Sing Your Dialect: Declan Rice, Nigel Farage and Aston Villa join virtual karaoke night

Why did the likes of England footballer Declan Rice, ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage and the Somali Embassy in Turkey join tens of thousands of people in a virtual karaoke night?

It may sound like a fever dream, but on Monday night a reported 50,000 people from around the world joined a Twitter Space late to share their singing talents.

The Space function on Twitter allows individuals to host live audio conversations, and a user named @jacobbmc2 from Manchester used it to inadvertently take over the social media platform.

Still trending at number one on Tuesday morning, the Sing Your Dialect Space saw @jacobmc2 randomly selecting users to belt out tunes from Sean Paul's Temperature to the British national anthem.

As the space scaled the trending list and drew in more and more users, verified celebrity accounts plugged into the phenomenon.

When @jacobmc2 tweeted that his Twitter app had crashed due to the scale of Sing Your Dialect, and that he would host the Space again on Tuesday night, Declan Rice tweeted: "Gives me time to think of a song".

Nigel Farage was also listening in, as was presenter Rylan. "I don’t know what this is but I'm living for it," the latter wrote.

Big brand names, like JD, Aston Villa and Dominoes were also involved.

"Nearly 50,000 people around the world were tuned in to hear John from Scunthorpe singing Backstreet Boys," betting company Paddy Power quipped.

After the fun ended at around 11.30pm, @jacobmc2 tweeted that the success of Sing Your Dialect had "overwhelmed" him and that it would be back on Tuesday night, "better than ever".

"We might have some special guests as judges!" he added.