A Parent Puzzles at 12 Planking Alternatives

Planking put people in prone positions for pictures in all sorts of places throughout 2011. From Facebook to phone texts, folks found friends face-down. As a parent, I have to ask, “What’s next?”

I’ve been around the proverbial block a few times, and planking isn’t the first fad to come and go. In fact, it’s not nearly the funniest or cleverest. Who remembers mooning, which later evolved into streaking? How about moving fire drills at stoplights, mailbox baseball, or car egging? And don’t forget toilet papering yards, or its not-so-distant crank cousin, tinseling.

Even photographic fads are fleeting. How many not-so candid cameras have captured friends forming hearts or tiny stars with their fingers?

Still, planking plunked persons in public view for portraits all year long. Soon several variations appeared, some more daredevil than others. Take a look at a dozen forms of planking. Maybe you know a few more as well.

1. Original planking

This one’s simple. Plankers lie down flat, faces in the dirt, with both hands pressed to their sides. Apparently, the goal is to plank in the most unusual spot ever.

2. Batmanning

Like bats, folks hang rigidly upside-down, with their toes tucked over fences or ledges. City statues are popular sites for batmanning.

3. Deading

Flopped limply over poles, walls, barrels or other barriers, pranksters play dead.

4. Gravestoning

This fad is downright dangerous, as participants plunge themselves into water from cliffs or other high places, landing stick straight like tombstones.

5. Headless horsemanning

It takes two to play this prank, which creates a photo, taken from an angle that makes one appear headless and the other just the head. This one’s based on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” by Washington Irving.

Of course, photo editing makes this gimmick easy to accomplish after shots are taken.

6. Koalaing (or Teddy Bearing)

Like the cute, cuddly bears, photo models wrap themselves around poles or tree trunks and grin.

7. Leisure diving

Using a fast shutter speed setting, a photographer captures the prankster in a seemingly relaxed lounge position, although the person is actually falling through the air, hopefully into a swimming pool or onto a trampoline.

8. Owling

Creepy, but creative, owlers perch on counters, furniture, car roofs or other elevated spots, usually holding their hands out as birdlike talons. Flamingoing takes a slightly different position, but you get the idea.

9. Plumbking

Who remembers the swirly? Plumbking is a basically a self-induced swirly, for the sake of silly photography. What right-minded person would actually stick his own head in a toilet bowl?

10. Teapotting

Like the preschool song, “I’m a Little Teapot,” this fad poses people with one hand on a hip and the other bent out to resemble just that.

11. Tebowing

Denver Broncos star Tim Tebow, popularly tagged “God’s Quarterback,” is known to kneel and pray after a big play. Tebowing mimics this move for photos in unusual places.

12. Toothpicking

Pity the guy on the bottom in toothpicking, as he must remain in planking position, while another stands rigidly on his own head atop the first guy’s spine.

Small-town teenagers and big-city celebrities have posted images of themselves in these crazy positions and more on social networking sites. Online video sharing sites offer freakish footage. Gag photos and daredevil shots have showed up in city newspapers and on television news.

What won’t people do for attention?

Pranks continue to develop. We’ve already seen ice cream coning, when drive-through customers grab their frozen dairy desserts by the tops to make mushy messes. That’s just slightly less rude than the soda toss, which you can imagine.

With winter snowfall, the web now sports a new photographic prank, as folks construct giant obscene forms and pose with them. (You get the picture.)

So what’s next for plankers and other pranksters? Responsible adults are almost afraid to ask.

More from this contributor:

Humor Theory: A Trio of Ticklers

Parents of Preteens: Unbelievably Uncool

Teens: How to Tell Your Parents You Crashed the Family Car


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