Owling

About

Owling refers to the act of sitting in a perched position while looking off into the distance as to mimic the posture of an owl. The fad was created as a response to another photo fad called “planking”.

Origin

A thread was posted to Reddit^[1] on July 11th, 2011, entitled “Seems to be an increase in planking photos, so…” featuring a demotivational stye image macro of a woman perched on railing with the caption “OWLING because planking is so two months ago”.

Spread

On July 12th, 2011, the story was posted on Salon^[2], HuffPo Urlesque^[9], NowPublic^[4]. and BuzzFeed^[5], even spawning a few user-generated images on Tumblr^[6] and Reddit.^[7]

The first Urban Dictionary^[8] definition was created the same day:

The act of displaying oneself on-top of miscellaneous objects in a sitting position while holding your knees. Let’s go owling tonight on-top of signs!

Search

Search queries for “owling” increased dramatically on July 12th, the day after the first Reddit post.

Examples

External Links

^[1] Reddit – Seems to be an increase in planking photos, so…

^[2] Salon – Owling is the new planking, and other made-up trends

^[3] Huffington Post – Owling Is The Squatter’s Answer To

^[4] NowPublic – Owling: The New Planking?

^[5] BuzzFeed – Owling is the New Planking

^[6] Tumblr – #owling

^[7] Reddit – owling

^[8] Urban Dictionary – owling