Michael Jackson has been gone since 2009, but his legacy lives on as a hologram at the Billboard Music Awards, in a posthumous hit album … and in a spot-on rendition by a young man during a talent show — theYouTube video of which racked up nearly 2 million views in a single day.

Brett Nichols, a 17-year-old junior, stole the show at Pitman High School’s talent show last week in Turlock, Calif. To the tune of “Billie Jean,” Jackson’s 1983 No. 1 hit, Nichols mimics the smooth dance shuffle and leg bends the King of Pop made famous. He even moonwalks — a step that generates cries of delight from the audience, just as it did when Jackson first did it on the “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever” NBC special in 1983.

Nichols told News10 that old Jackson YouTube videos got him hooked, and led to the natural next step: “This is something that really inspires me, and then it was later I thought, ‘Why isn’t this something I can’t do?'”

His segment starts around 1:11 in the video — don’t miss it!