Michael Jackson’s official Instagram account posted an interactive quiz on Thursday. The premise was simple: find out which song from his catalog you are.
The format is called hold-the-screen. Followers press and hold on a video, and the animation freezes on a song title. The post then asked everyone to drop their result in the comments.
The text read: “Hold the screen to find out which Michael Jackson song you are! Share in the comments which song you get.”
Close to 195,000 likes came in. The comments section filled up fast, packed with song results from followers comparing notes.
The hold-the-screen mechanic is perfect for this kind of post. It’s quick and personal. Followers get a specific result in seconds and head straight to the comments to share it.
No new single came with the post, and no album release is attached. The quiz runs entirely on catalog appeal. That catalog, it turns out, goes very deep.
Jackson started out with The Jackson 5 in the late 1960s. Songs like “I Want You Back” and “ABC” came from that era. He launched his solo run with “Off the Wall” in 1979, then followed it with “Thriller” in 1982. “Bad” came in 1987, “Dangerous” in 1991, and “HIStory” in 1995.
“Thriller” is widely considered the best-selling album of all time. The music video for the title track, directed by John Landis, is still one of the most iconic short films ever made. Across those albums, he packed in some of the most recognizable songs in pop history.
Songs like “Billie Jean,” “Beat It,” and “Man in the Mirror” still land on streaming charts. “Smooth Criminal” and “Black or White” have never really left rotation either. Several of his biggest tracks have crossed the billion-stream mark on major platforms.
Jackson passed away in June 2009. Sony Music and MJJ Productions have managed his catalog ever since. They’ve kept it active through reissues and a steady digital presence.
Hold-the-screen posts have become a reliable engagement format on Instagram. They feel more like a game than a standard feed post, and they invite people to comment rather than scroll past. For a legacy catalog, that kind of reach is hard to beat.
A quiz post like this one doesn’t need a press cycle. It gives followers something personal to take away, and the comment thread does the rest.
Some of these songs have been in people’s heads for thirty years. For them, the quiz practically does itself.
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