Man Accused of Traumatizing Child with Inappropriate Movie During Flight, But People Are Blaming the Parents
Updated May 24 2023, 6:48 p.m. ET
If you want to make sure you're preoccupied during a long flight, you've got to make sure you plan accordingly. It's no secret that airlines are doing everything in their power to ensure that economy passengers have the least comfortable seating experiences imaginable as legroom is constantly shrinking.
The more folks that are packed into a plane means that there's a greater opportunity for someone to be up in your grill, which means that if you're bringing any devices or items on board, you have to account for space. The inconvenience of extricating them from your bag without disturbing anyone else around you, and having enough room in front of you to use said device.
And while smartphones are constantly increasing in size, they're pretty handy devices for entertainment when you're on an airplane, even if you don't have WiFi. There are plenty of ways to download movies or have a bunch of games handy to keep yourself busy when you're up in the air, and many airlines have opted for mobile applications instead of built-in TV screens for entertainment options.
This Redditor decided to provide their own entertainment on a flight, but his choice in cinema ultimately angered a mom on board.
An anonymous user who posted under the name @movieplanethrowaway told the story of a young child inevitably snooping on the movie he was watching while on-board the plane, which resulted in a dramatic situation. He asked a bunch of users in the social media site's popular "AITA" sub if he was in the wrong for watching Deadpool 2 during his flight.
The Redditor writes: "I, 19m, was on a flight to visit my parents. I had a few movies downloaded on my phone, including the second Deadpool. I was watching it on my phone with headphones in, when the part where Deadpool gets ripped in half happens, and I can hear a (muffled) scream behind me."
He continues: "I take out my headphones and there's a little kid behind me, crying. He had positioned himself in a way that he could watch my screen and had watched him get torn. His mom got mad at me and yelled that I shouldn't be watching that kind of thing, especially in front of children. But I wasn't aware anyone was watching me, and that kid would have had to force himself into that weird position to see my phone screen. So, AITA?"
He clarified in an edit in the post that this didn't occur during a night flight and it was the middle of the day and specified that the child in question was no more than 6 years old, so seeing someone get ripped in half was probably really traumatic for him to watch.
Throngs of Redditors stated that it was his personal device and he was entitled to watching whatever he wanted on it and it was basically up to the child's mother to ensure that they weren't watching content on other people's screens.
Some folks even suggested that OP come up with other ways to get back at the mother, like maybe pulling up similarly violent content on their phone to teach them a lesson about "snooping" and staring at other people's devices.
Others were just relieved to discover just what kind of "R-Rated" content the Redditor was viewing on his phone, stating that they could've understood where the child's mother was coming from if the content on OP's device was of a sexually explicit nature.
What do you think? Was OP in the wrong and should've considered that because airplanes squeeze folks together so closely that they should've been mindful of this and known that folks are going to have a full view of whatever he was watching on his phone? Or should people ultimately just mind their own business?