So you’ve given up on your dream of being the next web-discovered pop phenom. And you’ve wisely backed away from trying to wow ’em with some kind of set-yourself-on-fire-and-jump-off-the-roof YouTube vid. But fear not, there are still plenty of ways to display your … well, let’s call it creativity, and get that promised 15 minutes of fame in today’s world of instantaneous Internet-connectivity. All you have to do is do something completely kooky, post it on your Facebook page and hope everyone else wants to give it a try.
Planking, for instance, popped up on the scene and became the craze not long ago.
The goal? Just make yourself look as stiff as a board and plunk yourself down in the most unexpected place imaginable. Look, there’s a gal face-down on top of a city bus, and there’s a guy board-like on the mayor’s desk. The young, the old, the passed out, the dead, hey, everybody can do it.
Of course, there always has to be the next wave. Viral trends must be fluidly ever-changing if they’re going to stay cool. Teapotting, for instance, prompted folks to look like a little teapot (you know, “here is my handle, here is my spout” type of thing) in interesting locations. And coning was even odder, with people eating their ice cream cones upside down. But, let’s face it, those were just flashes in the Internet skillet. The newest silly viral trend? Why, owling, of course.
Now this one takes some flexible skill. It’s not easy to scrunch up on top of your refrigerator or clamber up to the peak of your neighbor’s barn and crouch there looking predatorily down upon unsuspecting rodents and passing siblings.
Yes, this fast-paced stream of Internet planking and pranking may sound just a bit familiar. After all, your grandfathers and grandmothers were performing similar silliness in their heyday when people were cramming themselves by the dozens into cars or phone booths. The big difference today is that you don’t have to wait for the local newspaper to drive over and immortalize your booth full of mashed and tangled-up chino-clad teens. Now all you have to do is have a friend snap a cell phone pic, slap it up on Facebook and wait for the “likes” to roll in by the score.
Of course, going back to that old phone booth cram might be a retro attention-getter for the next round trend. Or for that matter just a picture of someone in a phone booth nowadays would be a rarely seen oddity. No wait, what about a guy in a phone booth with a local newspaper? How many of those can there still be around? Or better yet, a guy in a phone booth reading a local paper while having his picture taken by an actual camera. With film.
Now this is getting kooky.
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