'Cone-ing' or: How to Will a Trend into Popularity

Is it possible to make something a trend just by calling it a trend?

Australian jokester Alki Stevens might have figured it out. On June 5, he posted a video titled "CONE-ING IS THE NEW PLANKING!!!!!" a reference to the actual Australian fad of "planking." The prank reel has since been viewed over 2 million times.



Up until June 2011, there were only a handful of videos tagged "coneing" or "cone-ing" on YouTube. For the most part they were videos like THIS, unrelated clips, or uploads from Stevens himself, who posted his first attempt at "cone-ing" in May of 2009 and his first compilation a year later.

Since Steven's video first began gaining popularity, we've now seen over 200 "cone-ing" videos in just the past two weeks. Some, like this very funny reaction video, have over 100,000 views. Many new cone-ers are submitting videos to Stevens, the trend initiator himself, who uses them for fan montages, while others are uploading attempts to their own channels. Check out a few funny example below:

(Use the arrows to navigate between videos or watch them all here.)