Audio By Carbonatix
A video of a group of passengers calling out a “Karen” who tried to push past other passengers on a flight has gone viral.
In a clip posted multiple times to TikTok by user Brian (@itsme_brianli), a woman can be seen arguing with a group of other passengers—who end up banding together to call out the woman for her conduct.
But what sparked this incident in the first place?
The Case of One Lawyer vs. a Flight Full of Angry Passengers
As several parts of the video have been edited out, it’s difficult to determine where this incident started. However, from context clues in the video, it’s clear that one of the seated passengers, identifiable by his Maui Brewing Company hat, has taken issue with the fact that the woman has attempted to get off of the plane before other passengers who are seated in front of her.
“I wanna wait for the people in front of me to get up,” the hat-wearing man states. “That’s how we do it.”
“My God, you’re all whining for no reason,” the woman responds—implying that the Maui hat passenger wasn’t the only one taking issue with her behavior.
Soon, other passengers join in.
“Where are you going, though?” adds a man in another aisle, wearing a white shirt. “Let the people through!”
“You’re just a Karen, and that’s just the way it is,” the white-shirted man eventually says—a comment that clearly sets the woman off.
“Just deal with it, people! My God!” the woman says across edits. “Why don’t you all shut up? It’s not affecting any of you!”
The white-shirted man then attempts to start a chant of “Karen! Karen!”
“You guys are so funny,” the woman states. “You’re the Karens about it, because you’re the ones who are making noise. No one’s bothering you.”
The Argument Picks Up Steam
After questioning whether the person filming the video has the right to do so (while the passenger is likely legally protected in filming the video, filming passengers without their consent might go against the airline’s policies), she tells a passenger to “shut the [expletive] up” before adding that she can tell another passenger swears because of his “accent.”
The specific comment about the man’s accent inspires commentary from another passenger in a pink jacket.
“We’re not doing that,” this passenger says. “You can be a jerk, no, you’re not going to insult someone because of an accent. We’re not doing that.”
Another passenger, in green, adds to the growing sea of voices, calling the woman standing in the aisle a “low IQ human being.”
The woman in the aisle counters that people discussing “low IQ” shouldn’t use words like “ain’t,” to which the woman in the pink jacket claims, “I use ain’t, and I’m in a Doctoral program.”
“Oh wow, that’s a big deal,” the aisle woman says with heavy sarcasm. “I’m a lawyer and I don’t say ‘ain’t.’”
The aforementioned passenger in green then calls the woman “racist” for her accent comment. The woman responds by questioning the idea that she’s racist, alleging that the person doesn’t know what “racist” means, then ceding that she could be considered “xenophobic” because she took issue with an accent.
Contrary to the woman’s statements, discrimination against accents is widely thought to be considered racist. Additionally, “xenophobia” is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as “showing an extreme dislike or fear of people from foreign countries”; it’s unclear where the men from the beginning of the video are from, but their accents are identifiably American, meaning that “racist” may be a more accurate term that “xenophobe.”
At the conclusion of the video, the woman offers to show other passengers her membership in the Bar Association, to which a passenger responds, “After that video goes viral, you’ll lose that, too.”
A Recent History of In-Flight Incidents
The past few years have seen many viral videos of people getting aggressive on airlines. From passengers who lost their minds after seeing a massive rat on their flight, to people going on expletive-filled rants as they get kicked off of flights, to that one woman who claimed that another passenger on the flight was “not real,” it certainly feels like getting on a plane is a more chaotic experience than it used to be.
It turns out, it doesn’t just feel like this problem is getting worse; there’s some data to support the idea that it really is. From 2018 to 2020, the FAA says that there was an average of around 1,000 “unruly passenger” reports per year. However, in 2021, that number skyrocketed to almost 6,000—and in the years since, the amount of unruly passenger reports has hovered around 2,000 annually.
As noted by CBS News, the FAA can propose up to $37,000 per violation in unruly passenger cases. However, it’s unclear how many unruly passengers are actually given such a fine. For example, Tiffany Gomas, the “not real” lady, was only eventually cited for criminal trespassing.
@itsme_brianli “karen on a plane”
Commenters Share Their Thoughts
In the comments section, users were divided by the behavior shown in the video from all sides.
Many were in favor of the passengers speaking up against the woman.
“Public shame is so backkkk,” wrote one commenter.
“This is the most united I’ve seen America in a long time,” offered another.
“I went to be friends with the guy chanting Karen,” stated a third.
However, some came to the defense of the woman.
“Unpopular opinion, I actually don’t care when people do this because they might actually have something that they have to get off the freaking plane to do, like catch a connection,” said a user. “normalize minding your own business. plz don’t come for me.”
“Am I the only one kinda on her side? Why are they upset about her getting up,” added a second. “it doesn’t make sense.”
We’ve reached out to Brian via TikTok comment and DM.