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 Middletown Journal and Hamilton JournalNews broke the story around 11:45 p.m. Monday. As of 6:15 p.m. Tuesday, that story had 74,385 page views and a companion photo gallery had 149,801 views at middletownjournal.com, while the story had 15,258 page views and the photo gallery had 73,299 views

at journal-news.com. Later Tuesday, 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.”

By the end of the day, 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.