Assignment #5: Cone-ing (Theresa Chan)

            
            Cone-ing (also known as coning) is a popular prank video Internet meme. It involves going through a drive-thru and ordering a soft serve ice cream cone; when the server hands it over, one grabs the ice cream portion rather than the cone portion. This whole ordeal is video taped and then subsequently posted on YouTube or other social media channels. The reaction of the server is key to the cone-ing process as well as the prankster acting as if everything is normal. Cone-ing is seen as part of this “-ing” fad and a sort of follow-up to the popular act of planking.

            Alki Stevens is credited as the inventor of cone-ing. He’s an Australian comedian who first posted an act of cone-ing in 2009 onto YouTube, but the meme was not popularized until he posted another video on June 5, 2011 titled “CONE-ING IS THE NEW PLANKING!!!!! (AlkiStevens).” From there it quickly amassed millions of views, hundreds of thousands of Facebook and Twitter shares, and a legion of followers who posted their own versions of cone-ing. It was featured on Internet blogs and news sources, and even Justin Bieber has posted his own act of cone-ing.

            Cone-ing was extremely popular in the back half of 2011, and its popularity waned from there. To this day, Alki Stevens’s 2011 video that spurred the meme has amassed over 10 million views and YouTube yields over 100,000 videos when searching for “cone-ing.” It’s easy to see how this meme became popular, as it’s easy to participate in it, and it’s a funny prank; yielding the most spectacular reaction out of a server was certainly a goal of a lot of the posters. The act is ridiculous and absurd, but most viral memes seem to follow this trend.