By Marte Groenstad
 |
| Justin Bieber and random guy Planking |
 |
| Planking |
 |
| Planking on a tiger |
Planking is
a well-known activity where you lay faced down with bought hands along your
side and straight legs looking like a wooden plank. Some of the fun is to find the most unusual or
weird places to “plank” photograph and share it through social media. You may lie
down on a flat surface, or you can hold up your body by supporting yourself
through different items.
Tom Green
is the person who claims to be the inventor of this trend in 1994 by using a
hidden camera. His prank was not shown on his “MTV prank show” though, but
later in 2011, when planking became a worldwide trend, he posted the video from
him self planking in 1994.
“The lying
down game” first became popular in North East England, and then spread to the
rest of the world. In South Korea they call it “The playing dead game”, in
France it is called “On one`s belly” and the same game is also called “extreme
lying down” and “facedowns” in different places of the world. But from 2011 it
is mostly known as “planking” everywhere. There is also a lot of other memes
like “owling” or “tebowing” that is influences by planking. When you are doing
an “owling” you sit like an owl on different places and post it online, much
like planking. The same principles is used in “tebowning” but the position is
again different, you kneel down on one knee making this special look:
 |
| Tebowing meets Planking |
 |
| Tebowing |
 |
| Owling |
Even though
the first “planking event” claimed to be in 1994, it did not become an Internet
phenomenon until around early 2011. Different articles, photos and videos where
spreading around on Internet sides like facebook, youtube and so on. It was
even created own planking sites like: http://iplanking.com/ It became enormously popular on
every different continent in the world. “Everybody” was doing the planking, and
posting it online.
I think this
became so popular because it is really simple humor. You can plank almost
everywhere, and the creativity we see in some of the photos is huge. People
always try to spice up the simple humor you find by randomly lying down, and it
is funny! Everybody can plank, and it is
commonly funny so it creates a collective prank among people all over the
world.
Sources:
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar