Louis C.K. famously once said “Did you fly through the air incredibly, like a bird? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight, you non-contributing zero?! You’re flying! It’s amazing!”
Despite this comedic, yet positively spot-on reality check, flight is, more often than not, a pain in the back. Maybe it’s the change in pressure, or perhaps people just naturally despise everything about it, and it clouds their minds.
Heck, it’s so intense that you can have second-hand hate coming from people who are not even involved in flying, but hear of a story about it, don’t read the comedic tone and get triggered anyway, spawning a conversation.
Or maybe it’s just Twitter. Maybe.
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There's something about commercial flight that ticks people off so much that even joking about it can cause an online discussion
Image credits: I G (not the actual photo)
Writer and director Zack Bornstein recently went to Twitter to share his odd experience on a flight.
Said odd experience pertains to him and his girlfriend taking a 5.5-hour flight in which the two were sitting one seat apart. One having the window seat, the other—an aisle seat. Why weren’t they sitting together? Well, there was a dude between them.
“Losing my mind, just offered the aisle seat to the guy sitting between me and my gf on a flight, and he said he’d rather stay in the middle seat between us,” tweeted Zack.
Writer Zack Bornstein recently took a jab at folks who prefer middle seats, and it sparked a fierce conversation among Tweeters
Image credits: ZackBornstein
Image credits: ZackBornstein
What was supposed to be a harmless tweet quickly drew some people to the conclusion that Zack is entitled
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There’s a number of reasons why the middle seat is usually seen as the worst seat on the plane. Folks on Quora listed things like not having the convenience of easily reaching the toilet, not having the luxury of looking out the window, the seat doesn’t cost any less than most other seats on the plane, among others.
Sure, there are upsides—you can chat up 2 people, granted they want to chat with you, and some people find comfort and safety sitting in the middle, as opposed to on the side, so there’s that. But the general consensus is still that choosing the middle seat is a move so weird, it might elicit at least one what’s wrong with you?
And if not entitled, up to no good by "manipulating" plane seating in hopes of winning extra leg room
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Considering this perspective, Zack took a subtle, lighthearted jab at the whole situation and its interesting blend of awkwardness. Who would ever want the middle seat? Cue the “cc: FBI” follow-up tweet as emphasis.
Well, at some point, folks started missing the lightheartedness of the tweet and a huge conversation kicked off. There was one side of the barricade who started throwing out the e-word… entitled. They called him entitled. How dare he not book seats so he and his girlfriend could be together!
Some pointed out how it’s not cool to supposedly deliberately book the seats on the side for couples, expecting nobody else to book the middle one, leaving an extra empty seat for the couple.
Other argued that there is nothing weird about middle-seat takers—just pure preference
Image credits: SuperJet International (not the actual photo)
Others defended the middle-seat guy, saying that some folk might simply prefer it. They elaborated that the person might have been on the spectrum, or simply felt more comfortable in that seat as flight can be stressful as it is in and of itself.
And before you ask, yes, he did offer both the aisle and the window seats, so it’s not like the couple tried to swindle him out of a seat or anything.
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But then there was the other side of the barricade that took it as a light-hearted tweet about that one rare occasion when someone does actually prefer the middle seat.
Then there was also the obligatory why does Twitter always assume you’re on the spectrum? tweet, poking fun at the stereotype of how the typical Twitter audience likes to assign autism to almost anything and then demand people delete tweets.
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One Tweeter explained that the couple might have been split up because some airlines charge more for preferred seats. And if you don’t pay more, you might end up with whatever seats you get. Or you don’t get to choose at all.
And while everyone was seemingly throwing axes at each other in this debate, there were those who just wanted to share their own seat-swapping experiences. Or just wanted to give a simple explanation to the whole situation: “end the relationship and begin one with the guy in the middle seat instead.”
Zack drew the conclusion that many of these hate replies are "psychotic"
Image credits: ZackBornstein
But there was also the other side of the coin where folks either tried to rebuke the hate, or just shared stories
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All in all, you gotta love pure chaos when it comes to discussions. Zack’s response was that most of people’s replies were “psychotic,” seemingly referring to how triggered a lot of people were. But it was a discussion, nonetheless, and points were made on nearly all fronts. You can check it all out in context here.
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Whatever the case, the tweet managed to rack up nearly 200,000 likes and thousands of retweets as of this article. And the discussion continued onto other platforms, like news media sites that picked up the story.
So, given all of this, what are your thoughts? Do you think picking the middle seat is odd? How would you have approached this entire situation if it was you on either side of this debate? Discuss and share your opinions in the comment section below!