“Raw dog” flights have sparked a variety of different, and often hilarious, reactions on social media: How long do you think you could fly?
DMARGE has covered a ton of weird travel trends, from the “obsessive travel hacks” people are using to keep their hotel rooms safe, to the leg-breaking seatbelt trick low-IQ people are trying on planes, to unethical ways to weigh your luggage, but this new “raw dog” business might be the strangest of the year.
What is “Raw-Dogging” during a flight?
Your first thought when hearing this phrase may have been an obvious sexual connotation, which is understandable considering that’s exactly what the more common usage of the phrase is, but in the travel context, the phrase seems to apply to people who endure flights without any in-flight entertainment.
Whether it’s seat-back screens loaded with movies, TV shows, and games, or even our own mobile devices, which may contain all of the above and even some of our favorite songs and podcasts, all of this is being eliminated by the “live-dog” trend. Perhaps most striking (or insane, depending on your perspective) is that this isn’t just an anti-digital idea: books are being ditched, as are analog entertainment like journaling and drawing.
Reaction to raw dog food
The trend has sparked a variety of reactions on social media, many of which are (as you’d expect) humorous, poking fun at the strange trend rather than taking it too seriously. Here’s a response to the following claim that a man survived a 10-hour flight with a “cheeky move”:
The most common comment was typically outlandish: “I usually take a 10 hour flight to the EU, sit there with no headphones or food, and succumb to the self-inflicted pain as penance for sins I’ve committed against the ancient gods.”
But it was the more succinct responses that really got me laughing. One person referred to “anti-brain rot soldiers” and the burgeoning trend of calling limitless media consumption “brain rot.” Another suggested the secret might be that the passenger “drank 17 beers before taking off.” Another renamed the trend “voluntary solitary confinement.”
A completely new article
A Reddit post also pointed out the entirely new nature of the trend, with an image appearing on the “r/BrandNewSentence” subreddit, a home for phrases likely never seen before in human history and therefore containing every new word that makes the rounds on the internet, and a screenshot of the tweet that read:
“The guy next to me on the plane had a really horrible attitude the entire flight. He was on a 10 hour flight to Europe in jeans, no headphones, no book, no neck pillow, and literally just a paper cup of coffee with no lid. Is he OK?”
X from @blackprints
Like many other viral trends, it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint where this one officially started, but the important thing is that it’s likely to stick around and crowd your news feeds for at least a few weeks to come. The real question is, have you ever had draft beer on a flight? If so, how long did you last?
