Frame grab from the video PSY - GANGNAM STYLE
Will the viral craze of Gangnam Style finally go the way of planking now that a father of three has died while dancing to the song at a Christmas office party?
Eamonn Kilbride, 46, collapsed while performing a routine to the hit pop song by PSY in a brewery in Britain filled with colleagues. He died of acute heart failure caused by coronary artery atheroma, which is linked to vigorous exercise, a spokesman for the coroner's office told the Telegraph.
Gangnam Style has been viewed more than 947 million times on YouTube since it sprung into the world from South Korea this summer.
The pop song's trademark move is the "horse dance," spirited shuffling that resembles horseback riding. Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt cringingly boasted about dancing Gangnam Style, as did London mayor Boris Johnson, who coyly suggested he and British Prime Minister David Cameron once synced up their steps. Even Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei wasn't above the horse dance, trotting out freedom of expression, of course.
While viral trends that see people planking in ill-advised places are obviously more risky than horse-dancing at a bar, for the rest of us attempting the flurry of PSY this Christmas, a Newcastle University cardiologist had this advice: "The chance that you'll come to grief is very small. But as with any form of untypical exercise that you're not used to taking, be somewhat measured. Let the lady dance around you," Bernard Keavney told the Telegraph, adding that older men especially should not "stray outside [their] comfort zone" in terms of "violent exertion without due preparation" over the holidays.
Kilbride was also celebrating his wife Julie's birthday. She praised her "loving husband" of 23 years: "Eamonn was always the life of the party and loved dancing."
Zosia Bielski