In September, a 10-second TikTok kicked off weeks of debate. A wobbly camera stared down the center aisle of an airplane. A short story appeared, overlaid in white text: “I was seated next to a mom who had a baby in her lap and a toddler beside her. It was a lot. I offered to switch seats with the dad, who was a few rows up, so he could be with his family. He says ‘Great, thanks’ AND SENDS OVER ANOTHER SMALL KID TO SIT WITH THE MOM. He enjoyed a kid-free flight.”
The video was accompanied by a note — “A little sunday rage for ya” — and a soundtrack of women screaming. It has been viewed 6.6 million times.
The dispatch, posted by Kristine Sostar McLellan, the co-founder of the postpartum care company One Tough Mother, felt like an episode in a long-running internet-wide reality show — a show about people who are bad on airplanes, at least according to the social media users who surveil them. TikTok videos and Reddit threads are always beckoning me into a cramped seat, asking me to scrutinize random travelers and litigate their disputes. I don’t fly much anymore, but I think about flying all the time.
The plane, in 2023, has become a stage for viral comedies of manners. In recent months, I’ve watched a woman extend both of her arms to block the seat in front of her from reclining. I read about a guy who grounded a plane because he didn’t get his first-choice meal. I saw an adult man lose it over a screaming baby — and scream back.
There’s something about the airplane that makes even a minor dispute feel like a big deal. Tabloids regularly repackage anonymous Reddit threads about the quirks of seat switching, seat reclining, seat back grabbing, service animals or the choreography of deplaning. The New York Post will scrape a dispute directly from Reddit and give it a headline in the style of a personal essay, like: “I left my wife behind at the airport and I’m not sorry — she needs to learn time management.” (And I’ll read it!) McLellan’s video has been squeezed through dozens of online news sites, fueling stories on the “deadbeat dad” who ducked his duties midair, the “TikTok mom” who exposed him and the debate it raised over the division of labor between mothers and fathers.
Dramatic footage of in-fight meltdowns can create tabloid fixtures, but the offending fliers are often unidentifiable. They appear as cursed images: a curtain of hair grazing the tray table behind it; a wandering hand snaking through a seat…
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