Everybody’s gone planking: Australians are figuring out cool new ways to accidentally kill themselves

May 18, 2011, 10:03 AM EDT

Now this just seems like a thing Australians would be good at. Their latest killer trend is something called “planking”, where the coolest of cool Australians compete to find the wackiest of situations and then photograph each other contorting their body into planks to share with their buddies on social media sites such as Facebook and Friendster, which I assume the Australians still use. It’s the hippest thing to do and if you’re an Australian and you haven’t taken any planking photos it’s probably because you don’t have any friends.

Unfortunately for the world of planking, some people don’t realize if you plank somewhere dangerous, there’s a chance you die. That’s what happened to a poor Brisbane man who just wanted to impress his friends by ‘planking’ on a balcony but ended up impressing coroners with his stupidity after he plummeted seven stories and died, yet another casualty of trying to be cool.

Police last week warned “plankers” of the dangers and their fears have been realised with the death of a man in Brisbane who plummeted from a seventh-storey balcony and died at the scene.

“This morning we have seen a young man take this activity a step further and attempt to plank on a balcony. Unfortunately he has tragically fallen to his death,” Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Ross Barnett said.

The man, who has not been named, and another person had been out during the night and were planking in various locations on their way home.

“It is what we’ve been fearing,” added Barnett, but could not say whether it was Australia’s first death from the craze.

A recent study by me uncovered a Facebook group entitled “Planking Australia,” where prospective plankers compare planking tips and images they’ve captured of themselves planking in peculiar situations. It has most recently turned into a place for Australians to yell at each other over taking it too far. Says Steve Kelly, an Australian male who, if his Facebook profile picture is accurate, apparently owns a kiddie pool, “why do people always have to take sh** to far and f*** it up for everyone else. ur whats wreaking a little bit of fun!”

Adds James Hetfield Wilson, who apparently loves Metallica so much he stole the lead singer’s name, “Stop planking you dumb a**es! People are dying because of this crap!! You are responsible for peoples deaths!! You’ve got blood on your hands for promoting this craze!!! For gods sake just stop. Just look at the body count. 1 dead and another in a coma! You need to stop this madness now!”

Keach Ryan, on the other hand, has responded to the recent planking death drama by posting a picture an hour ago of himself planking on an air conditioner.

You can catch more planking images at the recently launched ‘PlankingAustralia.net’, where a rad man recently planked on a gigantic Toyota billboard. Will they ever learn?! NOPE!