# Owling Owling is a 2011 photo fad where people crouched in a perched, owl-like pose on random objects, snapped a picture, and posted it online. Born as a direct swipe at planking, it went from a single Reddit thread on July 11, 2011 to Salon, BuzzFeed, and HuffPost coverage within 24 hours, giving planking its first real successor before burning out just as fast. ## Origin Owling kicked off with a Reddit thread posted on July 11, 2011 titled "Seems to be an increase in planking photos, so…"[2]. The thread led with a demotivational-style image macro of a woman perched on a railing, captioned "OWLING because planking is so two months ago." The individual who made that first image macro is not credited in the surviving coverage, so the meme has no confirmed creator[2]. - **Platform:** Reddit - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2011 ## Overview The format is deliberately simple. A participant squats or crouches on a random object like a railing, ledge, filing cabinet or kitchen counter, tucks their knees, positions their hands loosely like talons, and stares blankly into the middle distance while someone takes a photo[2]. The joke is the pose itself and how absurd it looks in ordinary spots, with bonus credit for owlers who picked unexpected or public locations, echoing planking's dare-in-public logic[1]. Tone-wise, Owling wore its anti-planking attitude on the sleeve. The first Urban Dictionary entry defined it as "the new viral craze; a bit like planking, except you crouch down, and stare like an owl"[1]. A second definition described participants as "sitting on a random object/surface in a perched position, taking a picture of oneself and posting in on the internet," and framed the whole thing as planking's evolution[1]. Every early definition leaned into the same beat: planking was over, Owling was the replacement joke. ## How It Spread On July 12, 2011, coverage snowballed. Salon, HuffPost's Urlesque vertical, NowPublic and BuzzFeed all ran the story on the same day, each framing Owling as planking's successor[2]. Urban Dictionary's first Owling entry was submitted that day too, calling it "the new viral craze"[1]. Search interest for "owling" spiked sharply on July 12 according to trend data referenced in the Know Your Meme write-up[2]. User-generated owling photos surfaced on Tumblr and Reddit through the rest of that week[2]. Unlike planking, which had months of runway and celebrity participation before its news cycle peaked, Owling had a compressed spread window measured in days rather than weeks, and coverage after mid-July 2011 dropped off quickly. ## How to Use To owl, a participant typically finds a raised or unexpected surface, crouches with knees bent and feet flat, curls their hands loosely like claws, and stares straight ahead with a neutral expression[1]. A friend takes the photo, and it gets posted online, historically to Facebook or Tumblr. Common convention favors odd or public spots such as railings, road signs, or filing cabinets over conventional seating[1]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Owling? Owling is a 2011 photo fad where a person crouches in an owl-like perched pose on an object or surface, takes a photo, and posts it online[1]. ### Where did Owling come from? It started with a Reddit thread on July 11, 2011 that posted an image macro captioned "OWLING because planking is so two months ago"[2]. ### What does Owling mean? It means imitating an owl's perched sitting posture as a photo joke aimed at planking, which the earliest Urban Dictionary entries explicitly called out[1]. ### How do you use Owling? You crouch on a random object with knees tucked and hands loosely like talons, stare blankly ahead, and share the picture online, ideally in an unexpected public spot[1]. ### Is Owling still popular? No. It faded within weeks of its July 2011 debut, with coverage and search interest dropping off by late July, and is largely a dead fad tied to the planking era[2]. ## References 1. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Owling]() 2. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/owling]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/owling Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library