このMoonwalk Flashmobはほんのジョークから始まったという。最初に思いついたRobは、Twitterに、「きょう午後6時にLiverpool Street Stationで大勢でMoonwalkを踊るイベントが企画されているって言ったら信じてもらえる?」とメッセージを送ったところ、これがReTweetされ、そのうちに、後半の、問いかけ部分が取れ、「きょう午後6時にLiverpool Street Stationで大勢でMoonwalkを踊るイベント」となったという。イベントのオーガナイズは、Milo Yiannopoulos氏が買って出て、夕方には、数百から1000人規模の人々が集まった。
マイケルの急死について、多くの人々がネットで情報を知ろうと集中的にアクセスしたというのは、ある意味で象徴的だ。MTVが開局した際、最初にかかったビデオは、バグルスの"The Video killed the Radio Star"だった。そして、今回、"The Video Starの死"について、Webが世界に伝え、思いを共有したのだ。
クインシー・ジョーンズは、マイケルの死について以下のように語っている。
“I am absolutely devastated at this tragic and unexpected news. For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don’t have the words. Divinity brought our souls together on The Wiz and allowed us to do what we were able to throughout the 80’s. To this day, the music we created together on “Off The Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad” is played in every corner of the world and the reason for that is because he had it all…talent, grace, professionalism and dedication. He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I’ve lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him.”
We are living through the worst economic crisis in generations, with apocalyptic headlines threatening the end of capitalism as we know it, and yet in the middle of this chaos, the engineers at Twitter headquarters are scrambling to keep the servers up, application developers are releasing their latest builds, and ordinary users are figuring out all the ingenious ways to put these tools to use. There's a kind of resilience here that is worth savoring. The weather reports keep announcing that the sky is falling, but here we are — millions of us — sitting around trying to invent new ways to talk to one another.