It's a new craze now.  It's like you lay on something face down and straighten your body out. It's so ridiculous, many celebrities are even doing it and posting pictures. Don't these idiots even google "slave planking". Planking = slave owners stacked slaves on plank beds face down, hands chained to their waist.  Like what's the point of it? Do you think it's going to become a more huge fad? What has happened to our society?  >:(

When I saw this thread I thought you were talking about cooking fish and steaks on cedar or cherry planks.

lol


When I saw this thread I thought you were talking about cooking fish and steaks on cedar or cherry planks.

Is this something that pirates do? ???

Is this something that pirates do? ???

This
http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-blog/blogs/planking.jpg

How started all this?

It's a new craze now.  It's like you lay on something face down and straighten your body out. It's so ridiculous, many celebrities are even doing it and posting pictures. Don't these idiots even google "slave planking".


Just a coincidence.  It actually has nothing to do with slavery; the "lying down game" started off as just a way to throw a little surrealism into daily life back in the late 90s in the UK.  It took a while to get started, but finally went viral on Failbook in 2007.  Combine the internet with surrealism, add a dash of flash mobs (as in the pre-2011 dot-com culture definition "prearranged public displays of guerilla/improv theater", not the more recent definition of "random beatdowns on innocent passers-by") and you get something like this:

F-9ifHQrQGg

By the time it hit Australia, it had become "planking", and attracted mainstream media attention in May 2011 when Acton Beale failed epically while planking on a 7th-floor balcony.  A true tardegy.  On the other hand, faceplanting onto asphalt from 7 stories up, if they buried him face-down in the coffin, he's got the rest of eternity to set the record for longest-duration plank evar!

Go_rvHgQ6tw

So as the mainstream media scratched its collective head and mourned the tardegy, Aussie PM Julia Gillard trolled the nation by going almost "full Helen Lovejoy" on national TV.  Countertrolling was New Zealand's PM John Key, who was photographed while his son planked in an awesome display of one-upmanship.

And if it wasn't viral enough by then, it was by the end of that week.

By the time it hit Australia, it had become "planking", and attracted mainstream media attention in May 2011 when Acton Beale failed epically while planking on a 7th-floor balcony.  A true tardegy.  On the other hand, faceplanting onto asphalt from 7 stories up, if they buried him face-down in the coffin, he's got the rest of eternity to set the record for longest-duration plank evar!

Well, that one's still front page on the Darwin Awards website

Well, that one's still front page on the Darwin Awards website


Yes...I'm soooo proud he was a Queenslander too!  :-[    But, this does highlight how easily things can go awry. This guy had a lot of alcohol in his system at the time....

This guy had a lot of alcohol in his system at the time....

I wonder what proportion of the Darwin Awards website involve excess alcohol..

I wonder what proportion of the Darwin Awards website involve excess alcohol..


Quick, dirty, and accurate.  (Offhand, I'd wager 20-30%)

http://i.imgur.com/tdnry.jpg

Look at it this way - if it weren't for people saying "Hold my beer and watch this", how would the rest of us know what not to do?

Quick, dirty, and accurate.  (Offhand, I'd wager 20-30%)

http://i.imgur.com/tdnry.jpg

Look at it this way - if it weren't for people saying "Hold my beer and watch this", how would the rest of us know what not to do?


Hey ... a true idiot wouldn't part with his beer!!!

This
http://www.adweek.com/files/imagecache/node-blog/blogs/planking.jpg


It's a person laying vertical on a chair. ::)

It's a person laying vertical on a chair. ::)


Wow Howard...your powers of observation are off the chart!  ;) ;D  It's probably a stupid tv person... and the chair didn't come with instructions!  ::)

Wow Howard...your powers of observation are off the chart!


Careful, if he looks very closely at the content of the thread, he might discover that a person, when laying face-down and stiff as a board, resembles a solid piece of wood, a unit of structural timber...

(Fortunately, we won't have to worry about that.)

Careful, if he looks very closely at the content of the thread, he might discover that a person, when laying face-down and stiff as a board, resembles a solid piece of wood, a unit of structural timber...

(Fortunately, we won't have to worry about that.)
Has she fallen off the chair yet?

Wow Howard...your powers of observation are off the chart!  ;) ;D  It's probably a stupid tv person... and the chair didn't come with instructions!  ::)


anybody can do that. (unless you're skinny)

Has she fallen off the chair yet?


you got to be very careful not to.

Planking is so Spring 2011.  It's summer already, right?

http://i.imgur.com/8yW2x.jpg

Even the mainstream media thinks it's time to move on to Owling.

Planking is so Spring 2011.  It's summer already, right?

http://i.imgur.com/8yW2x.jpg

Even the mainstream media thinks it's time to move on to Owling.


Whoooo....whooo thinks so?

Planking is so Spring 2011.  It's summer already, right?

http://i.imgur.com/8yW2x.jpg

Even the mainstream media thinks it's time to move on to Owling.
Is Harry Potter the blame for this?

Can I be honest?  I don't want it to ruin my reputation as a dude, but this is the first time I've heard the term "planking."
:-[

Planking is so Spring 2011.  It's summer already, right?

http://i.imgur.com/8yW2x.jpg

Even the mainstream media thinks it's time to move on to Owling.


Whoo? :D