Legging it

This past Sunday two teenage girls were not allowed to board a United Airlines flight at Denver International Airport headed for Minneapolis because they were wearing leggings.

That sentence is all it took for social media to go crazy. People too lazy to read the whole article were going off half-cocked hurling insults at United for being unruly. It doesn't take much to set off Twitter and Facebook, even something as trivial as this did it.

Here's the part people missed: the teenagers were "pass riders." Per United: "One of the benefits of working for an airline is that our employees are able to travel the world. Even better, they can extend this privilege to a select number of what we call "pass riders." These are relatives or friends who also receive the benefit of free or heavily discounted air travel... When taking advantage of this benefit, all employees and pass riders are considered representatives of United. And like most companies, we have a dress code that we ask employees and pass riders to follow."

The New York Times aptly named one of their articles on this matter: What Can You Wear on a Plane? It Depends Who’s Paying. Another New York Times article, After Barring Girls for Leggings, United Airlines Defends Decision, explains that this was started by a passenger who waiting to board a flight at the same airport. She took it upon herself to tweet about what was happening during the incident while saying that United was "policing the clothing of women and girls."

The leggings weren't really the issue. The only issue was that the teens didn't follow the dress code for pass riders. United wasn't doing anything crazy.

The only reason I brought this up is to paint a picture of the social climate today. Many people hear a fragment of a news story or a conversation and go straight to social media for blood. 

As I said, even something trivial like a dress code violation can be turned into a social media firestorm. People have mostly been this way forever, but social media made it easy for people to rant and rave while being completely ignorant. There were twits before Twitter.

As the young folks say today: check yo self before you wreck yo self. As in think before you do something. It's a crazy idea, isn't it?