Why isn’t it just as likely that he’s a massive bully who saw a perceived “weaker” person doing something he disliked and chose to react in a childish, bullying way? This is further reinforced by his “lightening up” on his abuse when recorded. Actions have consequences, and your choice to assume that the victim in this exchange “must have deserved it” sounds irkingly similar to another sort of much more terrible exchange that sees men overpowering perceptively weaker women. One that also tends to get the “It must be her fault somehow” excuse is thrown around a lot.
Sometimes an asshole is just a bully and an asshole because they think they can get away with it.
I live in a place where any international flight is long enough to involve sleeping. I can’t recall anybody reclining the seat in front of me unless the lights were off and everybody was going to sleep.
Nope, you’re right, the person in front of you is not to blame for you being in the last row. They are to blame for reclining their chair into your goddam lap. Just because your seat “legitimately” reclines into someone’s lap and there is no law compelling you to not recline your seat into someone’s lap does not mean you are not an asshole for reclining your seat into someone’s lap.
Yes, it sucks. The penultimate row, where you can’t recline your seat fully without being an asshole.
I think the airlines are working on a solution to her problem: planes where none of the peon seats recline. They also fit more seats to each plane, which is a twofer.
You are putting words in my mouth. You state “your choice to assume that the victim in this exchange “must have deserved it”” I am doing nothing of the sort and I think its pretty disingenuous to suggest that I am.
You seem to be tying to paint me as some sort of rape apologist because I speculated about a dumb interaction that some people had. Lets not have any nuance at all. Nowhere did i state that she deserved this guys tantrum.
Is this guy an asshole? - clearly
Did the woman deserve her seat punching? - clearly not
Did this guy act like he did because she was a “perceptively weaker women” ( your words not mine)? - we don’t know maybe
I did not take the FA’s suggestion. I asked the FA if instead if I could have a free drink so I can sleep upright, and she agreed to my terms.
But to be clear this woman’s knees were only near my seat because she placed them there, if she sat normally I would not have touched her if I’d lurched back.
There are times where violence is warranted. Being unable to recline on a 4 hour flight is not one of them, for me personally.
Oh? Personally, I’d say that, while he surely IS an asshole, we don’t see something very important here: the purported victim ever notifying him that she had a health condition that required reclining her seat. It’s also not mentioned in the accompanying article, notably.
That’s a dick move, plain and simple. No, complaining about lack of accommodation for your special needs is not justified, if you never informed anyone of said needs. From the given story, the opportunity for that came AFTER the video was recorded.
She also damn well knew she was in the second-to-last seat. Reclining your seat all the way back (which her seat very obviously is) into someone who cannot lean away IS going to cause friction.
So yeah, no… The rush to judgement over 35 seconds of video is bullshit, at best.
I can usually manage my claustrophobia, but I still have a lot of trouble with situations where something gets too close to my face and I can’t retreat. Regardless of what seat I’m in, I consider anyone who reclines their seat in front of me to be a sociopathic bastard who deserves nothing less than to be ejected from the plane at cruising altitude.
Designing a passenger cabin is similar to designing the optimal cages for animals. Small enough to not take up costly space, but large enough so that the animals don’t kill each other or otherwise malfunction in a behavioral sink.
There are all sorts of potentially legitimate reasons for the fellow to take umbrage; his size seems to be one of them. Of course, we don’t (and probably will never) know; these 35 seconds of seat-punching don’t tell that tale. It’s his chosen response that makes him an asshole, not the mere fact he was upset.
Thing is, from the lady’s own description of events, she AND the air hostess were assholes, as well. All three parties pulled dick moves, that simple. Of course, more often than not that’s the case, especially regarding viral videos on Twitter, FFS.
Before anyone blows a gasket, please note that I AM NOT excusing the guy. Rather, I’m indicting all parties as accomplices in assholery.
Nowhere does the video or the lady’s account mention her telling the guy about her back until after the video was recorded. You (as several people here are doing, as well) are making assumptions you don’t have evidence for.
The airplane staff are quite aware of the problems with the ultimate and penultimate rows; this is not a new conflict. It’s rather telling that the hostess responded as she did. All we have, so far, is 35 seconds of video and the lady’s account for what actually went down, and that’s not enough for this race to judgement, beyond assuming every party present was a flaming goat pucker, a pretty safe bet (although still not certain).
Let me put it this way: if you said that to me in this situation, when I asked you to recline a little less, I’d practice my (180 BPM) percussion on your seat for the entire flight, as well, because you were an asshole and, quite frankly, I’d feel like you deserved it, at least at the time. You DO NOT know what issue(s) the man was experiencing, of course, just the lady’s bad back issues.
Leaping to judgment using insufficient information is a pox on our society. Stop assuming things, simply to give yourself a pleasant jolt of outrage.
