As the news of Michael Jackson’s death spread around the world June 25, the social networking site Twitter came to a virtual standstill, flooded with visitors tweeting the news. Within moments of the first breaking news reports — indicating that Jackson had suffered cardiac arrest and had been rushed via ambulance to a Los Angeles hospital — both “#michaeljackson” and “Cardiac Arrest” emerged as two of the network’s highest-rated “trending topics.” As TIME’s Michael Scherer notes, nearly three times as many tweets were posted about Michael Jackson on Thursday than either Iran or swine flu. In the hour following confirmation of his death, celebrities rushed to make their grief and condolences public: Miley Cyrus : michael jackson was my inspiration.
