Image: A college student from Newcastle, England shows off his "milking" skills.
If you’re still sending friends pictures of your planking and owling skills, it’s time to retire those tired tricks and get with the program. There’s a new meme in town and it’s called “milking.” The trend, which appears to have originated among students in the U.K., involves standing in a public space and pouring a bottle of milk over one’s own head.
The messy trend got its start in Newcastle, England. where a group of college students came up with the idea on a whim. One of the students in the video, 22-year-old Tom Morris, told the British edition of Cosmopolitan, “We were just in our kitchen talking about doing it outside Starbucks in [the Newcastle suburb of] Jesmond and thought it would’ve been really funny.”
(READ: The Top 10 Memes of 2011: Planking)
So, that’s what they did. After the video got what Morris called “a load of likes” on Facebook, they decided to film a full video, which they uploaded to YouTube last week.
“Milking Newcastle” features the friends buying milk from the store and promptly pouring it over their heads as they walk out, pouring milk on their heads while standing in the middle of a roundabout, while exiting the train, in the middle of a busy sidewalk, in front of store windows, in the shower, in front of crowded bars and while eating cereal (smart!).
The meme’s been quickly gaining momentum, spreading across the U.K. and apparently all the way to Alabama. Will you be partaking? Considering the effort (and cleaning) involved, this meme is not for the fair of heart. It’s also not for the socially conscious—because, come on. That’s some perfectly good milk right there.