History and origination
Planking or the lying down game is an activity consisting of lying face down in an unusual or incongruous location. The hands must touch the sides of the body and having a photograph of the participant taken and posted on the internet is an integral part of the game. Players compete to find the most unusual and original location in which to play. The term planking refers to mimicking a wooden plank.

The lying down game spread to the rest of the world, where it has also been known as "" ("playing dead") (2003, South Korea), " plat ventre" ("On ones belly", France 2004), "extreme lying down" (2008, Australasia), "facedowns" (2010, USA and Ireland), and "planking" (2011, Australia & New Zealand and worldwide).

Critics of the lying down game compare the game with the slave trade-era practice and manner of stowing African slaves upon the planks of a slave ship's lower hold, as illustrated in the Brookes abolitionist poster imagery.



Notable incidents

• The game made news in September 2009, when seven doctors and nurses working at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, England were suspended for playing the lying down game while on duty.
  
• On 13 May 2011, a 20-year-old man from Gladstone in central Queensland was charged for allegedly planking on a police vehicle.
  
• On 15 May 2011, Acton Beale, a 20-year-old man, plunged to his death after reportedly "planking" on a seventh-floor balcony in Brisbane, Australia.
  
• On 29 May 2011, Max Key, son of New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, uploaded a photograph to Facebook of himself planking on a lounge suite, his father standing behind him. After the photograph was reproduced on the front page of the New Zealand Herald two days later, the Prime Minister's office initially declined comment, but later that day, confirming that the photograph was indeed genuine, Mr. Key remarked that he doesn't see anything wrong with planking when done safely, and that it was he who had actually introduced Max to planking in the first place, having seen a video of the phenomenon on YouTube.
  
• On 2 Aug 2011, Anna Sophia Berglund (Playboy Miss January 2011 and then girlfriend of Hugh Hefner) posted a tweet that read, "I got Hef to plank! @playboy" and included a link to a photo of Hefner planking on a table in what appears to be a meeting room at the Playboy Mansion.
  

Other variations
Teapotting-
Teapotting is one of the many variations of planking that arise shortly after planking went viral. Teapotting consisted of bending the arms in a shape of a teapot in reference to the children's song "I'm a Little Teapot". This variation was created by teachers in Mortlake College as an attempt to create a new 'craze' after viewing the amount of attention planking received.

Owling-
Owling is a variation on planking in which a person squats "like an owl". It was first documented on 11 July 2011 in a post on the social news website reddit.