Man plays graphic horror video game on flight. AITA? Fellow passenger says yes.
When this man feels conflicted about a video game he played on a flight, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for playing a graphic horror game on an airplane flight?'
So about a month ago I (M) was on a flight, and to entertain myself I was playing the video game Scarlet Hollow on my laptop. This is a visual novel horror game that at times involves quite intensely graphic gore and body horror. The kind that would have a hard R rating as a movie.
As I was leaving at the end of the flight, the older lady I was seated next to stopped me. She remarked to me that the game I was playing was very disturbing and that it was rude of me to play something like that in a public space where people or kids could see it without meaning to. She said she’d been upset by them and also pointed out that there were young kids in the row behind us. Oops.
I apologized for bothering her, although I don’t know why she didn’t ask me to stop during the flight if the images bothered her, I would have! The kids I genuinely hadn’t noticed (they were very well behaved), but anyway their parents didn’t complain and I got no signals that’s they’d been upset or even seen what I was doing.
Reddit, was I an asshole for playing something upsetting in a public space that others can’t escape from? I might be, because I understand that in a plane when you’re like walking up the aisle from the bathroom or seated next to them it’s hard not to observe people’s screens.
I empathize with the notion of being a kid and getting traumatized for life by an upsetting image seen in a public space. On the other hand, I might not be the asshole, because isn’t it other’s responsibility to just look away if they don’t like it? I genuinely can’t decide. I leave the issue in your hands.
Let's find out.
laughinglovinglivid writes:
YTA. You shouldn’t need to be told not to do things like this in a public space, and the woman next to you probably didn’t want confrontation with someone she was seated next to for an entire flight.
narcadia writes:
Am I going crazy? I feel like I’ve seen this exact question posted except about a R rated movies and everyone agreed it’s on the people around you to not watch your screen. I don’t understand how a video game would be different. If people don’t want to see stuff that upsets them they can just not look at other people’s screens. NTA.
elegantant writes:
YTA When you have a taste in games/movies/music that you know is not widely shared and disturbs others, it's just common courtesy not to do it when you are crammed into a small space with people who cannot escape from you.
Alternatively, you could get one of those privacy screens on your laptop so only someone directly behind you has a view.) It shouldn't be someone else's responsibility to get you to stop.