Horsemanning – The New Planking

Move over, planking. Make way for the new trend – horsemanning, or fake beheading, a popular way of taking pictures in the 1920s.

Horsemanning, an emerging posing meme begotten by planking, became viral this week, taking the Internet by storm.

Horsemanning (misspelt as horsemaning) gets its name and theme from The Headless Horsemen, the evil character from “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. The objective of “Horsemanning” is to make it appear that your head has been decapitated, lying next to you, detached from your body like the headless horseman.

Horsemanning requires at least two individuals, one lying with their head back and hidden while the other individual hides everything except for their head. If done correctly, horsemanning produces a brilliant optical illusion much funnier than simply planking and allows for more creativity than other photo-posing fads like planking.

While planking is a solo game, horsemanning encourages social interaction by requiring at least two participants. The idea is to make a photo that involves laying on one’s back on a flat surface with the head hidden over the edge while another person hides behind the same object, only leaving the head exposed in the picture.

 

Through their cooperation, they create the illusion that the person lose his/her head nearby, mimicking Washington Irving’s Headless Horseman, but without a horse.

Unlike Planking, whose popularity is determined by the outrageous and risky locations chosen by the plankers, horsemanning is a safer game and can be played in any place.