Who gets this bored?

published August 11, 2011

in the Stockton Sentinel

Stockton, Kansas

            Have you seen some of the bizarre internet crazes popping up lately on Facebook or YouTube? I first saw this stuff mentioned on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and then “The Talk” on CBS. It’s just plain nuts. The trend is a development of crazy poses, which you and your friends might engage in, taking pictures of each other and then posting your pictures on the Internet’s social networking sites. Extra kudos are apparently earned for those who try to think of the most unusual – even dangerous – situations.

One of the first crazes was called “coning.” It involved ordering an ice cream cone from a drive-thru establishment, and having another person in the car with you take video footage of you as you drive up to the window, receive your ice cream cone, but immediately turn it upside-down and start eating the bottom of the cone. The best part of the picture, obviously, is the look on the face of the server in the window. But what a waste of a perfectly good ice cream cone!

Then there came “planking,” where you lay face down, stiffened body, arms straight at your sides, on or between the most unusual objects or places you can possibly think of. Don’t bother trying this now – you’d be so old news! The craze known as planking came to a screeching halt when a man in Australia died while attempting to plank himself on a narrow railing of a seventh-story balcony. He got his picture taken, that’s for sure, but not the way he intended.

After someone died doing it, planking just wasn’t fun anymore and quickly became a thing of the past, replaced just as quickly with a craze labeled “owling.” In these pictures, you get yourself or your friends squatting in a crouched position, arms down at your sides, and staring blankly off into the distance – like an owl. I was tempted to demonstrate this, perched on one of our display racks here in the store and have my picture taken for the Sentinel, but back trouble last week kept me firmly grounded.

Since nothing stays around for very long on the Internet, owling was then booted out of popularity by “leisure diving.” Now this one makes a lot more sense to me, especially since we have had such a hot summer. To score as a leisure diver, you simply strike a pose mid-air as you “dive” into the swimming pool, making sure a friend with the camera is quick on the button to capture the image before you hit the water. Some hilarious poses can be found, such as the appearance of leisurely reading the paper or a magazine, or drinking a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.

If you’re remotely intrigued and want to see some of the actual stuff posted, just search for any of these terms on YouTube.com:  planking, owling, or leisure diving.           

On second thought, if you’re this bored with life, make plans now to spend some time at the Rooks County Free Fair next week. There will be plenty of entertainment and photo ops. Perhaps you’ll even take pictures of your friends or family (or get caught yourself) doing crazy stunts that rate a YouTube or Facebook appearance! Let’s call it “county fairing” – and have a great time!