Planking: A Reaction Against the Unimaginative

Samuel Ellis
Pi Kappa Alpha

I tripped over someone today.  But it wasn’t just an innocent bump on Pedestrian Walkway; I actually tripped over a person. It looked like I hurt the kid, too, which could likely be attributed to the first day of steel-toed boot season. Ordinarily I’d accept blame, but at the time of the incident, the infuriatingly blithe humanities-amphitheater-dweller in question was face-down in the grass, prone position, neither moving nor making any indication of his presence.

If you’re confused, you clearly aren’t aware of the latest in a series of pointless, slaphappy social trends. Consider yourself lucky.

It’s called planking. And I think I speak for the educated among us when I say it’s utterly ridiculous. According to Wikipedia, planking is “an activity consisting of lying face-down in an unusual or incongruous location.” Though first introduced nearly a decade ago, the fad began to truly flourish earlier this year when the Australian and New Zealand indigenous coined the term. Since then, the practice has cropped up like a persistent venereal disease in nearly every civilized region of the world.

It’s a plague, sure enough, but the real atrocity is the embarrassing precedent planking sets for the quality of future trends. When I see people lying down and calling it fashionable, I can’t help but ask: do we no longer have any standards for what’s to one day mark our generation in the gamut of pop culture history? What’s next? Backwards walking? High-fiving, but with like, four fingers or something? I shudder to think what our next vogue contemporary will think up.

Fortunately, fads are short-lived. Pet rocks, MySpace, flagpole-sitting, crocs, marriage… over time, each one of these fashion statements had its moment as “the next best thing” before being laid to rest. I think it’s safe to say that, even if the lukewarmest of heads prevail, planking should become obsolete in just as timely a manner.

But in the meantime, plank away. I won’t say a word. Not to you or the driver of the SUV about to accidentally pancake your planking ass. Just realize that, like your bell-bottom wearing parents who clearly misused their birth control, you’ll be retrospectively thought a tasteless fool soon enough. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll realize your indiscretion even sooner, so neither you nor Johnny Hipster is ever subject to a steel toe again.

Or do I owe him an apology?

Samuel is a senior studying ____. You may contact him at sellis11@utk.edu.