Planking is a global mass participation game that has become a social media phenomenon. Planking is a behavior where a person lay down on their belly with their face down and their hands along their body. This is usually done in public places where the person gets into planking position while somebody take their picture and upload it on social media channels.
Planking is actually a variation of an earlier meme called “The laying down game” that originated in the UK in 2006. In Australia it is called planking and started to get attention in early 2011 before it spread to most of the world with Facebook as a channel. It first got attention through radio stations in Australia that arranged planking competitions. It really took off in March 2011 when David Wolfman Williams, an Australian rugby player, planked during a game. After this planking evolved and people started to compete to find the most unusual and original location to plank, and the phenomenon got a lot of attention in the Australian media. After a 28 old man from Brisbane attempted a planking stunt on his balcony and fell to his death in May 2011, planking got attention in media worldwide and made the meme even more popular. In the picture above, you can see an example of how the danger element has become important. I think this is something that has become popular because of all the attention in the media. We live in a globalized world and things spread worldwide in a fast tempo. The news about the Australian man who felt into his death after a planking attempt spread information about the meme to the world. Facebook is a social media channel which is available for most people and pictures of people planking are in free flow all over the world. Planking is also something everybody can do; you don’t need much computer-knowledge or advanced equipment, just a camera and the internet. It is a funny, absurd and maybe a bit silly thing do and people challenge themselves and others to post the best pictures of planking. It is easy entertainment. Numbers from Google insights for search shows that planking was most popular in May 2011 and stayed popular throughout the summer, since then the interest has fallen, but still pictures of people planking is being uploaded from time to time.
Other memes that have been influenced by this is so called Teapotting and Owling, where you upload pictures where you try to look like a teapot or sits in different places like an owl. A Norwegian politician has also made a Facebook group to protest against planking, this is called “Fosterstilling i trygge omgivelser” which means Fetal position in safe surroundings. Here pictures of people crawling up like a fetal lying in safe surroundings are uploaded. This group is made to prevent the dangerous elements of planking. None of these memes has gotten as much attention as planking. On Youtube you can find several movies of people planking and there has also been made different planking songs. You can see one of them here:
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