Anyone can hang out with their friends. It takes someone very trendy to hang out with their friends while hanging upside down. You have to be more than just trendy; you have to be batting.
It seems batting is the new owling. And if you don’t know what owling is, it had become the new planking. Don’t know what planking is? Well let me give you a crash course in contortion-exhibitionist art.
It all started with planking, the brilliant act of finding someplace particularly uncomfortable, perpetuating that pain by making yourself as stiff as a board, and then capturing the moment in a photograph. You get bonus points, if you post it on Facebook or Twitter or another social networking site.
As with most fads, planking soon became passé. So voila: owling was born.
Perhaps inspired by the love of nocturnal bird… or the desire to become one with nature… or maybe just the aversion to expensive medical bills caused by planking too much, stylish sitters began posing like owls - in an act dubbed "owling." Posers found this particularly amusing when they could freak out their unsuspecting friends and coworkers, caught off guard by the site of a squatting, wide-eyed human, looming quietly with a blank expression on his or her face.
But you knew it was just a matter of time before owlers no longer got a hoot out of their work (please pardon the pun).
And so that brings us to the present. Mimicking owls may be so yesterday, but it’s still cool to act like a winged animal. This time, though, winged mammals are all the rage. Bat impressionists are now popping up everywhere. Don’t be surprised if you see some guy or gal, dangling by his or her legs, the next time you walk by the monkey bars at your local playground. In fact, batting is becoming so popular, a group in Arlington started a website dedicated to the trend.
On www.dothebat.com, you’ll find dozens of pictures of everyday people batting, from Arlington to Iraq. That’s right; batting has gone worldwide! There are even batting directions on the site, in case you feel adventurous – and chic – enough, to try it yourself.
We must warn you: bat at your own risk. By the time you get it down, we’ll probably be talking about another trend. Perhaps you should just start practicing your technique in the art of penguining!
