News of fire at church spread quickly through social media

This photo was taken by Tiffani West-May, of Fairborn, who was on her way home from Cincinnati on Monday June 14, 2010. The photo was shot at 11:20 p.m. The large Jesus statue, iconic to I-75, was destroyed following an apparent lightning strike during a thunderstorm late Monday night.

Contributed photo Tiffani West-May This photo was taken by Tiffani West-May, of Fairborn, who was on her way home from Cincinnati on Monday June 14, 2010. The photo was shot at 11:20 p.m. The large Jesus statue, iconic to I-75, was destroyed following an apparent lightning strike during a thunderstorm late Monday night.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Is your “unlimited” data being throttled?
2:32 p.m.
Kasich wants 100 gigabits per second state network, smarter smartphones
2:07 p.m.
Cracker Barrel manager accused of embezzling $2K
Updated 4 min. ago
Benefit dinner held for girl who died in car accident
2:00 p.m.
Wright-Patterson relatively unscathed in Obama defense budget
1:46 p.m.
> More headlines

By Jim DeBrosse, Staff Writer Updated 1:11 AM Wednesday, June 16, 2010

MONROE — The story was custom-made for the instant and instantly forgettable news so popular on today’s social networking sites — weird pop icon meets untimely and ironic end.

It was no surprise then that by 8 a.m. Tuesday, June 15, the demise by lightning of the six-story-high “King of Kings” statue along Interstate 75 in Monroe (aka “Touchdown Jesus” and “Butter Jesus”) was the top search topic on Google, with a hotness rating of “On Fire.”

The news also lifted the Dayton Daily News, which broke the story just before midnight Monday, to the No. 8 spot on the popular search engine Tuesday morning. Later that day, The Associated Press, BBC News, Time and USA Today posted their own online versions of the story.

Thousands of Facebook and Twitter fans around the world posted comments on the news — some regretful, but many humorous or even scornful.

“Seriously, you build a giant statue of Jesus, then God strikes it w/ lightning and destroys it. Aren’t you clearly doing something wrong?” wrote ToplessRobot on his Twitter page. But Giovanni Calabrese of New Jersey, who tweets about his theme-park design firm “Krazie-golf,” wrote, “We would gladly rebuild it.”

Within hours, a memorial page appeared on Facebook under the heading, “RIP Touchdown Jesus 2004-2010,” with 17,843 people who said they “like this.”

Since it was built in 2004 by Solid Rock Church, the giant Styrofoam and fiberglass statue has developed a worldwide Internet following, generated a half-dozen websites and even a popular Internet novelty tune, “Big Butter Jesus,” by comedian Heywood Banks. Zazzle.com offers a coffee mug emblazoned with an image of the statue along with the inscription, “Oh Spread the Word.”

The statue has been on RoadsideAmerica.com and has its own subject heading in Wikipedia — “King of Kings” (statue) — that was almost immediately updated with news of its destruction.

Share this article