LOS ANGELES — From YouTube to Flickr, from Facebook to Twitter, images and sentiments from celebrations across the nation flooded into the Internet's media-sharing sites, just moments after Barack Obama clinched the presidential election.

Some were simple photos of TV screens claiming the Democrat's win. Others were unfiltered images of jubilant celebrations captured immediately after polls closed Tuesday on the West Coast, when Obama was declared the president-elect.

And while crowds gathered at public rallies and millions of others simply glued themselves to television news coverage, many spent election night online — and they had plenty of company. Students at Navarro College posted a video of themselves reacting — screaming, jumping up and down, more screaming — to Obama's win. Another YouTuber uploaded his toast to Obama: He gulped a 2-liter bottle of soda.

Others used the moment to joke. One wig-clad man posted a YouTube video reminiscent of Chris Crocker's infamous Britney Spears rant, instead shouting "Leave McCain alone!" in front of a sheet. Some shared impromptu songs about the election's outcome. One man at a piano sang: "You all wanted change/And that's what you're gonna get/But the change that you will see/You will most likely regret."

Elsewhere, dozens of Obama supporters clapped, danced and cheered inside the behemoth virtual world Second Life immediately after the Democratic nominee seized the electoral votes. Many avatars were left out of the virtual celebration in Obama's unofficial Second Life headquarters because the digital enclave had reached maximum capacity Tuesday.

"The long nightmare is OVER!" an avatar named Jordanna Beaumont exclaimed.

The Straight Talk Cafe, a Second Life space supporting John McCain, was nearly a ghost town after McCain conceded the race. Volunteers for both campaigns had unofficially stumped for months inside the virtual world for the presidential and vice presidential candidates — collecting donations, registering voters, building monuments and handing out virtual hats and T-shirts.

Throughout the election, the nonpartisan site TwitterVoteReport.com aggregated micro-blog Twitter.com posts — called tweets — to monitor polling places and estimate voting wait times across the country. Into the evening, many people tweeted 140-characters-or-less dispatches from rallies, election parties and their living rooms using their cell phones and the Web.