Assignment 5 - Cecilie Jenssen

PLANKING

In 2011, a pro-rugby player named David “Wolfman” Williams lay face down on the ground after a try during the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles vs Newcastle Knights game, which caused the phenomenon “planking” to eventually gain strength. Nevertheless, the term can be traced all the way back to 1994, when a former MTV host and comedian named Tom Green claim to have done a pose that looks like planking in his Canadian local-access TV show. But the term wasn´t known before the New Zealander Paul Carran, reportedly coined the term in 2008. Carran created the term planking after he heard about the “Lying Down Game”, a similar game that friends were playing in the United Kingdom. The “Lying Down Game” began as a Facebook group in 2006, among a couple of friends in the UK. During the summer of 2010 the game got a lot of attention, and people from other countries started to participate, along with people within the UK. According to Google Interest, the interest in "planking" reached its peak in July 2011. 

After Carran introduced the game in 2008, the phenomenon evolved and people created Facebook pages and blogs that they dedicated to images of people “planking”. Within a week the official Facebook page gained as much as 130,000 fans. A couple of rules is created on the official Facebook page, in order to accomplish a successful “planking”. The most important ones is that you lay face down without showing off any facial expressions with your arms placed by your side and your legs straight.

I think this meme became popular because people could participate and post pictures of themselves “planking” different places. The fact that “planking” doesn´t require much skills, may also have affected it´s popularity, allowing everyone to participate. In addition, people might get an adrenalin rush when they find new and challenging places to accomplish a successful “planking”. While other people might see it as pure and simple entertainment to watch other people make a fool of themselves.

According to the dailymail, “unicorning” is the new “planking”. This is a new trend that may have emerged from “planking”, where people post photos of themselves wearing rubber unicorn masks in bizarre settings.