Planking And Owling: An Idiot's Pastime

So you thought that people were tired of that internet fad called planking? Oh wait, you don’t know what planking means? That’s great—it means you are probably more productive than the rest of us and you’ve not had the opportunity to endure the torture inflicted on innocent web surfers by people who seem to have no jobs or real pastimes. Planking was probably invented by one lazy slob who imagined that the best way to have fun or get a work out was to suddenly drop facedown onto any surface like a sack of potatoes, and lay as perfectly straight and motionless as possible. And boy, the planking videos hit YouTube and went viral. I could have put some pictures or video clips in this post, but I am not going to, so that the owners of the pictures or video clips do not feel particularly insulted. You can do a simple YouTube or Google search to see what this insanity looks like.

Suddenly all over the place, perfectly normal and sensible people would for no reason collapse on whatever surface they could find, lay there like corpses for a while, and proudly post videos of this idiotic activity to YouTube. Please can anyone tell me why people who do this do not deserve to have people walk on their heads? Some go to ridiculous lengths planking between two objects. And even when some planking deaths were reported, it seemed like that was not enough to deter cretins from lying around like tubs of lard in random public spaces and feeling a profound sense of accomplishment. What—you think I am a hater? Well, go and plank on a train track then you moose-knuckle. I hope you accidentally plank over a well, trip and find yourself at the bottom of a deep, dark well. Ok, I am sorry; I don’t want some village to lose its idiot yet. But seriously, if you really want to plank, wait till you are in the safety of your bedroom, climb into your bed and plank like it’s no man’s business.

Who is the cackling maniac living in a dark, stinky basement that comes up with these silly fads anyway? I can understand if we are talking about some hilarious and crazy new dance step; I can understand if it is one new and entirely retarded hairstyle; I can understand if we are talking about some new physical fitness activity (I love parkour by the way). Instead we have remorseless wastes of human skin lying like boards or planks on random public structures and torturing us with their clips of this dim-witted activity. It is probably a good thing that I’ve not physically seen someone do this before. I think if some ninny suddenly did that right in front of me, I’ll treat his skull like a foot mat and walk on through. Oh yeah—you think the person would fight me? Well, I wouldn’t be worried about people whose wobbly knees give out so often that they find themselves collapsing like felled trees in public. You don’t believe me? Well, come and plank right here in front of me and see if your spine wouldn’t gain an acquaintance with my boots, you oaf!

Anyway, planking seems to be disappearing now. In its place, we have a new madness called owling. And yes, you guessed right—perfectly normal people would mount some structure adopting a crouching position that attempts to mimic an owl’s posture, video-record or photograph themselves doing so and bombard you with video clips or pictures of their ‘spectacular’ feats. And that too has gone viral. Madness has now found new expression in crazy stunts that quickly go viral. Who knows what next these jobless ‘geniuses’ will come up with?