Tuesday at Western Nevada College’s John L. Harvey Field our American youth decided to pose as mannequins. Apparently this is some kind of craze now.
I guess it’s better than planking. I never got the whole planking thing. And I guess it’s better than 20 college students trying to stuff themselves into a phone booth or a Volkswagen. This was something young people did in the 1950s.
So for you Millennials, when your grandparents start putting down your generation, you always have this response: “Yeah, but at least we didn’t try to stuff a bunch of people into a phone booth.” Oh I forgot. I don’t think Millennials even know what a phone booth is.
I went to high school and college in the 1980s and I don’t remember us doing anything like mannequin posing, planking or stuffing people into tiny spaces. I think we were too busy with technology just coming of age. Videos, cable television, video games — all of that stuff was really just coming of age during my generation and I think we were too focused on those things to do anything like planking.
The closest thing I can remember to posing like a mannequin in the 1980s was the Hacky-sack craze. When I went to college everywhere I walked, I could see students kicking and trying to control this little bean bag like a soccer ball.
Then again, right around 1990, “Voguing” when Madonna’s “Vogue” came out was huge. Voguing is sort of like mannequin posing, isn’t it?
And break dancing, another 1980s craze. When you think about it, there’s a lot of mannequin posing in break dancing. I guess there’s nothing new under the sun. Or in this case, Monday night’s Super Moon.
I guess I shouldn’t be too judgmental since I came from an era that gave us Members Only jackets (yes, I thought I looked so cool in a Members Only jacket) and the mullet. Thankfully, I never had a mullet.
And neither do mannequins, so that’s something else this generation has going for it.
— Charles Whisnand
