Planking (Zelin Xu)

Sociology 167: Assignment #2 – Know Your Memes

Planking was invented by two friends in Somerset, Gary Clarkson and Christian Langdon, in 2000 and called it the Lying Down Game. It emerged later in Australia and was nicknamed planking. Clarkson and Langdon started to lie down in public places in Taunton in order to be photographed. Then in 2007, a friend, Daniel Hoppin, took this phenomenon online. He said ‘They’d started lying down in bars and clubs to try to spin people out. So we began a Facebook group to see who could get the craziest photo’.

                The British also fell into this craze in July 2009, and in September 2009, A&E staff at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon were suspended for ‘lying down’ while on duty. The term ‘Planking’ was then introduced by Sam Weckert and two other friends in the summer of 2008 or 2009. It finally blew up when local radio stations got hold of it and ran competitions.

                It also became extremely famous and controversial in 2011 when a man from Australia, in his 20’s, died after taking part in planking. He fell from a balcony railing in Brisbane while a friend photographed him. There have also been many instances of celebrities partaking in this game.

                I think planking became popular simply because of the simplicity of the activity as well as the bizarre, strange reaction that it would create. Why lie down? Like Hoppin said, ‘Because it’s utterly ridiculous’, ‘if you go on holiday, you take a photo of yourself in front of the Eiffel Tower or the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We thought it would be hilarious if you’re not interested and lying down instead.’ With planking so simple and radio stations holding competitions, a lot of hype is created for people to go out and try to plank at the craziest location they reach. It became a social activity for people to go out and compete with their friends to see can be the craziest.

                To clarify, what is planking? Planking, or the Lying Down Game, is an activity consisting of lying face down with your hand touching the sides of the body – sometimes in unusual or incongruous locations. Some people compete to see who can find the most unusual or craziest locations to play. It can include lying flat on a flat surface, or holding the body flat while it is supported in only some regions, and suspended in other parts.

             
Planking was only popular for a short period of time. It became very popular and widespread in Australia in March 2011 when pro-rugby player David ‘Wolfman’ Williams planked after a try during a game. Search interest, based on Google Insights, experienced a small peak in May due to the death incident, and finally reaching a history high in July 2011. Until the beginning of 2012, popularity plummeted and since then is now barely searched for.

                Since planking appeared, many other activities have erupted based on the influence of planking. These activities include ‘Teapotting’, which consists of a person bending their arms in the shape of a teapot, ‘Owling’, where a person squats ‘like and owl’, ‘Horsemanning’, when two people pose so that it appears as if there is a single body with a detached head, and many more such as ‘Batmanning’, and Football-related ones such as ‘Tebowing’, ‘Gronking’, ‘Bradying’, and ‘Griffining’.