Owling, it's the new planking! New crouching craze springs up on the internet



The bizarre internet craze of ‘planking’ is set to lose its cult online status to the increasingly popular trend of ‘owling’.



Hundreds of young people in America, Australia and now, Britain, have taken up the new ‘owling’ craze.



It consists of nothing more taxing than crouching on one's haunches and staring into the middle distance, like an owl.

Owl vs plank: A man is owling on top of his friend who appears to be planking in their home

Participants then take photos of themselves and post them on Facebook or on other social networking sites.



Extra kudos is earned for those who do it in unusual situations.

The trend is a development of the popular craze of ‘planking’ in which people would take pictures of themselves lying face down in strange locations.



However, in recent months ‘planking’ has become increasingly mainstream - and thus less popular on the trend-conscious internet.

Make like an owl: The action of owling came after planking and is based around perching in strange places like the bird



Owling in the garden: Extra kudos is earned for those who do it in unusual situations



Last month the celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay posted pictures of himself planking - a development that prompted trend-watchers to declare the craze ‘officially dead’.



‘Owling’ is believed to have started in Australia within the last few weeks.



Indeed, it is so new that the Wikipedia entry for ‘owling’ describes the practice as being a term used in the Middle Ages to describe the ‘the smuggling of sheep or wool from England to another country’.

Is that a bird or a man? A young man perches on top of garden house in his back yard to demonstrate his owling prowess

At home or work: A young woman perches on a shelf at her house, while a man takes part in the owling craze in his work office



Despite its relative youth, the owling craze already has two popular Facebook groups dedicated to it, onto which more than 1,000 people are listed as members.



Other social websites including Reddit also feature pictures of young people taking part in the craze.



The trendspotting site Buzzfeed has described ‘owling’ as a ‘worthy successor’ to planking.

Earlier this year an Australian man Acton Beale died while trying to ‘plank’ from a set of railings on a balcony in Brisbane.



Afterwards Deputy Police Commissioner Ross Barnett confirmed reports that the 20-year-old ‘may have fallen while attempting a planking episode’.

In the kitchen: A young man starts owling on his kitchen bench, while another man crouches on his fridge



Risky business: A man starts owling on top of a statue in a risky move wearing only shorts







