YouTube Sensations Honor Michael Jackson

The king of pop (and paparazzi?) has passed away, and there will likely never be an heir. His death has caused a tremendous global reaction, taking over news and other media programming everywhere over the weekend. In a poor favela of Rio de Janeiro, where he filmed part of his video for the song, “They Don’t Care About Us,” a statue is planned. The owner of the famous London store Harrods is even putting in a monument to Michael Jackson next to that of his son and Princess Diana, who died together in a Monaco car accident in 1997.

Tonic has covered his passing amply, but one other creative international tribute to Michael Jackson worth noting is that of the 1500 inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention Center in the Philippines. Two years ago, a dance to the Jackson tune “Thriller” that they performed as part of a prison rehab program was uploaded to YouTube and caught world attention. Reportedly, more than 24 million people have viewed the somewhat bizarre performance.

The detention center's inmate rehabilitation plan involves dancing four hours a day, five days a week, with one public performance each month. The prison boss, Byron Garcia, told CNN it has "brought back their self-esteem. We have happy inmates now."

When Jackson died, the inmates immediately went into gear, practicing for ten hours to prepare a tribute dance. Here is the entire performance, recently uploaded by Garcia: