Facebook planking game claims its first victim A social media game that uses Facebook as its vector is being blamed for the death of a 20-year-old Queenslander over the weekend. The silly, but mostly harmless, game of "planking" involves a person lying straight, arms by side face down, sans facial expression. Plankers are encouraged to pose creative or daring locations …
I'm a little surprised that neither the author nor the commentards seem to be aware that this 'craze' swept the UK (the yanks as well I think) about 2 years ago under the name of "The lying down game"
It even featured as headline on Sky news at one point.
So yes, it could quite easily have been some pissed up chav from Stanwell or something. I've seen pics of ground crew "planking" in the intakes for 747 turbines at Heathrow etc...
That "Person dies doing something stupid" stories get publicity when the something stupid is either spectacularly stupid like trying to pick your nose with a power drill, or something moderately foolish linked to things those in charge are against for one reason or another. With the latter, it's almost as though the media are specifically on the lookout for what is an inevitability given the large sample size for such things.
I guess I answered my own question there...
Celebrate. There's one less moron in the world.
"While the Facebook “planking” community expressed some concern over the death, many defended the right to plank."
Er, no... if while doing planking (or any other activity) - which is in-and-of-itself not illegal - you do something illegal in order to achieve it, then there is no "right" for you to turn to. The illegality (and/or stupidity) of the acts you are doing in order to get your shot supersede any so-called rights you thought you had...
It is illegal to interfere with a police vehicle - this includes climbing, sitting or leaning on it. The fact that the idiot only wanted to plank does *not*, somehow, make it legal or confer on the idiot some sort of "right".
Or to put it another way, the legality of your action only extends to your first illegal act in committing that action.
I'm trying to understand what it is about this activity that excites people. In my experience, lying face-down on the pavement is something you do after you've had too many tequila slammers and been kicked down stairs by the bouncers. That's not something you'd want recorded for posterity, much less publication on the Internet. I believe in live and let live (die?), so people should be free to do it if they wish, but I'll never be able to get my head into this space myself.
When lying on improbable objects and having your picture taken is something to risk your life over? Seriously, I want/need someone to explain the attraction to outsiders (and oneself) of expending effort in order to obtain a picture of a person lying down on something.
Guy should be nominated for a Darwin.
Having said that, did anyone else see the Chief Constables speech as reported by the BBC and feel a mite uneasy?
[quote] Sergeant Matthew Russell, of Gladstone police, told the Brisbane Courier-Mail newspaper that planking could be dangerous, and practitioners may find themselves charged with "unauthorised high risk activity" [/quote]
So now 'high risk activity' has to be authorized? By whom? Using what criteria? Where does one apply for such authorization? Who determines what constitutes high risk activity in the first place?
I can only therefore assume that since people die in the waters off the coast of Australia every year while taking part in such activities as diving, surfing, swimming and sailing that law enforcement will put an immediate stop to them until the proper paperwork has been filed and approved in triplicate (and no doubt fees delivered to the appropriate officers desk). Only half kidding there.
And one guy, probably not altogether sober, does something stupid and it's held up as an object lesson to how everyone else in the general population is obviously incapable of taking care of themselves without Nanny making every decision for you.
I don't usually get worked up over this, but I've had enough. I want the freedom to live the life I choose without being told/instructed that it's wrong, simply because some aspects do not conform to societal normalcy in my geographical area. It's not about 'planking', as I kinda already said, I think it's a craze for pillocks with no sense of self-identity and self-worth and as such can't bear not to be part of the latest group fascination that comes along. As long as my (or anyone elses) activities (or lack of) do not affect someone else in a negative fashion then I firmly and unequivocally believe that the government can stay the fuck out of my private life.
Need a damn Stalin icon.
This post has been deleted by its author
Sod planking, 'eyeballing' is where it's at. You take one Darwinian challenged individual, a knife and ping pong ball. Stick the ball to the back of the head and try to remove it with the knife having first passed the knife through one of the eyes (left or right - doesn't matter).
Great stuff, very amusing, and also serves a purpose - what more could you want?
Seriously, we've been hearing for some years now how all the kids are horribly fat from eating too many chips. That's why the last generation invented Parkour and Base Jumping, and this generation has invented Planking.
Did you think they were going to invent some kind of game that involved running around?
Well deserved, we'll carve the medal on your tombstone.
Actually, I've got an idea: I'm going to create a Facebook wanking game, that would be awesome. Or stupid. Or both, as the line is quite blurry these days.
Now the chicken and egg question: does Facebook make you stupid, or does it attract already stupid people?
"Hey, I'm incredibly social, I took a picture of myself lying on the belly on a bench, and shared it with 89K people online!". Yup, it probably makes you a Turner Prize nominee as well.
WTF? When I was a lad it was called "Extreme Lying Down", mind you planking lends itself to ease of use doesn't it? "he's a real planker. I was arrested for planking on a police car. I'm going to the park for a quick plank" that sort of thing...
/mine's the one with double entendres for beginners in the pocket
...not having the memory of ever having done anything stupid in your life.
Personally, I'm sure I've done lots of things that were stupid and / or dangerous whilst young / drunk, most often probably without even realising it at the time. The difference between me and this particular individual probably comes down to something as simple as I was lucky and he was not. Just because I have no explicit recollection of these things doesn't make me perfect or infallible.
It might not take a fool to spot a fool, but it also doesn't take a callous hubristic fool to spot another.
Is it good or bad that the moderators let these gloating remarks through? Do I need to be constantly reminded that there is a large section of the public whose natural reaction to a child being run over, for example, is to laugh, gloat and blame the victim for being "stupid", and that a lot of these people read The Register?
Incidentally, it may be the case that intelligent people are more likely to be killed in some classes of accident. When young, they are more likely to circumvent safety measures and do something unexpected and original. When older, they are more likely to suffer from repetition fatigue. I've been present at some near misses involving people of Oxbridge-level intelligence, with and without alcohol.
I'm not sure how gloating correlates with intelligence. Perhaps the more intelligent gloaters are aware enough at least to understand how socially acceptable their behaviour is and to limit themselves to doing it anonymously.
"A social media game that uses Facebook as its vector is being blamed for the death of a 20-year-old Queenslander over the weekend."
Of course it's the fault of the game, never let it be said that a person is responsible for their own actions.
@AC:Planks constant,
That would be Planck's constant, sorry to be a pedant, but such a brilliant intellect needs to have his name spelled correctly.
Sometimes, even by falling off of high things.
I contend that this particular individual died because he was drunk and foolish, the fact that he was 'planking' whilst drunk and foolish may have contributed to it, but was not the only cause. Accidents tend to happen when people are drunk, as it affects things like judgement and balance, both of which are vitally important to not falling off the aforementioned high things.
The separate case of the guy being arrested because of 'planking' on a police car; as mentioned by another poster above, the police are quite likely to arrest you if you site/lie/jump/plank on top of a police car, what with there being a law against it.
As to where Facebook comes in all this? The easy answer: it doesn't. The supposed link between the 'craze' on FB, and an unfortunate drunken 20 year old losing his life is so tenuous as to be non-existent.
What a plank !!
this story is a prime example of a 'plank' and the sort of things 'planks' do.
The irony that there are 'plank' groups on farcebook is not unsimilar to the irony of 'chavs'. The word 'chav' comes from 'chavvy', a slang word used by travellers (fairgrund and circus folk) meaning idiot or moron, the irony being that idiots and morons unwitingly adopted the word as a lifestyle label
Given two groups sharing an environment, the one more suited to the conditions will prosper.
Observation 1: Idiots kill themselves all the time
Observation 2: The number of idiots does not seem to be decreasing
Conclusion: The number of idiots is growing faster than they can kill themselves, and the population of non-idiots is failing to outcompete them for any resource that affects population growth.
By posting tedious repetetive comments about how happy Darwin must be about this event, or hilaaaarious jokes about cleaning the gene pool, you more or less put yourself in the 'non stupid' group, the one which is failing to thrive.
You may smugly congratulate yourself on joining the losing team, and await your own Darwin award for utterly failing to prevent your own collective extinction and failing to have a good time whilst doing so,
I am ashamed to call myself a Human Being considering I am the same as all you lot on here.
A kid has died because he was doing something that yes was stupid but still, atleast he was trying to do something when he died and all you lot can do is call them stupid and be thankful he is dead.
You are a disgrace the lot of you.
People die in stupid ways, take walking on railway track's or running across a road but people also die just walking down the street.
I feel sorry for this lad's family and just hope they don't see this site, and read the comment's left by a bunch of stupid disrespectfull people.
I didn't think the comment's would be like what they are but I guess I was thinking that people would be respectful, guess I was a idiot and based on all your comment's I should be dead because of it.
Get a life, and grow up and be respectfull.
In case you haven't noticed, short pain-filled lives followed by violent unpleasant deaths has been the lot of the greater part of humanity since the beginning of recorded time, and a good deal before then too. It's the human condition, and morbid humour is one of our time-tested coping mechanisms. It's not actually as vindictive as it may come across.
I think you need to take a bit of a reality pill there, and think about why you feel that your grief jockey platitudes are in some way less shameful that others' poor humour and disdain.
You need to accept that there are two issues here, one is that a human being has died - which is itself generally a bad thing, with all the inherent baggage that comes with lost life.
However the other aspect is that a supposedly intelligent being has managed to kill themselves by stupidly carrying out a truly absurdly idiotic action as part of a completely pointless escapade. This is worthy of note and ridicule.
Look at this way, if the bloke had simply broken a few bones we would all be merrily chortling away and only the most puritan of grief-jockeys would be admonishing anyone for doing so. The only difference here is the seriousness (I was going to say "gravity" - but you would probably get all mardy about that) of the result.
Yes it is very much a shame that someone has been killed, but the manner and circumstances are in isolation, funny.
I've just finished reading the first page of comments and there's not a single entry expressing sympathy for the young man who lost his life in this tragic accident, or for the family he leaves behind.
Keep it up.
His family will almost certainly blame Facebook / Plankers rather than accepting that their son was a plank long before he was encouraged by a bunch of other plankers.
"Er, no... if while doing planking (or any other activity) - which is in-and-of-itself not illegal - you do something illegal in order to achieve it, then there is no "right" for you to turn to. "
Er, how does that contradict what was said here?
Planking isn't the problem (as much as the media would like to scaremonger over), it's doing stupid and/or illegal things. The article didn't say people were defending the right to do illegal things, they were defending the right to do "planking", which as you say yourself, is not illegal. Please let's not join in with the Daily Mail-style "Internet Facebook craze killed this person" scaremongering.
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