I always joke about wanting to break the Internet with my online shenanigans, but at one point on Thursday evening, after the unexpected death of legendary pop star Michael Jackson was announced, it felt like the Internet was breaking under the strain of web users searching for the latest information.

Celebrity news websites which were first with the news such as TMZ, the American celebrity gossip site which originally broke the story, and infamous celebrity blogs like Perez Hilton, also suffered periods of down time.

Google confirmed to that when the news first broke it feared it was under attack. Millions of people who Googled the star’s name were greeted with an error page rather than a list of results. It warned users “your query looks similar to automated requests from a virus or spyware application”. Searches for Michael Jackson had reached such a volume that in its so called “hotness” gauge the topic was rated “volcanic”.

‘Michael Jackson’ fast became a trending topic on Twitter and the fail whale made a number of appearances.

At some point on Friday morning, I picked up a tweet announcing a Mass Moonwalk Flashmob being organised at Liverpool Street in honour of the King of Pop. Within minutes, #moonwalk was re-tweeted thousand of times and a Facebook group was promptly created inviting Londoners to dance in the streets to remember Michael Jackson. It just shows how powerful social media can be… Enjoy the video (I know you see a lots of heads but I am short!)