Planking (fad)

Planking (or the Lying Down Game) is an activity consisting of lying face down in an unusual or incongruous location. Both hands must touch the sides of the body and having a photograph of the participant taken and posted on the Internet is an integral part of the game.^[1] Players compete to find the most unusual and original location in which to play.^[1] The term planking refers to mimicking a wooden plank. Rigidity of the body must be maintained to constitute good planking.

Since early 2011, many participants in planking have photographed the activity on unusual locations such as atop poles, roofs and vehicles. Planking can include lying flat on a flat surface, or holding the body flat while it's supported in only some regions, with other parts of the body suspended.

Contents 1 History and origination 2 Notable incidents 3 Other variations 3.1 Teapotting 3.2 Owling 3.3 Horsemaning 3.4 Batmanning 3.5 Tebowing 3.6 Plumbking 4 Gallery 5 References 6 External links

History and origination

Comedian Tom Green claims to have invented "planking" as early as 1994.^[2] Gary Clarkson and Christian Langdon claim to have invented planking in 2000,^[3] first becoming popular in North East England.^[4]

The lying down game spread to the rest of the world, where it has also been known as "시체놀이" ("playing dead") (2003, South Korea),^[5][6] "à plat ventre" ("On one’s belly", France 2004),^[7] "extreme lying down" (2008, Australasia), "facedowns" (2010, USA and Ireland),^[8][9] and "planking" (2011, Australia & New Zealand and worldwide).^[10]

Critics of the lying down game compare the game with the slave trade-era practice and manner of stowing African slaves upon the planks of a slave ship's lower hold, as illustrated in the Brookes abolitionist poster imagery,^[11] although University of Pittsburgh professor Marcus Rediker states there is no "deliberate connection" between the contemporary usage and any previous meaning imputed to the term.^[12]

Notable incidents

• The game made news in September 2009, when seven doctors and nurses working at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, England were suspended for playing the lying down game while on duty.^[13][14][15]

• On 13 May 2011, a 20-year-old man from Gladstone in central Queensland was charged for allegedly planking on a police vehicle.^[16]

• On 15 May 2011, Acton Beale, a 20-year-old man, plunged to his death after reportedly "planking" on a seventh-floor balcony in Brisbane, Australia.^[17]

• On 29 May 2011, Max Key, son of New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, uploaded to Facebook a photograph of himself planking on a lounge suite, his father standing behind him. After the photograph was reproduced on the front page of the New Zealand Herald two days later, the Prime Minister's office initially declined comment.^[18] But later that day, confirming that the photograph was indeed genuine, Mr. Key remarked that he doesn't see anything wrong with planking when done safely and that it was he who had actually introduced Max to planking in the first place, having seen a video of the phenomenon on YouTube.^[19] Key was criticized for his appearance in the photograph with some going as far as to comment that he "killed" the meme.^[20]

• On 2 September 2011, Dwight Howard and about 100 of his fans planked in Beijing, China.^[21][22]

Other variations

Teapotting

Teapotting is one of the many variations of planking that arose shortly after planking went viral. Teapotting consists of bending the arms into the shape of a teapot, in reference to the children's song "I'm a Little Teapot". This variation was created by teachers in Mortlake College in an attempt to create a new 'craze' after noticing the amount of attention planking received.^[23]

Owling

Owling is a variation on planking in which a person squats "like an owl".^[24] It was first documented on 11 July 2011 in a post on the social news website reddit.^[24][25]

Horsemaning

Horsemaning involves posing two people so that they appear to be a single body with a detached head and is a revival of a photography fad popular in the 1920s.^[26] It is thought that the name comes from the Headless Horseman in Washington Irving's short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.^[27]

Batmanning

Batmanning involves hanging upside down by your feet.^[28]

Tebowing

Tebowing is a planking-like phenomenon that began to spread in October 2011. It is an act of mimicking the propensity of NFL quarterback Tim Tebow by getting down on one knee, resting head in arm and praying, especially praying in a setting whereby everyone else around is preoccupied with doing something totally unrelated.^{[29][30][31][32][33][34][35]}

Plumbking

A rather recent variation of Batmanning that primarily consists of a person performing a headstand headfirst into a toilet bowl. (The persons head is usually seen in the water of the toilet) before they assume the standard hands-to-sides rigid planking position; though there are other variations. (Such as placing one's feet to the wall instead) Most rely on pushing their feet against the ceiling or wall to support their positions. This may have been inspired by a common prank known as a "Swirlie;" in which one's head is dunked upside-down headfirst into a toilet bowl before it is flushed.^[36]

Gallery

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Planking or Owling

• Daily Mail article showing several examples
• Planks, But No Planks: The Fatal Idiocy of “Planking”, by Jim Goad at Taki's Magazine, 2011
• Web Urbanist article with some examples