Out with planking? In with 'Batmanning'?: viral video spotlight

(2011 YouTube, LLC)

If the game of 'planking ' - lying face down in unusual places - wasn't strange enough, now a new trend for doing odd things in public - called 'Batmanning' - looks set to take off after footage of the 'sport' went viral on YouTube. 

The game of 'planking' involves keeping one's body rigid while lying down in an unusual place and having the pose photographed.

Despite some protesting that the 'game' was based on a European pastime that proved popular some years earlier, called the 'lying down game,' planking only became truly popular around the world this year. The activity spawned numerous compilation videos, parodies and attracted a fair degree of notoriety after a young man died as a result of planking on a balcony.

However a group of young men - calling themselves the Batman Boilers - are looking to knock planking off its throne with their Batmanning activity, which can basically be summarized as hanging upside down by the feet in unusual locations.

A video of the Batman Boilers in action - uploaded by the Linsbrothers and titled " Original Batmanning video " - has gone viral on YouTube attracting over 56,000 views since being uploaded on August 29. The video was also featured on YouTube's trends blog as one of the ‘top trending' videos of September 6.  

A search on YouTube for 'Batmanning' returns over 20 videos related to the sport uploaded within the past ten days.

However the popularity of both Batmanning and planking could be under threat from the less-extreme sport of 'stocking.'

Stocking simply involves having your picture taken while copying the likeness of a stock photo from an image database service. The trend was featured on influential technology blog Mashable on September 5 and even has its own website stockingisthenewplanking.com

"Original Batmanning video": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50xynq4xmCw

Stocking website - http://stockingisthenewplanking.com