Plankity Planks

Man, talk about a ‘broo ha ha’ over nothing. A perfect storm in a tiny teacup. Much, much, much ado about nothing.

I’m talking about the Great Plank Debate. A fine example of the power of the media and their ability to create something out of nothing.  And then run with it and run with it. Until the next thing comes up anyway.

So from what I can tell, and its hard to sift through all the hysteria to find the facts, is that the Qld Police issued a press release warning about the dangers of planking after seeing some photos on the internet of people doing it on cars and on road signs.

Low and behold, a day or two later, a young man falls to his death, apparently while planking on a railing seven floors up. The media goes into a frenzy. The police and other ‘authoritays’ tutt tutt. Radio jocks are up in arms. And the headlines scream “extreme sport kills”.

Extreme sport? It involves resting your body on some object. Yeah, you need to engage your core muscles to achieve a plank. But extreme sport? Ba jaysus, they should try dealing with a two year old on a sugar high.

I digress.

Yes, the facts remain that the death of the young man in question occurred at 4am after an all-night drinking binge and the railing in question was thinner than the new Shane Warne. He could have been ‘sitting’ on the railing and the same result would have occurred. Or ‘standing’. Or ‘knitting’. Or just plain old ‘thinking’ for that matter.

For you see the reason for his death wasn’t the planking. It was the trying to do anything on that railing seven floors up and while heavily intoxicated after a night of drinking.

But blame has to be assigned. Let’s forget about individual responsibility or the sad death of someone with a whole life ahead of them. Let’s blame planking as the cause and print metres of copy and produce hours of television in discussion. Like it’s the fundamental issue of our time.  

Yes, the poor young man had no control over his actions. He was unduly influenced by ‘plankers’ and was sucked in by planking’s extreme nature. Something must be done. Somebody must do something. Will somebody think of the children!

Please. Nothing must be done. Nothing must be stopped. Nothing must be enacted. Just halt this ridiculous media frenzy over nothing and you’ll probably find that it all just goes away pretty quickly.

Until the next stupid craze hits the internet anyway.

EDM.