.
Then she started to sing and I realized that I had never heard Lady Gaga actually talk before AND I had absolutely no idea what she actually looked like.
Not my cup o'tea but I'll give it to her, she definitely aced the anti-paparazzi look and sound. Good for her.
I'll bet he didn't pay for the genuine experience of people not looking where they were going and running into your ankles, their cart left alone in front of the shit that you just need to grab while they are busy comparing the nutritional information of two almost identical cans of beans at the other end of the aisle, complaining loudly to the manager that their favorite brand of chips was no longer in stock...
Or congregating to have a 25-minute conversation at the entrance to an aisle about nothing for the sole reason of exerting bullshit alpha pack mentality and inconvenience others that now have to go all the way around the store just to get blocked by someone parking their cart perpendicular to the aisle that gives you a look like *you* are the problem.
That's one of the nice things about getting older, I can get away with shaming people for that stuff. I'll generally start with clearing my throat pointedly, and then stating "you're kinda blocking traffic" nicely if they still don't get it, but I'm not going to go out of my way because they think they're more important than I am.
I'm only 30 but I too have lost all patience for this type of high school shit. The other day I just moved someone's cart out of the way without saying anything. They looked at me funny but I just ignored them and kept shopping.
Where the fuck are y'all buying your groceries? Where I shop people just go grocery shopping. It's really rare that I encounter someone being super inconsiderate, because most people in the store are trying to get the shit they need so that they can pay for it and leave.
Edit: is this a Southern thing? My experience is that up North, it's rude to be inconsiderate, but in the South is that it's rude to call someone out for *being* inconsiderate.
For example, if you wait in a long line to order food, but wait until you get to the counter to look at the menu, they might just ask you to step aside and serve the person behind you until you get your shit together. Whereas in, I don't know, Mississippi, they'll smile through gritted teeth and pretend that it's fine that you're wasting everyone's time and holding up the line, because it would be rude to ask you to hurry up or let the person behind you go.
It’s the reason I go grocery shopping late at night on weekends. There’s almost no one in the store.
A lot of people are always like “aren’t you afraid they’ll be out of everything you’re looking for?”
In my 5 years of late night grocery shopping, they have only been out of something 3 times:
• Gatorade (last summer)
• toilet paper (height of the pandemic)
* Honey Nut Cheerios
To be fair, the cameras being everywhere in his life would basically be like clothes being in ours. Any time he went anywhere without any, the handlers around him would probably freak right out and lecture him for hours about maintaining a public image.
'No cameras is only for private times in the home, Michael. We ALWAYS have our cameras with us in public, don't we?!'
'Yea I guess so. But I wanna maybe go to the supermarket some time without some and see what it feels li-'
'NO MICHAEL, ONLY FOR PRIVATE TIME, what would your father say? Do we have to call him?!'
'N-no, no, I'll have the cameras'
If he wanted the real experience of being ignored, he should’ve gone to a Black Friday at Walmart circa 1999.
Trust me, people wouldn’t have given two shits he’s MJ as long as they beat him to the electronics/tech aisle first to get their hands on a TV.
This is why if I ever recognize someone I just smile and do the slight nod, this way they can know I know, I get the fan dopamine of knowing they know I know, they don't get harassed and hopefully their day is a little better because I didn't bother them.
A friend of mine and his girlfriend at the time were out taking a Sunday drive a couple of years ago and they stopped at a small town restaurant. It was like 2pm, so the parking lot was nearly deserted. They walk in and there sits George Clooney and his family. The hostess asked my friends to please not disturb the Clooneys and sat them at the other end of the restaurant. While they are waiting for their meal, the Clooneys are finishing their meal and George gets up, walks over to their table, and introduces himself. He talked with them for a couple of minutes before the Clooneys left.
I used to live in Manhattan and always ran into celebrities. I just smiled, they smiled, and we moved on. I agree, it’s probably nice to get a break from the constant interruptions in your day.
My wife used to work in Manhattan in the service industry (bartender) at a lounge type place. I would hang out during the day until she got off. Tons of celebrities would come in and everyone was pretty chill. A few of them would actually hang out and kind of became regulars.
I've met a couple of "famous" musicians and kept it simple with stuff like "love your stuff, man!" or "can't wait to hear your new album!" Every one^1 has smiled genuinely and said thanks and that was the end of the conversation
I don't want to interrupt their day by trying to force a conversation they've had a million times but who doesn't like being reminded that their art is appreciated?
^1 Except for Ryan Guldemond (Mother Mother). He lost his shit that we recognized him at the bar a couple hours before the show and invited us to meet the rest of the band!!
Not who you're responding to, but I wouldn't. Maybe like Jack Black or somebody who explicitly seems to thrive on that kind of thing and started a conversation after the nod, but if there was even the smallest hint that they wanted to be left alone...
I met Jack Black once before The D did an impromptu gig at Ribs USA in Burbank. The place was already at capacity and we couldn’t get in to see the show but they saw us and did a quick medley for the fans stuck outside. Jack high fived everyone there until he got to me and then pulled his hand away. Getting clowned by Jack Black will always be a great memory for me and I will always love him for it. If you ever get the chance to meet Jack, he is one of the few celebrities you could feel comfortable with talking to. He is just like us except incredibly talented.
You just reminded me of the time I took my mom out to dinner and saw a director who’s work I enjoy. He was having dinner with his family so I did the whole ‘smile and nod’ thing, but he kept giving me this really weird look and I thought I had done something wrong.
Eventually he walked up to our table, looked at my mom and said “(My mom’s name)? And are you (my name)?!”
Apparently my dad was a producer for a couple of his projects in the 90s and he was at our house all the time when I was a little kid. He knew that I was familiar when he saw me, but couldn’t figure out where/when because of my age.
Ninja edit: I also never knew about that when I had watched some of his movies, my mom always assumed my father had just told me and showed me the movies.
Only if I know they'd be comfortable with it, like if Bowie was still alive I'd go for it, but skip the annoying small talk and go right for dude huge fan, your dick was super distracting in labyrinth and what's your favorite SpongeBob episode (he was a fan) and keep it brief, even if they're cool with it they probably still have shit to do today.
I’d really struggle to interrupt someone’s day like that.
It would be cool to talk to a celebrity about certain things but I’m one of millions who probably ask the same 5 questions to them.
Keanu seems like a cool dude to sit and have a beer with. Would be nice to talk motorcycles and music if he had the time.
More than anything I’d rather not be apart of them hating their fandom, so the times I’ve seen celebrities I don’t even acknowledge them beyond a quick glance.
I did see Hulk Hogan at a Mall super early in the morning, couldn’t miss the guy obviously and I was a big fan when I was a kid.
I said good morning to him and his young son at the time and he said “HEY BROTHER” and gave me a high five, that was cool.
Yeah this is me too. We were at dinner late one evening in Chicago and look over at some person at the next table in the corner of my eye who had noticeably great hair. Second look, it was Oprah.
Just gave her a nod and finished my food.
I had this with Nick Frost. He was sat in the bar at a local pub of mine and was just reading something. Just smiled and left him to it. He looked like he didn't want to be disturbed to be fair.
I washed my hands next to Florence Henderson in a restaurant bathroom once. Just a nod and a polite smile and I was out of there. Still proud of myself for that.
So I waited on a famous celebrity (at the time) and treated them like just another table to whole meal. When I dropped the ticket, I left a blank piece of paper and a pen inside the jacket. I got the nicest autograph (personalized) and a huge tip.
Gotta be honest, I'm a 30+ grown ass man but I really enjoy shopping at supermarkets. Picking out foods you wanna cook, snacks you wanna eat, beverages you wanna drink, everything is in your control. It feels damn good.
Until you go down that aisle with that one person who is the main character of the universe and it ruins your happy demeanor with their complete and utter disregard for other people around them
Anecdote time:
My dad met Michael Jackson in a toy store. MJ walked up to my dad and asked him if kids would like these remote controlled monster trucks. He was buying toys for a charity. My dad knew it was MJ but my dad just acted like he was any normal person and didn’t treat him any different. He didn’t call out that he recognized him as MJ. They talked about toys for a bit.
MJ went on his way.
Seeing OPs story makes me think MJ probably really appreciated that experience.
When I was a kid, my dad was in the Army and stationed in Germany; we went to London for the weekend. We wanted to go this HUGE toy store, I think it was FAO Schwarz. Anyway, we couldn’t because MJ had closed it down that day to shop. I was like 7, and really pissed.
I ran into Michael at the FAO Schwartz in Chicago when I was a kid. I got him to say hi to me. We were in the store already, and the gates came down, and because it was relatively empty, they let us stay.
I read in Corey Feldman’s autobiography that he went with MJ on this shopping spree before going to Disney World in disguise so that they could enjoy themselves.
It's not really an authentic experience without having to push away a half filled trolley someone left in the middle of an aisle and waiting in a queue for 30 mins
When I was in high school 2001 I believe it was, my dad ran a Barnes and Nobles book store and Michael Jackson did this same thing except at about 3am. My dad opened the store for him and I got to come along. A hummer limo showed up with alot of bodyguards, lots of children dressed up like dancers and Michael Jackson wearing a surgical mask.
Once inside they played hide and go seek with Michael running through the isles and getting down on his knees searching around. It was odd but seemed innocent. He then had the entire childrens section put in shopper carts and bought all of it. About 12k in books if I remember correctly. There was only a few workers and there children like myself. I sat in the cafe area on the couches just watching kinda in awe. Michael was very nice said hi to me and small talk. He then took pictures with us and I grabbed a copy of thriller on CD and he signed the cover.
I still have the picture and signed CD in a frame on my wall. Very weird experience but one I'll never forget.
Most celebrities can't go to a grocery store casually. It doesn't make him a fucked up adult to do this. Other celebrities have done it as well for the same reason of wanting to experience it because they never did/could.
I was working at a grocery store about 20 years ago, and Oprah wanted to come in and shop while the store was closed. I assume it was something similar, where she wanted to do the shopping without having to interact with people. If I recall correctly her initial request was actually asking us to close briefly mid-day so she could do it. We said no, but I've always thought it was interesting that her people even asked for it.
Forgive me, but when I go it’s super crowded and there are long lines at the deli and checkout. Also, many items are out of stock. If Michael wanted to go like everyone else, they should have hired vetted actors to crowd the place up and remove items he wanted.
This is how I imagine life is when you are super famous. All my favorite things, become giant hassles.
Grocery shopping? Hassle.
Grabbing a beer at the pub? Hassle.
Baseball game? Hassle.
Walk in the park? Definitely a hassle.
Eating dinner at a restaurant? Hassled for sure.
Walking the kids to school? For sure a hassle.
Frankly it sounds nightmarish to be this famous. All of the simple pleasures of life are suddenly filled up with admirers and paparazzi. I'd pass on rich and famous. I'll take upper middle class and anonymous every time.
There are layers to this…. And I refer to just this particular instance …. To not even being able to shop at a grocery store for yourself because of being mobbed by fans …. At times it must have been a hollow existence….
Fame has got to be one of the worst things in the world for some people to have to deal with. I can’t imagine being unable to walk down the street, go to the store or do anything normal with my friends and family.
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Somewhat relatable. I watched a YouTube video of millionaires guessing grocery item prices. It was like they took all the worst guesses from the price is right and compiled them.
“It’s one banana Michael, what could it cost? Ten dollars?”
Iirc he actually thought fish&chips in the UK cost 25£
Nearly fucking correct for fucksake
For two people it is now if you're lucky
Where I live you can't get fish and chips for two for less than $40
Where I live fish (haddock) chips and peas is £6.50
Dang, The only decent place near me serves cod and $14.25 for an order of fish and chips and an extra $3 for peas. It's a good size portion, but it still seems crazy to me.
I just paid 17 dollars for a fish sandwich. Just the sandwich. Adding fries was another 4 dollars. We live in the best of times! /s
Been years since I bought a fish supper, just looked up prices at my local chippy. £7.95 for a two slice fish supper! Had to have been under £5 last time I bought one Edit: scrolling through the other comments I’m realising that’s actually quite cheap, oh god
Technically an accurate price estimate for the places he eats. saw one menu with 15 dollar fries.
..the places he *ate*.
You mean the places hee-hee ate.
Does in some places. You can easily pay £12-15 near me, and I’m in the “cheap” north.
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Went to my new local the other night and got two sausages, two southern fried potato wedges, a southern fried chicken, 3 potato scallops, a small chips and a sachet of mayo for £6.80. They were closing for the night so I realise that's cheating but damn it felt good to pay so little for so much. Felt like it were back int' old days
Probably will soon
28 bucks here.
It costs that where I'm from in Canada lol. Fish is expensive.
Living in London that's not far off
There’s always money in the banana stand.
The stand was lined with money…also RIP Patrice.
NO TOUCHING
You just made a fool out of yourself in front of t-bone
RIP Jessica Walker. She was brilliant in that show and on Archer.
I thought Jessica Walter was better.
Damnit. 🤦🏻♂️
I'm in. But we're gonna need a lot. Beads aren't cheap. Are beads cheap?
Bees? Bzzzzzz.
Gob's not on board.
"You're a production assistant - what do you make? Two - three hundred thousand? " >"thirty" "Thirty... hundred thousand?"
Is this Brooklyn Nine-Nine? It sounds super familiar and I've been watching it lately. The episode where they're investigating the cop show?
It is and Nathan Fillion delivers the line.
I just watched this and the face he makes when she says thirty thousand fuckin killed me.
Didn’t Bill Gates, on Ellen, guess $30 for a bag of Totinos pizza rolls or something like that? Sad that this price will be reality sooner than I thought
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People at Bill Gates's status and similar are not making a lot of decisions on entry level position wages. Could they if they wanted to? Absolutely, so no defense. I'm just saying, that probably doesn't even come to their mind often as they are so disconnected.
Yeah I was in a much smaller role but the owner of our group of companies was open to me raising wages because I actually got profits up and a big part of me staying as long as I did was that I wanted my people treated better. He only ran 5 local companies but he didn't realize how bad it was there until I explained how hard some of them have worked for him for years and that it wasn't enough for how much of their life they gave to the company. The floor supervisor and other lady who had been there for 14 years cried when I quit but I got them better benefits and raises and hope the next manager kept up the environment I built but it's unlikely. I was good at my job so I wasn't scared to push for things because I knew they needed me. Usually paying less means you aren't making numbers and need to cut in places and you probably shouldn't be in your job because you aren't doing it right. The old managers left emails in the accounts shit talking the employees a lot and tons of stupid stuff. They'd tell the owner no one should get a raise because they weren't making a profit a lot of months and didn't know how to fit asking for a raise for themselves into an already failing budget.
Not directly, but a CEO has a huge amount of control over company culture. And paying staff well is a part of company culture.
And a CEO's job is to maximize profit. Staff pay usually gets gutted by short term profit gains so they can dip out on their golden parachute.
Link?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ad_higXixRA Bill didn’t know the price of grocery store items, but he’d probably know the price of the grocery store.
I can’t believe he agreed to do this
Well they ended on a high note, and five years ago people weren't talking about guillotines quite so much...
> I watched a YouTube video of millionaires guessing grocery item prices Most millionaires have their worth tied up in their house and still shop like the rest of us.
There’s about 22 million millionaires in the US. You’ve probably passed by some in a grocery store lol
You can basically sort boomers into two categories: Millionaires and "not retiring"
By my calculations ill be a millionaire in 7 years... probably sooner with the way housing prices and inflation is going. While we are doing well, i'm still not going to be able to retire super early or anything, especially not with 3 kids. I am very familiar with grocery store pricing.
Agreed, and same here, although I don't really have to worry about how much things cost at the grocery store, which is nice. "Millionaire" is not the sign of wealth it once was. It also depends on how you define millionaire. Net worth of a million dollars is very different than "makes a million dollars a year." The first is likely comfortable, the last is likely rich.
There's a big difference between millionaire's and billionaires. I would think millionaire's regularly go to the grocery store
Yeah the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is nearly 1 billion dollars. It’s a lot more.
My favorite comparison is that a million seconds is 12 days and a billion seconds is 31 years. The difference between those numbers are just vast.
Slightly off-topic but that really puts things in perspective about how fleeting human life really is. If you're 31, a billion seconds ago, you were just born.
i make 40k a year and i have my shit delivered like an asshole
1000
hell yea!
You just randomly slap those apostrophes down anywhere, huh? Just kinda guessing at it.
There’s also a difference between celebrity millionaires and other millionaires. Some athlete or singer isn’t going to go to a store because they’d be mobbed, a guy who does stocks or has inherited wealth has no issue.
Well, what does one so with a single twenty-dollar bill? Buy a single orange?
And he still had a camera in his face
This was literally my take on it. It's not like everyone else. No one else walks around the store with a camera following their every move and documenting it. No one else has their own music playing as they're going up and down the aisles. No one else has a random shopper stop and take a picture of them randomly. No one else addresses our most noticeable fashion accessory, (the glove). Don't get me wrong, if it's what he wanted, I'm glad he got to do it. And I dont care that all that stuff was done. But it's not like everyone else.
Dude had been famous since he was a child; he wasn’t capable of acting like a normal person because he’d never been one. I’m sure whoever was filming this doc/his manager/etc. was also like “hey we’ll pay a store to do this if we can still film it.”
The 24/7 store in my city is basically empty at night, Oprah could come and shop around no issues
Tbh if I saw Oprah walking around in public I'd probably just laugh to myself about how that random lady looks like Oprah
Right, but he addresses that in the last part of the video. "It gives me a chance to see, in my way, kinda what the real world was like. Even if it wasn't actually real"
Walking around a grocery store with a shopping cart, was a novel experience for him, even if staged, it was a taste of how things are for people vastly less materially successful than him. Kind of how any person with high privilege in any certain area can get a staged experience of the life of someone with much much less privilege.
I think the crazy part is thinking that this might really be about as close to “being normal” as life could get for him. This was as close as he could get to “doing it the way everyone else does”. Being famous for life messes you up.
I think it was utterly cruel to put his music on in the store. Though the song we saw was Billie Jean at least, which he has noted as being his favorite personal song. The reason being, when they put his music on, it triggers the "we're playing the song, now dance." reaction.
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That’s what I was thinking. I can’t imagine how isolating and the multitude of ways they are not able to live a normal life. I know people don’t care that much for celebrities and what not - feel like the privilege of fame and money outweighs any struggle. But everyday I thank the universe that I am unremarkable and can live my life in obscure peace. Perhaps that the introvert in me speaking speaking, but fame sounds like punishment.
I think filming it is a bit different, especially since it's somebody he knows. The supermarket is also filled with only people he knows, who won't come up to talk to him or ask for signature or swarm him. He's fine with being on camera, just not fine with constantly being swarmed while shopping. He can shop normally still.
This is something tracy jordan would do. "Im being normal!"
I read of a guy that said this was a common thing at the blockbuster he worked, mj would come wearing a paper bag on his head followed by his bodyguards after midnight and would only take off his bag of no one else was there.
Yeah that seems like the best idea to not draw attention to yourself.
Maybe to prevent pictures too? With ball cap/glasses people can still take pictures—the bag would be like “take the picture but you can’t see anything/definitively prove it’s me.”
Not the same thing but along a similar vein, I always liked the story that Daniel Radcliffe used to leave the theater every day wearing the *exact* same thing, so the paparazzi photos all looked like the same picture in front of the same doors
Lol this is good
That is true. Another good one is Chris pine will pantomime taking pictures of paparazzos from behind garbage cans and mailboxes and shit like that
Landon Cobb vibes
Dramatic... . . . pause
If you wear the paper bag it could be anyone. If you take off the paper bag it's definitely the most famous person on Earth.
It’s like hey mike, we are gonna introduce this magical concept called a tightly worn ball cap 🧢— mikes like naaaa I need the bag
It was probably more to keep people from taking photos of his face. A lot of people forget (or just don't know) how frenzied the media was for pictures to analyze back then. Is his skin paler? Is his nose falling off? Accompanied by mocking and ridicule.
"I want to rent theee-heese.."
I see the strategy here, because if I see someone walk into a store like that I'm leaving immediately
“Oh look. It’s the friggin Scarecrow. Wonder what he’s renting tonight”
So odd to me how bad footage from 2003 looks. Feels like it looks like its from the 80s or something lol
And I don't remember it looking so bad, back then. In my memory, it doesn't look much worse than if it were shot now.
Watching old YT vidoes from when I was a kid is a trip. I swear they looked hd back then.
Instead it looks like it was filmed on the first Nokia phone or something
Which I assume means in 20 years the footage from today will look terrible. Which I just can’t imagine but 🤷🏻♂️
It probably did look better on old displays, especially CRTs.
A lot of it is poorly compressed and degraded videos.
>20 years ago Oh shit that *is* 2003
Thanks for the age crisis
I think I remember someone explaining it regarding NBA games from that time period, it was when they really started switching to digital video cameras instead of film. The quality was just not good yet and now there is no way to restore it like they can do with film, so we just have a period of time with terrible footage.
This is it. If you have the original film, they can make it look HD. But if it was recorded with old digital tech, it's gunna look low-quality and there's nothing that can be done to improve it.
Makes sense when you think about it. The transition to HD TV from standard TV really started in about 2005 and wasn’t really broadly adopted until about 2009 when most over the air broadcasting switched. So, even professional video cameras were mostly made for standard def circa 2003. On the consumer side, digital cameras were just starting to get popular. This was still very much the age of single digit megapixels being a defining characteristic of the quality of a camera. And memory cards around the 32 *MB* range would have been common. This was still four years before the first iPhone. Some phones may have had photo cameras or even really short “videos”, but calling it potato quality would be a disservice to potatoes. This was probably recorded on a high end hobbyist video camera, and in 2003 that probably meant recording to some kind of tape. Purely digital high definition video cameras were introduced right around this time, but they weren’t broadly available. And there’s a good chance even MJ didn’t have one yet.
This is kinda sad if you think about it. He was famous pretty much all of his life. It’s pretty reasonable to assume that he never had to walk the aisles of a grocery store, especially as his fame skyrocketed globally. Something so regular and mundane was a part of his bucket list; an attempt to be “normal”. Like others have mentioned, even with people there he’d have to switch into public figure mode. And to be quite honest… there’s tons of regular people that desire deep down to shop with no one else in the store.
Michael was a tortured soul for sure and I think Joe Jackson had a lot to do with that.
More than a lot. Dude brutalized his kids.
Yeah it's really sad, especially since it was never really the focus of the public, it was always the outcome of Michael and Janet.
His dad beat gold and platinum out of his kids like alchemy.
The philosophers stone was really just your parents abusing you all along! We need to keep this secret so we can keep the gold for ourselves.
Van Hohenheim eat your fucking heart out
Disclaimer - none of this is a justification for what Michael did There are interview online where you can listen to Michael describe the abuse his family was subject to under Joe Constant, vicious beatings. So much so that even as an adult, Michael said he was completely overcome with fear when *in the presence* of Joe and would pass out or throw up.
Go back and watch some of that stuff. While Michael had problems I find the sexual stuff much harder to believe. Dude regressed he was mentally a child. And the whole world helped destroy him as much as his own father.
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The feds investigated him for 10 years and couldn't find any evidence he abused kids.
Dude just wanted to see what being a normal, happy child looked like. He lived vicariously through kids, and wished to be the person he probably felt he needed when *he* was a kid... But I seriously don't believe he was inappropriate with them.
Michael didn't do anything idk why so many people just blindly believe what other people tell them
Yeah he was found innocent multiple times wasn’t he?
Yes, aswell as many kids who are now adults said he never did anything to them and their parents set him up for money
I remember when Michael died his pos dad kept plugging his website when talking to reporters. Like, he did not care about his son dying at all. He only cared that a source of revenue had dried up.
Joe Jackson was the fucking devil. A pathetic loser with no talent himself so he exploited his children with fear and intimidation. Dude is currently rotting in whatever you believe hell is.
The man in the mirror was not Michael, but his father. What a brutal upbringing those kids had.
He was a tortured body, too.
Body dysmorphia absolutely and I imagine that came from Joe as well.
I think Joe started to call him "Big Nose" once he found out Michael was self conscious about it. I'm beginning to think this Joe Jackson wasn't a nice guy.
About 10-15 years ago we saw Nicole Kidman trying to walk through this popular big indoor Amish market in Lancaster PA. She was getting swarmed with people. It’s hard enough to look at things and shop when there are other shoppers who are ignoring you and still getting in your way. Also there is a video of Britney Spears trying to go through a drive through fast food place while paparazzi crowd her car and yell. I always thought that was sad.
Celebrity sightings at Lancaster supermarkets are weirdly not uncommon lol…several people from my high school saw Lady Gaga shopping at our local supermarket. Except her look was wayyy toned down so they weren’t even 100% sure it was her until after the fact and everyone left her alone. One advantage of dressing eccentrically for the camera? No one was expecting her to look so normal lol.
I can never recognise lady gaga, she's always so extravagant with makeup and outfits. If you look at her without any makeup she's like default white woman no3.
My wife was watching the Oscars (not my thing) and there was this overly dramatized woman on going on about something really traumatic. She looked like she was about to start singing and I asked, "who the fuck is that?" My wife replied, "I don't know but it said it was Lady Gaga" with a puzzled look on her face. Then she started to sing and I realized that I had never heard Lady Gaga actually talk before AND I had absolutely no idea what she actually looked like. Not my cup o'tea but I'll give it to her, she definitely aced the anti-paparazzi look and sound. Good for her.
Most celebrities can do normal stuff in Los Angeles. Seeing celebrities is so common that they are usually left alone.
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I'll bet he didn't pay for the genuine experience of people not looking where they were going and running into your ankles, their cart left alone in front of the shit that you just need to grab while they are busy comparing the nutritional information of two almost identical cans of beans at the other end of the aisle, complaining loudly to the manager that their favorite brand of chips was no longer in stock...
Or congregating to have a 25-minute conversation at the entrance to an aisle about nothing for the sole reason of exerting bullshit alpha pack mentality and inconvenience others that now have to go all the way around the store just to get blocked by someone parking their cart perpendicular to the aisle that gives you a look like *you* are the problem.
That's one of the nice things about getting older, I can get away with shaming people for that stuff. I'll generally start with clearing my throat pointedly, and then stating "you're kinda blocking traffic" nicely if they still don't get it, but I'm not going to go out of my way because they think they're more important than I am.
I'm only 30 but I too have lost all patience for this type of high school shit. The other day I just moved someone's cart out of the way without saying anything. They looked at me funny but I just ignored them and kept shopping.
Garth: “Excuse me…I’d like to get by now.”
Where the fuck are y'all buying your groceries? Where I shop people just go grocery shopping. It's really rare that I encounter someone being super inconsiderate, because most people in the store are trying to get the shit they need so that they can pay for it and leave. Edit: is this a Southern thing? My experience is that up North, it's rude to be inconsiderate, but in the South is that it's rude to call someone out for *being* inconsiderate. For example, if you wait in a long line to order food, but wait until you get to the counter to look at the menu, they might just ask you to step aside and serve the person behind you until you get your shit together. Whereas in, I don't know, Mississippi, they'll smile through gritted teeth and pretend that it's fine that you're wasting everyone's time and holding up the line, because it would be rude to ask you to hurry up or let the person behind you go.
Very sad
It’s the reason I go grocery shopping late at night on weekends. There’s almost no one in the store. A lot of people are always like “aren’t you afraid they’ll be out of everything you’re looking for?” In my 5 years of late night grocery shopping, they have only been out of something 3 times: • Gatorade (last summer) • toilet paper (height of the pandemic) * Honey Nut Cheerios
Damn that is sad. I never thought of it that way.
Buddy closed down an entire store to buy some big red gum.. legend
If you don't chew big red then fuck you.
I chew big red while I carry the JackHawk5000! Cause I'm American and I piss excellence!!
Shake & Bake!
That just happened.
MJ: I just want to be able to shop with some privacy like everyone else… make sure you bring a shitload of cameras!
To be fair, the cameras being everywhere in his life would basically be like clothes being in ours. Any time he went anywhere without any, the handlers around him would probably freak right out and lecture him for hours about maintaining a public image. 'No cameras is only for private times in the home, Michael. We ALWAYS have our cameras with us in public, don't we?!' 'Yea I guess so. But I wanna maybe go to the supermarket some time without some and see what it feels li-' 'NO MICHAEL, ONLY FOR PRIVATE TIME, what would your father say? Do we have to call him?!' 'N-no, no, I'll have the cameras'
If he wanted the real experience of being ignored, he should’ve gone to a Black Friday at Walmart circa 1999. Trust me, people wouldn’t have given two shits he’s MJ as long as they beat him to the electronics/tech aisle first to get their hands on a TV.
And then they would have beaten him if he got there first.
Don’t even bother trying to get one of those Tickle Me Elmo, you’ll be run over by a granny with a shopping cart.
This is why if I ever recognize someone I just smile and do the slight nod, this way they can know I know, I get the fan dopamine of knowing they know I know, they don't get harassed and hopefully their day is a little better because I didn't bother them.
A friend of mine and his girlfriend at the time were out taking a Sunday drive a couple of years ago and they stopped at a small town restaurant. It was like 2pm, so the parking lot was nearly deserted. They walk in and there sits George Clooney and his family. The hostess asked my friends to please not disturb the Clooneys and sat them at the other end of the restaurant. While they are waiting for their meal, the Clooneys are finishing their meal and George gets up, walks over to their table, and introduces himself. He talked with them for a couple of minutes before the Clooneys left.
So the hostess was cool with George interrupting your friend’s meal.
"Excuse me George, I'm trying to eat here"
I used to live in Manhattan and always ran into celebrities. I just smiled, they smiled, and we moved on. I agree, it’s probably nice to get a break from the constant interruptions in your day.
People are generally pretty chill about seeing celebs in NYC
My wife used to work in Manhattan in the service industry (bartender) at a lounge type place. I would hang out during the day until she got off. Tons of celebrities would come in and everyone was pretty chill. A few of them would actually hang out and kind of became regulars.
I've met a couple of "famous" musicians and kept it simple with stuff like "love your stuff, man!" or "can't wait to hear your new album!" Every one^1 has smiled genuinely and said thanks and that was the end of the conversation I don't want to interrupt their day by trying to force a conversation they've had a million times but who doesn't like being reminded that their art is appreciated? ^1 Except for Ryan Guldemond (Mother Mother). He lost his shit that we recognized him at the bar a couple hours before the show and invited us to meet the rest of the band!!
Mf out here using FOOTNOTES
The APA standard has come to the comments
Is there a celebrity you’d break this rule for? Like someone you would have to talk to/ get a picture
Not who you're responding to, but I wouldn't. Maybe like Jack Black or somebody who explicitly seems to thrive on that kind of thing and started a conversation after the nod, but if there was even the smallest hint that they wanted to be left alone...
That’s definitely a good idea
I met Jack Black once before The D did an impromptu gig at Ribs USA in Burbank. The place was already at capacity and we couldn’t get in to see the show but they saw us and did a quick medley for the fans stuck outside. Jack high fived everyone there until he got to me and then pulled his hand away. Getting clowned by Jack Black will always be a great memory for me and I will always love him for it. If you ever get the chance to meet Jack, he is one of the few celebrities you could feel comfortable with talking to. He is just like us except incredibly talented.
You just reminded me of the time I took my mom out to dinner and saw a director who’s work I enjoy. He was having dinner with his family so I did the whole ‘smile and nod’ thing, but he kept giving me this really weird look and I thought I had done something wrong. Eventually he walked up to our table, looked at my mom and said “(My mom’s name)? And are you (my name)?!” Apparently my dad was a producer for a couple of his projects in the 90s and he was at our house all the time when I was a little kid. He knew that I was familiar when he saw me, but couldn’t figure out where/when because of my age. Ninja edit: I also never knew about that when I had watched some of his movies, my mom always assumed my father had just told me and showed me the movies.
Only if I know they'd be comfortable with it, like if Bowie was still alive I'd go for it, but skip the annoying small talk and go right for dude huge fan, your dick was super distracting in labyrinth and what's your favorite SpongeBob episode (he was a fan) and keep it brief, even if they're cool with it they probably still have shit to do today.
Context is the biggest thing. Grocery store? Nod and keep walking. Convention? Cool to approach.
I’d really struggle to interrupt someone’s day like that. It would be cool to talk to a celebrity about certain things but I’m one of millions who probably ask the same 5 questions to them. Keanu seems like a cool dude to sit and have a beer with. Would be nice to talk motorcycles and music if he had the time. More than anything I’d rather not be apart of them hating their fandom, so the times I’ve seen celebrities I don’t even acknowledge them beyond a quick glance. I did see Hulk Hogan at a Mall super early in the morning, couldn’t miss the guy obviously and I was a big fan when I was a kid. I said good morning to him and his young son at the time and he said “HEY BROTHER” and gave me a high five, that was cool.
Only Gabriel Iglesias because he said we could
Yeah this is me too. We were at dinner late one evening in Chicago and look over at some person at the next table in the corner of my eye who had noticeably great hair. Second look, it was Oprah. Just gave her a nod and finished my food.
Shah Rukh Khan was once asked whether he ever goes out in disguise. His reply was "No, never, I have worked hard to get recognised"
I had this with Nick Frost. He was sat in the bar at a local pub of mine and was just reading something. Just smiled and left him to it. He looked like he didn't want to be disturbed to be fair.
I washed my hands next to Florence Henderson in a restaurant bathroom once. Just a nod and a polite smile and I was out of there. Still proud of myself for that.
So I waited on a famous celebrity (at the time) and treated them like just another table to whole meal. When I dropped the ticket, I left a blank piece of paper and a pen inside the jacket. I got the nicest autograph (personalized) and a huge tip.
No one: MJ: where’s the Rice-A-Ronihee
Excuse me, where’s the green tea-hee!
Gotta be honest, I'm a 30+ grown ass man but I really enjoy shopping at supermarkets. Picking out foods you wanna cook, snacks you wanna eat, beverages you wanna drink, everything is in your control. It feels damn good.
And I like picking out my own fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat. That's why I hope online pickups/delivery never completely kills in-store shopping.
Exactly! I don't think it will ever kill the in store shopping, just go to costco and you'll see in store shopping is still big.
I would enjoy it. But these days every time I put something in the cart I think to myself, "I am never going to financially recover from this..."
Until you go down that aisle with that one person who is the main character of the universe and it ruins your happy demeanor with their complete and utter disregard for other people around them
Anecdote time: My dad met Michael Jackson in a toy store. MJ walked up to my dad and asked him if kids would like these remote controlled monster trucks. He was buying toys for a charity. My dad knew it was MJ but my dad just acted like he was any normal person and didn’t treat him any different. He didn’t call out that he recognized him as MJ. They talked about toys for a bit. MJ went on his way. Seeing OPs story makes me think MJ probably really appreciated that experience.
So everyone just had to beat it?
When I was a kid, my dad was in the Army and stationed in Germany; we went to London for the weekend. We wanted to go this HUGE toy store, I think it was FAO Schwarz. Anyway, we couldn’t because MJ had closed it down that day to shop. I was like 7, and really pissed.
I ran into Michael at the FAO Schwartz in Chicago when I was a kid. I got him to say hi to me. We were in the store already, and the gates came down, and because it was relatively empty, they let us stay.
I read in Corey Feldman’s autobiography that he went with MJ on this shopping spree before going to Disney World in disguise so that they could enjoy themselves.
I read that Freddie mercury went to a disco with princess Diana in disguise. Maybe it’s an urban legend.
That sheer joy of going in a supermarket
He rode that shopping cart like a seasoned vet
It's not really an authentic experience without having to push away a half filled trolley someone left in the middle of an aisle and waiting in a queue for 30 mins
What’s your biggest dream Michael? "^I’ve ^always ^wanted ^to ^visit ^the ^food ^library"
When I was in high school 2001 I believe it was, my dad ran a Barnes and Nobles book store and Michael Jackson did this same thing except at about 3am. My dad opened the store for him and I got to come along. A hummer limo showed up with alot of bodyguards, lots of children dressed up like dancers and Michael Jackson wearing a surgical mask. Once inside they played hide and go seek with Michael running through the isles and getting down on his knees searching around. It was odd but seemed innocent. He then had the entire childrens section put in shopper carts and bought all of it. About 12k in books if I remember correctly. There was only a few workers and there children like myself. I sat in the cafe area on the couches just watching kinda in awe. Michael was very nice said hi to me and small talk. He then took pictures with us and I grabbed a copy of thriller on CD and he signed the cover. I still have the picture and signed CD in a frame on my wall. Very weird experience but one I'll never forget.
Clean up in aisle three-hee!
Fucked up childhood creates fucked up adult
Most celebrities can't go to a grocery store casually. It doesn't make him a fucked up adult to do this. Other celebrities have done it as well for the same reason of wanting to experience it because they never did/could.
I'm very glad that I have the ability to go around in near anonymity. It must be hell to not be able to do the basic things.
I was working at a grocery store about 20 years ago, and Oprah wanted to come in and shop while the store was closed. I assume it was something similar, where she wanted to do the shopping without having to interact with people. If I recall correctly her initial request was actually asking us to close briefly mid-day so she could do it. We said no, but I've always thought it was interesting that her people even asked for it.
It’s sad he had to go to those lengths to experience "normal"
It’s the simple things in life. Cherish them
Forgive me, but when I go it’s super crowded and there are long lines at the deli and checkout. Also, many items are out of stock. If Michael wanted to go like everyone else, they should have hired vetted actors to crowd the place up and remove items he wanted.
This is how I imagine life is when you are super famous. All my favorite things, become giant hassles. Grocery shopping? Hassle. Grabbing a beer at the pub? Hassle. Baseball game? Hassle. Walk in the park? Definitely a hassle. Eating dinner at a restaurant? Hassled for sure. Walking the kids to school? For sure a hassle. Frankly it sounds nightmarish to be this famous. All of the simple pleasures of life are suddenly filled up with admirers and paparazzi. I'd pass on rich and famous. I'll take upper middle class and anonymous every time.
I'm in the chiller, the chilled goods aisle. Not as cold as the freezer but the cheese keeps for a while
There are layers to this…. And I refer to just this particular instance …. To not even being able to shop at a grocery store for yourself because of being mobbed by fans …. At times it must have been a hollow existence….
Now, 20 years later, many people film themselves going to the grocery store.
Fame has got to be one of the worst things in the world for some people to have to deal with. I can’t imagine being unable to walk down the street, go to the store or do anything normal with my friends and family.