Groaning over airplane tubulence.

Groaning about turbulence is eating shit.

Chances are, if you’ve flown on a commercial airplane, you’ve experienced turbulence. Nobody likes the sudden, violent shaking or thrusting of a plane thousands of feet in the air, but it actually isn’t as dangerous or chaotic as it seems. I once looked it up! :) Turbulence is something that, for the crew, is completely routine and manageable.

Being rocked around in your seat is annoying, but the only thing more annoying than turbulence is the overdramatic reactions the other passengers always have toward it.

Whenever I’ve sat through turbulence, it seems like instead of simply dealing with the bumps until they pass, everybody around me starts moaning, groaning, and making other unsavory vocalizations to express their worry, fear, or irritation as loudly as possible. And I’m not just talking about the natural reactions we all might have to an unexpected stimulus (“ow!” “whoa!” etc). People on airplanes seem to be overdoing their reactions specifically to get attention and protest the situation.

“HEY!” (yelled out), “Whoa!” (exaggeratedly), “Come on!”, and “Jesus Christ!” everyone shrieks, after just a little bit of shaking. Like — okay, we get it. It’s startling. You know the pilot can’t hear you, right? Everyone acts as though going through turbulence is a deliberate, careless choice the pilot makes, as if they’re recklessly driving. What do they expect? That the crew is going to hear their cries, be disappointed and hurt, and relay those feelings back to the pilot? That the pilot will say, “oh, sorry, didn’t mean to make you feel bad,” and magically start flying smoothly? Calm the hell down.

Keep in mind that no pilots or flight crew will hear your griping, but wannabe writer boys with rarely-updated blogs will. ✍︎