Passenger Shaming

There is a new cell phone contribution toward the never ending human cruelty towards fellow humans. It's passenger shaming, as in those Face book posted snapshots of oversized airline passengers violating their seat mates’ airspace or of travelers propping their bare feet against seat backs. How about the shots posted on Face book of the trash they leave behind after their flight. Those are but a few attempts to embarrass passengers, from a distance.....without their knowing about it or contesting the pictures if they are not what they may seem to the viewer.

We who have flown much in recent years, know that airline passengers can be rude and boorish, especially to the flight crew, who many passengers view as their personal servants or slaves. Some passengers probably deserve to be called out, but most don't. But now there is no choice for us, given those idiotic cell phone addicts can upload a photo of someone's bad in flight behavior without ever having to confront the person they same, nor suffer any consequences when they post something that is unfair to the subject of the post.

Where did the passenger shaming movement start? Well, with airline crew members, who are most often the abused persons on a flight.  Most of the original shaming photos came from airline crew members who couldn't believe what they were seeing . You know, those passengers who act like idiots or entitled animals. The word entitled is a key because many cell addicts who observe the bad behavior of their fellow passengers now think they are entitled to act as judge and jury, sentencing passengers (sometimes with their frontal facial views as part of the shame) to a posting intended to humiliate.

The airlines have now tried to stop their employees from using shame photo posts, but cell addicts are love the process an have taken over the shaming game. One wonders what behavior might actually deserve  photo shaming. Perhaps behavior that compromises passenger safety. But just plain old rude behavior seems to be no interest to other unaffected passengers. What about ordinary rudeness, like leaning your seat into someone's personal space or loading your luggage into the bin above another passenger's seat?  Might not a simple, private complaint to a crew member be a better way to protest against bad passenger? But then, outside of stopping their own employees from posting those shaming pictures under their real identity, airlines appear to do little to stop these anonymous posts.

Maybe they want them to believe the enemy is us. I am not sure of that.