Planking: A Real-Life Meme

Planking is the latest/greatest random fad to sweep the world. Though it possesses a few similarities to the actually worthwhile and semi-strenuous exercise the plank, once you cover the name and the general position you realize that one is an exercise and the other is how the guys on Jackass would try to exercise if they weren't busy making Jackass. Planking is what would happen if exercises could develop fetal alcohol syndrome. If planking was a species of animal, it would be hunted to the point of extinction in a matter of days. It's that stupid. Also, people die from it. Yet it has gained Brobdingnagian popularity across the globe quicker than you could say "Why the hell do people do this!?"



In case you really wanted to join the fad -- although I'm gonna assume that some of you bros/easily amused people out there have heard about this already -- this page on the self-titled "Official Home of Planking" will tell you all you need to know. I'll sum it up here for those of you too lazy to click on that link ('cause if I were reading this I wouldn't have clicked the link either, don't worry): you lie face down, limbs straight, legs together, arms at your side...and that's it. No special clothing requirements, no key phrase needs be shouted, no nothing. Simply have someone take a picture of you and make sure it gets on the internet. Ta da. Example of both planking and stupidity. That is literally the entire fucking thing. Granted, you're supposed to plank in "exciting places that you wouldn't expect people to plank in," like on top of an alligator, or in the road during the London riots, or (fill in stupid and potentially life-threatening place to lie down); however, for those of us who don't expect anyone to plank anywhere, the point becomes moot. "Oh look how cool I am, I'm lying on my stomach on top of a shed, this is hilarious!"

"Oh look how cool I am, I'm lying on my stomach on top of a cop car, this is hilarious!"

It's not that hilarious after the four hundredth image. By four hundred and two, I had lost all traces of serotonin in my brain and was steadily on my way to becoming a dual crack/whiskey addict.

Not funny. 

Still not funny. 

This is just weird.

A quick little sidebar about the mental state of the planking community: for some strange, most likely drug-related reason, those who plank -- plankers? plankees? the planked? -- find it necessary to follow in the steps of Papa Smurf and replace random words in planking-related posts with "plank." The Smurfs can be excused for their behavior (it was the eighties, they were created by a Frenchman, they're little Smurfing blue people). Planking has no alibi for this. It's just lazy, and not creative or comical at all.

Now, I understand that in some weird, backwards way, this concept is highly entertaining. I can vaguely see that. And even I, though somewhat begrudgingly, can concede that it has attained meme status, both on the interwebs and within actual human communities, like stuff that isn't on the computer and stuff. However, the popularity, the massively explosive spread, the unnecessary space-wasting and live-clogging...what is the point? Of course, that can be asked of every meme, I realize that, but what the vast majority of other memes have going for them is that they get changed alll the time. ALLL the time. That's where new memes come from; people tweaking and playing around with and performing various other actions that can sound sexual in the wrong context upon memes until they get something similar yet different, than someone doing the same to that, and so on and so forth. Planking, however, is always the same. Sure, the location differs (though not always --there are only so many plankable places in the world), but the act, the planking, the meme-y part, never changes. Which makes it, at least in my eyes, a stagnant and boring meme, for those of you who hadn't understood my position on this matter yet.

For all we know, he could just be dead.

In some ways, planking is like the song "Mary Had a Little Lamb": nobody can agree on where either originated; despite their lack of novelty, both are still very popular; and, most importantly, they both get annoying really fucking quickly. I mean, think about it. How many pictures of people lying in places can you look at before you throw your hands up in boredom/disgustedness/pure hatred for mankind? On second thought, THAT would be a meme I approve of. It'd be almost like rickrolling, except instead of seeing how quickly someone can exit out of the link, it'd be a test of strength and endurance (possible use as a rite of manhood?) to see how many plankings you can stand to view before you self-exile yourself from human civilization. I'll give fifteen, tops, before you understand why wolves will eventually conquer the earth. If anyone needs me, I'll be cursing the gods for plaguing us with this...plague, I guess (can you really plague someone with anything besides a plague?), of planking. Plank you.