Vigilante travellers are telling off rude people

Sid Lipsey
Updated

It could be the new path to Internet stardom: writing open letters to passengers who annoyed you during a flight.

Munyee Lau, 24, has become an international pseudo-celebrity since her sarcastic open letter to “passenger 15A” went viral. In her 550-word manifesto, Lau ripped apart a rude passenger who sat behind her during a long AirAsia flight from Singapore to Sydney last month.

RELATED: Dear passenger 15A...

Lau’s letter, which dripped with sarcasm, thanked the passenger for giving her “a full back massage by repeatedly kicking the back of chair,” talking and chewing loudly during the flight, and propping up her feet between Lau’s seat and the plane window. Lau even posted a pic of passenger 15A’s offending feet, which she vividly described as possessing the “putrid smell of death and decay.”
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As a written complaint, Lau’s letter is a tour de force of irritation; her description of the rude passenger’s feet — “I smell the anus of Satan” — deserves a Pulitzer Prize for next-level bitchery.

One of the better things the Internet has given us — besides the sum total of all mankind’s accumulated knowledge — is an avenue to publicly vent at unseemly passengers without risking public shaming, arrest, or physical assault. Lau’s missive got us thinking about our favourite examples of people telling off other passengers via open letters, tweets, videos, and in-person confrontations. Here they are. Relax, put your feet up,+ and enjoy.

+But not on Lau’s seat

1. Fly the unfriendly skies

Air passenger Kevin Winge posted an open letter excoriating a guy who marked off just about every box on the “obnoxious passenger checklist.” He shamed the man for yelling at the gate agent because of a flight delay (“It is shocking that the airlines would let a little thing, like a mechanical problem with the plane, interfere with your very important schedule.”); trying to board with an oversized carry-on (“I understand that the size of carry-on luggage is only a suggestion for you.”); talking on his cellphone (“Who does the flight attendant think she is to come over and insist that you turn your cellphone off so the flight can depart. Doesn’t she know that the rules don’t apply to you?”); bad bathroom behaviour (“I clearly see you’re one of those men who can’t be bothered to lift the toilet seat.”); and elbowing his way off the plane after landing (“Why should you be delayed by anyone sitting in front of you or by someone who just might need a few seconds to collect their things?”). If this passenger is as bad as Winge claimed, maybe the world would be better off if we took up a collection to buy Mr. Obnoxious a private jet.

2. Shaming a “pole hog”

A New York City subway rider felt the need to point out a perfectly sound piece of NYC etiquette advice: Don’t hog the subway pole. But to be honest, knowing how filthy those poles can get, we can almost excuse this guy for not wanting to touch it with his bare hands. Almost. Because it can be very annoying.

3. A very big grievance

Disgruntled flyer Rich Wisken’s 2013 manifesto was technically addressed to Jetstar. But it’s clear that the true target of his ire was his seatmate: a “morbidly obese” man with reportedly incredible body odour, who, Wisken claimed, spilled out over his seat and into Wisken’s. After flight attendants rebuffed his request for a seat change, Wisken wrote that he “spent the remainder of the flight smothered in side-boob and cellulite, taking shallow breaths to avoid noxious gas poisoning.” Anti-fat-shaming groups undoubtedly didn’t like the way Wisken described his fellow flyer as “an infant hippopotamus” and a “Jabba the Hutt” with “the personal hygiene of a French prostitute.” (Note: Another open letter purporting to be a response from that passenger turned out to be a hoax).

4. Subway slap fight

The “Open Letter to the Man Who Slapped Me on the Subway” has us torn. On one hand, no subway rider deserves to be slapped in the back of the head, as this writer was. But then, the writer explained what he did to earn the slap: He yelled, “Let us the f*** off!” at a man who was standing in front of the subway doors playing “Grand Theft Auto” on his phone while people were trying to get off the train. (After the slap, the writer said his assailant muttered, “Watch your mouth.”) We don’t like physical violence, but cursing at other riders isn’t cool either. And a note to subway riders: If you must curse at a rider for playing a video game, it’s safer to target someone playing a benign game like “Candy Crush,” not an aggressive one like “Grand Theft Auto.”

PHOTOS: The 12 people who should be banned from flying

5. Coffee talk

If you think dark roast coffee is bitter, get a taste of this open letter Katie Hoffman wrote to a fellow Chicago train commuter who spilled her coffee on the floor. The resulting coffee puddle oozed dangerously close to Katie’s prized handbag and her “scuffed, pleather boots from Forever 21 that click when I walk and make my butt look good.” Katie claimed the coffee spiller made no move to clean up the accessory-threatening mess. She wrote, “They say not to cry over spilled milk, but I think spilling coffee near another woman’s bag warrants menacing bitch face every time she sees you.” Who knew caffeine could be so dangerous?

6. “Get off my train!”

No one gets told off in the above video, but the message is clear: Don’t hold up a train by holding a door open. Watch the clip — you’ll get a “kick” out of it.

7. Take a seat!

Singer-actress Kamilah Marshall posed this incredulous tweet about someone who was apparently the last person to learn the “no standing during takeoff” rule.

8. He would have been better off just being late to the interview

Matt Buckland, a recruiter at a London venture capital firm, publicly shamed the commuter whose rudeness undoubtedly led to the most awkward job interview ever. The cringe-worthy incident teaches us all an important lesson: On the day of a job interview, always be kind to everyone you meet. Sure, you likely won’t run into the person who’s interviewing you, but your karma will be right. FYI, the rude tube passenger didn’t get the job, although Buckland insisted to the BBC that it had nothing to do with that brusque pre-interview on the train. Maybe not, but it probably didn’t help, either.

9. Woman lives the dream... of shutting up Justin Bieber

Justin Bieber’s run of embarrassing headlines in the last few years included a report that he was told off by a fellow passenger on an Air New Zealand flight in 2012. TMZ reported that Bieber and his entourage were cursing up such a blue streak on the plane that a female passenger confronted him and told him to cut it out. The woman, TMZ reported, walked over and told Biebs to “stop yelling curse words and using that kind of language on a plane. It’s not appropriate.” Fortunately, an embarrassed Bieber reportedly apologised to the woman. That woman should head up a special division of the Federal Air Marshal Service that specialises in bratty pop stars.

10. Middle seat anxiety

We’re tempted to subscribe to the Wall Street Journal based on this WSJ columnist’s depiction of an under-acknowledged aerial horror — the emotional roller coaster of waiting to see if someone is going to fill the dreaded middle seat. It’s an experience that has traumatised us, too. Brava, Joanna Stern; we’re renewing our WSJ subscription!

This article originally appeared on Yahoo Travel.

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