American Airlines is facing the wrath of a U.S. journalist who is complaining that the airline was too friendly.
Fly the ugly skies. Sit down. Shut your mouths. That‘s what people want these days.
Clinton Yates, a columnist for The Undefeated and a panelist for ESPN, became angry when a male flight attendant addressed his fellow passengers by his name. The employee apparently used flight info to try to greet all passengers by their names. And no, not just the lucky ducks in first class who get the warm lemon-y towels and warm chocolate chip cookies. But also the masses, who were stuffed back in the nosebleed and no leg room section where you sometimes get a terrifying whiff of the airplane bathroom.
“The flight attendant man on this plane greeting people by their first names bc he knows the seat plan is not endearing, @AmeircanAir,” Yates tweeted late Monday afternoon. “It feels invasive and absolutely creepy. Please do find a way to end this practice.”
He quickly added, “Mans is now going around the plane calling folks out to discuss the linguistics and spellings of their names. Yeah this is not whats up. And for those asking: yes.”
Yates isn’t entirely without reason for his concern, but it is strange that he wrote about how “creepy” and “invasive” and “toxic” the whole thing felt when he says it did not happen to him.
In March, NPR featured a story on the negative aspects of having your private information being broadcast publicly. The story involved, in part, people’s credit card numbers being broadcast over a speaker at Starbucks. An assistant law professor from St. John’s University gave her students a weird Spring Break assignment — see how much info you can glean about people by public use of their information.
The purpose was to understand how much privacy people think they have in public spaces.
The answer is not comforting.
When a stranger tried to mock Yates on Twitter, he swatted him like a fly.
Hell, even that bitch, American Airlines, responded to Yates’s complaint a mere five minutes after he began tweeting about the aforementioned overly friendly flight attendant.
“We do like to warmly welcome customers on board, and apologize if this is less than comfortable,” American Airlines’ Twitter feed swiftly and kindly replied to him. “Please share the flight number with us.”
Yates replied, “No thank you. But please do understand that this practice is a privacy concern and opens the door for too much potential harrassment nevermind obvious cultural insensitivity.”
When you’re a journalist with a hefty 33.7K following, airlines respond. Yates previously worked for the Washington Post. He’s a longtime journalistic entity in Washington. He may not be as big of an influencer as, say, New York Mag’s Yashar Ali, but he has clout. (RELATED: A Washington D.C. Strategist Complains About American Airlines After A Bomb Sniffing Dog Boarded The Plane)
@TaliBiancaXO, the Twitter feed of a transgender woman, fired off her own missive at American Airlines.
“Hi American Airlines social media team representative!” Bianca wrote. “I’m a trans woman whose legal name has not been updated to reflect who I am as a person now. Hearing the name I didn’t choose — even in the name of courtesy — could be dangerous for me. Thank you.”
Yates had more complaints.
“Wow. He literally discussed how a family [whose first names he’d revealed by guessing them as a greeting] was supposed to be in certain seats, and now weren’t, thus [insert random woman’s name here] was able to travel in their seat,” he wrote. “His list hadn’t ‘updated’ at first, he told us.”
And then, “Yeesh. I feel bad for all these people whose names were just put on blast for no reason.”
Is your name “put on blast” when an Airlines employee says hello?
Soon Yates began fighting with a male follower who couldn’t understand what his problem was.
“Now this is ridiculous,” argued Ken Gude, who, according to The Intercept, was fired from a Washington think tank, the Center for American Progress, back in January. Ironically, his title was “senior national security officer” and he had worked there for 15 years. The organization accused him of leaking an email exchange. His current LinkedIn page lists him as a “senior fellow” at the Center for American Progress with no break in his employment there.
“There is no privacy issue with the airline knowing your name,” Gude wrote Yates. “It’s on your freakin’ ticket. There is no harassment at all. Get real.”
Yates tried to school Gude on what an atrocity this was.
“Your inability to understand the inherent danger of a situation is a reflection upon your own privilege as much as it is an absurd analysis of the actual situation,” he wrote. ” It ain’t about what the airline knows. Its about how that info is used in public spaces, guy.”
Gude wasn’t getting it.
“You complained about a flight attendant saying hello and using your name,” he replied. “And you escalated this stupid argument twice. I don’t think I’m the one who needs to reflect on the absurdity of this situation.”
Yates stuck to his guns and told Gude to “never at him.” He also said “privacy breaches” and “harassment” are “not funny.”
“This is more creepy, less helpful and as toxic as anything else here, man,” Yates wrote Gude. “Nobody is blind to this stuff or clutching pearls. Maybe you arent aware of this, but some of us speak up for each other as best we can in real time bc it matters. Crap time for snark, kiddo.”
In short, American Airlines, you’re screwed.
Buckle up. And stop being so nice.
Clarification/Correction: Clinton Yates’s tweets expressly stated that it felt “creepy” and invasive” and “toxic” to him that the flight attendant was greeting passengers by name. The Mirror incorrectly took that to mean the flight attendant had actually done this to him considering the number of complaints he leveled at American Airlines. Yates is now explaining that this did not happen to him, but to passengers in his midst. The Mirror has altered the story to reflect that.