A recent poll from the American Bar Association found that 85% of respondents believe that civility is worse than it was a decade ago, while only 8% said it’s improved.
Why do people believe that civility is on the decline? Twenty-nine percent blame social media, 24% said the media and 19% said it’s because of public officials.
A pilot on American Airlines has had it with “rude” and “selfish” passengers on his plane, so he gave an earful to anyone who would listen, and it was captured for posterity by comedian Anna Leah Maltezos. The video must have been cathartic for a lot of people because it has over 4.4 million views on Instagram.
“Stow your stuff. Get it out of everybody else’s way. Put your junk where it belongs,” the pilot said sternly before taking dead aim at those with poor smartphone etiquette.
“The social experiment on listening to videos on speaker mode and talking on a cellphone on speaker mode? That is over. Over and done in this country. Nobody wants to hear your video,” he said. “I know you think it’s super sweet, it probably is, but it’s your business, right? So keep it to yourself,” he added.
“Thank you for coming to his TED talk,” Maltezos joked in the post.
The video received a lot of comments from those who think it’s about time someone spoke out about the entitled folks flying the not-so-friendly skies. A commenter named agabean had the perfect response to those who didn’t appreciate the pilot’s monologue: “The people complaining about his speech are the people that need to hear it.”