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You did it for fun, and now you may have dissed the ancestors.
California rapper Xzibit made headlines recently after tweeting that the planking trend that’s sweeping the country is racist and refers to the way African slaves were once transported on large ships. “Planking is THE dumbest s**t ever…it’s not funny,” he added.
However, Public Enemy front man and activist Chuck D also took to Twitter to refute the notion, stating that the term “planking” and the trend are not derived from slavery days. “[It’s a] stupid rumor. Slaves were valuable cargo. Even the wicked wanted survival across the sea. Packing face down = instant death,” Chuck D said.
There have been a plethora of tweets, blog posts, and news articles relating planking back to the American slave trade. According to the article “What the Plank is Going On?” by The Buckingham Post, planking is rooted in the way slaves were positioned on planks in mass numbers in the hulls of ships as they were transported from Africa to the Caribbean and America.
Still, to show just how innocent he feels planking is, Chuck D and his Public Enemy mate Flavor Flav planked at the recent Splash Festival in Germany (seen above). The “innocent” side of planking, as defined by Wikipedia, is the practice of lying down flat, with arms to the side, as if to mimic a wooden plank.
According to various Internet sources, planking has been around for years and is simply known as “playing dead” and “facedowns” in other parts of the world. It started off as the “lying down game” in 1997 when it was created by two young men in North East England. Then, a young man in Australia gave it the name “planking” when the prank caught on there in 2008.
When you look at historical pictures of how slaves were laid in rows in the bottom of ships, however, it’s easy to see why some connect planking to slavery. Only those who created the planking craze may truly know what the origin and motivation behind the game really is.
So, does it pay to jump on a trend with such a foggy history?
These days, the viral nature of news and phenomena like planking can be misleading and full of misinformation. Still, there’s no mistaking how quickly people grasp web trends and create global news stories overnight – just think of the “flash mobs” movement that caught on in recent years.
Planking can also be dangerously dumb these days. There have been reported deaths worldwide from planking stunts – in May 2011, WorldNews.com issued a warning in New Zealand after a young man fell several stories while planking on a narrow balcony railing.
Even with all of the controversy and danger, planking has still spread like a bad rash in the past few weeks among American celebrities and regular people. It may because planking is silly and daring, and makes for great Twitter and Facebook photos opps with our real time technology.
Lil Wayne, basketball player Dwight Howard, and countless others have posted photos of themselves in random, funny planking scenarios. There’s even a Planking Society in New Jersey (with a warning on its Facebook page that it takes no responsibility for planking-related injuries or deaths). In this voyeuristic era, people are looking for anything to gain their 15 minutes of fame and be known for the illest pranks and nowadays, planks.
The question then becomes “to plank or not to plank?” In the quest for entertainment, people may or may not be unknowingly conjuring up bad images from history, or worse – killing themselves.
The constant planking buzz is quieting down in social media these days, as new information, rumors, and images take its place. The lightning fast speed of communication via phones, computers, and TVs gives trends like planking a short shelf life, and people are “on to the next one.”
Hopefully, the next trend will go easy on the ancestors, no one will die, and we can just let fun be fun.
Plank on?
California rapper Xzibit made headlines recently after tweeting that the planking trend that’s sweeping the country is racist and refers to the way African slaves were once transported on large ships. “Planking is THE dumbest s**t ever…it’s not funny,” he added.
However, Public Enemy front man and activist Chuck D also took to Twitter to refute the notion, stating that the term “planking” and the trend are not derived from slavery days. “[It’s a] stupid rumor. Slaves were valuable cargo. Even the wicked wanted survival across the sea. Packing face down = instant death,” Chuck D said.
There have been a plethora of tweets, blog posts, and news articles relating planking back to the American slave trade. According to the article “What the Plank is Going On?” by The Buckingham Post, planking is rooted in the way slaves were positioned on planks in mass numbers in the hulls of ships as they were transported from Africa to the Caribbean and America.
Still, to show just how innocent he feels planking is, Chuck D and his Public Enemy mate Flavor Flav planked at the recent Splash Festival in Germany (seen above). The “innocent” side of planking, as defined by Wikipedia, is the practice of lying down flat, with arms to the side, as if to mimic a wooden plank.
According to various Internet sources, planking has been around for years and is simply known as “playing dead” and “facedowns” in other parts of the world. It started off as the “lying down game” in 1997 when it was created by two young men in North East England. Then, a young man in Australia gave it the name “planking” when the prank caught on there in 2008.
When you look at historical pictures of how slaves were laid in rows in the bottom of ships, however, it’s easy to see why some connect planking to slavery. Only those who created the planking craze may truly know what the origin and motivation behind the game really is.
So, does it pay to jump on a trend with such a foggy history?
These days, the viral nature of news and phenomena like planking can be misleading and full of misinformation. Still, there’s no mistaking how quickly people grasp web trends and create global news stories overnight – just think of the “flash mobs” movement that caught on in recent years.
Planking can also be dangerously dumb these days. There have been reported deaths worldwide from planking stunts – in May 2011, WorldNews.com issued a warning in New Zealand after a young man fell several stories while planking on a narrow balcony railing.
Even with all of the controversy and danger, planking has still spread like a bad rash in the past few weeks among American celebrities and regular people. It may because planking is silly and daring, and makes for great Twitter and Facebook photos opps with our real time technology.
Lil Wayne, basketball player Dwight Howard, and countless others have posted photos of themselves in random, funny planking scenarios. There’s even a Planking Society in New Jersey (with a warning on its Facebook page that it takes no responsibility for planking-related injuries or deaths). In this voyeuristic era, people are looking for anything to gain their 15 minutes of fame and be known for the illest pranks and nowadays, planks.
The question then becomes “to plank or not to plank?” In the quest for entertainment, people may or may not be unknowingly conjuring up bad images from history, or worse – killing themselves.
The constant planking buzz is quieting down in social media these days, as new information, rumors, and images take its place. The lightning fast speed of communication via phones, computers, and TVs gives trends like planking a short shelf life, and people are “on to the next one.”
Hopefully, the next trend will go easy on the ancestors, no one will die, and we can just let fun be fun.
Plank on?