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 and …
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Over-reaction??
Thats no over-reaction, thats just Queensland Police being Queensland Police (aka Fun Police)
Planker = Plonker
Not much else to say other than Darwin must be extremely happy with his latest idea to clean up the gene pool
One less idiot
To quote (possibly misquote) Bill Hicks "We lost an idiot. The world just got lighter."
Hicks the genius!
"So what? That's one less gas-station attendent!"
Darwin is proved right....again
I don't think it's fair to say that police are overreacting to this craze. Unfortunately some people have to be protected from their own stupidity (and presumably excess alcohol consumption).
May I be the first...
...to nominate this planker for a Darwin award?
was he ever going to be a nationality other than Australian?
despite encroaching state nannying - we still manage to find imaginative ways to kill ourselves. makes you quite proud.
Erm, yes actually.
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...
But...
It took an Aussie to try lie down on air.
Hand picked by the finest legal minds in England they are!
And the Darwin award goes to....
Planking is not the problem, being stupid and falling off to your death from a balcony is.
Darwin
I wonder who will be collecting the Darwin Award on his behalf?
Blame game
"...number of news and TV presenters mimicking the act on prime television."
Yet it is still the internet's fault, of course.
Stupid is stupid. Long before the 'net, 'tv , the printing press, or Thogg painting on the cave wall.
Why is it?
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.
It's the Darwin Awards - LIVE!
These things shouldn't be BANNED... they improve the overall quality of the gene pool!
Re: It's the Darwin Awards - LIVE!
I'm looking forward to many more comments of this nature on this story!
A dangerous game
This game is bad news.
Didn't some NHS staff get suspended over playing 'the lying down game' at work a few years back?
So...
A Facebook user, doing something extremely dangerous and reckless in the propagation of a meme, falls to his death. I submit that the potential of his life has in no way gone unfulfilled.
Plankers? Plonkers, more like ...
But, as I always say, idiots abound in today's society that over-protects the incautious from themselves. It's evolution in action. Let the idiots die before they can reproduce. The world will be a better place over the long-haul.
Plonkers
Make you think that Derek & Clive's prediction about "celebrity suicide" would be the next show on reality TV.
(profanity warning)
http://www.phespirit.info/derekandclive/ad_nauseam_09.htm
cue Beastie Boys
"While the Facebook “planking” community expressed some concern over the death, many defended the right to plank."
.. you gotta fight.. for your right.. to plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank
The perfect idiot trap
Please more planking in dangerous places. We need fewer idiots. Get 'em before they sprog!
Linguistic revisionism
Clearly we need to start referring to plankers instead of plonkers...
Natural selection at work.
I'm sure someone will have nominated this unfortunate for a Darwin Award. I now understand why all the entreprising Aussies are working in bars in London if the height of social activity in Aus is planking.
Where the fuck did this come from?
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.
About as random...
as the "head in the freezer" craze that started, IIRC, in South Korea. Kids making and posting silly pics... at least they're not smoking crack
: /
Guess you've never got your head really cold then ?
I can reliably inform you it can make you high as a kite ! However it has happened it isn't good.
Flame not for you, but vital warmth :-) !
Darwin beckons if 20 yrs. old
That looks like a sensible entrance age to get a entry in Darwin awards then. First one to plank on the hi speed main line down by me and get cut in half would be a more likely winner tho.
Oh you mean "Plankers"
I thought you said they were "Plonkers"
My bad.
Darwin award winner
Well, one has removed himself from the gene pool. 90000 more to walk the plank
Thank you, Acton Beale
for single-handedly improving the human race's gene pool by removing yourself from it.
What the...?
"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.
What is the world coming to?
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.
Get. A. Life.
Please! And El Reg, you're only encouraging them with this Daily Mail style reporting...
Sir
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?
Plank
'Plank' is also used as a term for an idiot.
Can't wait for the association with Facebook to become the cause of it - 'Facebook encourages dangerous stunts'. Yeah, like hell it does, it's the twats who egg each other on.
Where's the 'Darwin' icon?
Toooo Obvious
Facebook, full of plankers taking pictures of themselves planking...
Paris, inspiring a generation of plankers
is it April 1st again already?
This has got to be a joke doesn't it? if not - well, another contender for the Darwin awards I guess.
Planking?
"The silly, but mostly harmless, game of "planking" involves a person lying straight, arms by side face down, sans facial expression."
Seriously? This is a game? Sometimes I worry for the future of our species.
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