Have you heard about #PlaneBae? It was a viral story that became famous off of Twitter on the Fourth of July. If you have heard of it, it is a big invasion of privacy. Do you think that someone should interfere with other people’s business. The fact this happened is no surprise, since it has happened countless times before. Humans have always been social, nosy and wide-eared. Many people have been meme-ified. Some people do it on purpose just for the fame.
It all started on a regular flight from New York to Dallas. Actress and photographer, Rosey Blair asked a stranger if she and Houston Hardaway(Rosie's boyfriend) could switch seats so they both could sit together. She agreed and sat next to retired soccer player named Euan Holden. They started talking to each other. Rosey and Houston sat behind them attentively listening to their conversation. She said her name was Helen and was also a fitness instructor. Rosey had her phone out by then and started live tweeting their conversation, occasionally sending videos and photos of them. Helen and Euan had started flirting and asking each other about their future. The story soon took off with 900,000 likes and Blair getting more followers by the minute.
After the flight they were still together. They got their baggage together and left the airport together. Soon news shows like Good Morning America and the Today show found out about this story and invited Rosie and her boyfriend to talk about it. Euan and Helen were also invited but Helen, who was not liking her newfound fame, declined. Euan accepted the fact that he flirted with a stranger and was documented without his permission and even took on the nickname #PlaneBae.
Originally everyone thought this was a feel-good story because it had a happy ending. Soon afterwards Rosie’s followers tried to uncover who Helen was and when they found her social media accounts, they threw mean and sexist insults at her. She had no choice but to delete all her social media accounts. Blair on the other hand actually encouraged them to expose her real identity and took this viral success as a way to promote her acting career. She even asked for a job at Buzzfeed. In late 2014 another one of these viral twitter memes was created. It was called Alex from Target. Alex was a regular teenage employee when a girl took a picture of him without his permission. It got over 1 million views and retweets. It also got Alex 300,000 followers and he did nothing.
Stories like these make you think that social media can be very dangerous. Anyone can record anything and post it to social media because you don't know who will see your posts . I believe that this should stop because it might be funny to the audiences but it is cruel to the person that is being exposed. If Rosey would have recorded it she at least should have asked if it was okay. She didn’t think about Heather’s privacy at all. Anyone can become a meme if they do something that is of interest to other people.