Our View: Planking? really?

The staff editorial is the majority opinion of the editorial board of The Murray State News.

Students all around the world are returning to their campuses this fall ready to take on a new year of learning and exploring. Many are coming back with summertime experiences learned through internships, jobs or volunteer positions.

One skill many students came back to campus with was probably not gained in any of these settings. That is the skill of planking. Its importance is non-existent and its usefulness was lost somewhere between here and the Bulgarian village where it started. But the absurdity of this viral activity is where the real meat is. The only point of planking is its entertainment value. And being entertainment means someone out there is enjoying it.

Whether it is the audience or the performer, there is some quality to the activity itself as a sort of street theater. So when Western Kentucky University kicked out a student at the beginning of this school year (he was later readmitted) for his planking antics on campus we cried foul. It seems as if there is little humor left in Bowling Green these days.

Conveniently Murray State made a video more absurd than planking itself. It labeled the University a plank-friendly campus. Even if the quality of the video is questionable, the overall message was entertaining. WKU’s President Ransdell said his students had better things to do such as volunteer in the community.

His statement shows just how much fear there is at WKU. When one planks and gets away with it then before you know it we will all plank! We cannot have a University that encourages fun behavior or else future students might actually want to come here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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