About
Milking is a video fad in which participants record themselves dumping containers of milk directly over their heads. Similar to cone-ing, the videos are often filmed in public places to include the reactions of bewildered onlookers.
Origin
In an interview with Cosmopolitan,[3] the fad’s creator Tom Morris explained that he came up with the idea while sitting in a kitchen with a group of friends, who decided to film themselves milking outside of a Starbucks coffee house. After the video was well received on Facebook, the group decided to make a new video. On November 21st, 2012, the MilkingNewcastle YouTube channel uploaded a video titled “Milking Newcastle,” in which several young men are shown dumping entire containers of milk over their heads in a variety of odd locations (shown below). Over the next six days, the video accumulated over 244,000 views and 800 comments.
Spread
On November 24th, the university journalism blog College Media Matters[9] published a post titled “Milking: Latest Student Viral Video Craze is ‘Legen-dairy’,” noting that the fad was gaining traction throughout Britain. On the following day, The Daily Mail[2] published an article titled “Is Milking the Most Pointless Internet Craze Yet?,” reporting that the Morris video had accumulated over 30,000 views in less than one week. The same day, The Daily Mail article was linked on the community news website Fark.[10] On November 26th, YouTuber frampoid uploaded a video titled “Milking Lancaster: Jack Schofield 2012,” which featured several Lancaster University students dumping milk on their heads while urging students to vote for student Jack Schofield for County College Social Secretary (shown below).
The same day, the fad was reported on by several news site, including The Sun,[1] The Telegraph,[3] Softpedia,[4] NineMSN,[5] Raw Story,[6]MSN,[7] The Guardian[8] and PSFK.[11] Also on November 26th, Gawker[12] published an article by staff writer Neetzan Zimmerman titled “Milking: Latest ‘Internet Craze’ May Be Dumbest Yet,” which compared milking to photo fads like planking and owling.
Notable Examples
Search Interest
Not available.
External References
[1]The Sun – It’s Udder Madness
[2]The Daily Mail – Is milking the most pointless internet craze yet
[3]The Telegraph – Milking the new student inspired internet craze
[4]Softpedia – Milking the Meme That Is Taking the Internet by Storm
[5]NineMSN – Milking becomes the new viral planking
[6]Raw Story – New Bizarre Youth Trend
[7]MSN– New Internet Milking Craze
[8]Guardian – Milking an udderly bizarre student trend
[9]College Media Matters – Milking the latest student viral video craze
[10]Fark – Newest Internet craze is called milking
[11]PSFK– What is Milking?
[12]Gawker – Milking – Latest Internet Craze May Be Dumbest Yet