Wednesday, February 27, 2013

"Planking" Meme

Brandon Kraft



Planking began to become popular in 2007 when Gary Clarkson and friend Christian Langdon created a facebook page for their group game invented by them 14 years earlier. This was a peak time in the rise of the facebook epidemic so anything remotely interesting that arose during this time rapidly grew. It became popular because its hilarious first off, and also a worldwide competition over the internet came about (not officially) of topping someone else’s plank and creating your own image in a more extreme setting.

Planking is an activity consisting of lying face down —sometimes in an unusual or incongruous location. Both hands must touch the sides of the body.

Planking developed quite slowly as the two friends started doing it in grade school and did not hit the Internet and gain attention until 14 years later. When they advertised it over facebook in 2007 the response worldwide was immense.

Other known variations of planking are:
o   Teapotting: bending the arms into the shape of a teapot
o   Owling: a person squats "like an owl"
o   Horsemanning: 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
o   Batmanning: hanging upside down by your feet
o   Other ones which have been ‘related’ although not exactly similar are in American football such as Tebowing, Gronking and Kapernicking


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