When An Internet Meme Goes Bad: Man Dies While Planking

OK that headline deserves an explanation: Planking is, as the BBC puts it, an "internet craze" in which people take pictures of themselves lying flat on their stomachs in unusual places.

There are plenty of examples in this Facebook page liked by 148,878 people. It has pictures of people planking on a gas grill:

Or planking in front of the White House:

Or on an office desk:

facebook.com

You get the point. It's silly internet fun, except that Sunday Acton Beale, a 20-year-old from Australia, fell to his death from a Brisbane apartment balcony where he was attempting to plank on a railing. The Guardian reports Beale's death prompted Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard to call "an end to the internet phenomenon:"