"Stocking" is the new "planking"
(CBS) - Get ready to laugh some more. First, we had "planking." Then, there was "owling." After that, we cracked up some more for "horsemaning." Now, there's something called "stocking."
The premise behind the new photo fad is simple: find a stock photo from image services like istockphoto and Getty Images, and recreate it. Post the pictures side by side, and voila.
It caught on quickly, and now there's a Tumblr called "Stocking Is the New Planking" to keep you updated on the latest "stocking" photos to hit the scene, and believe us, every post is LOL-worthy.
We caught up with the masterminds behind the Tumblr who says they started the meme. "To the best of our knowledge, yes, we did start the stocking trend," explains Dennis Van Huffel, a senior user interface designer at software company projekt202. "And nope, we've not seen it any place else. The term 'stocking' as it applies to what we're doing was certainly coined with our project."
On August 18, Van Huffel walked by another co-worker's desk as she was trolling through stock photo agencies looking for an image. "As anyone who has ever spent time looking for images for a project knows that this can be an extremely tedious and you come across some hilariously ridiculous images during the process," Van Huffel points out. "Anyway, Jamie [Graham] was clearly exhausted from looking around and not finding the right image. I suggested that we make our own and as we talked about it, we decided it would funnier to recreate one."
The image that started it all was of a woman with dark hair pointing at a laptop screen, showing it to a man in a blue shirt and smiling. The colleagues recreated the shot and the rest is history. "We sent it around the office, got a good response and got immediate requests for more. As we produced a few more, Tumblr was an obvious next step," Van Huffel adds. "After that, our colleagues started sending the link to the Tumblr out through their social media channels and, to our surprise, it took off pretty fast."
We're jealous! What a fun office?! Van Huffel stresses that Jeff Steinberg and Peter Eckert, founders of projekt202, have been supportive of their now-viral side project.
