Commentary: Passenger Shaming calls fliers out for behaving badly

When I read Caroline Costello’s “Smarter Travel” post “10 Signs You’re the Worst Person on Your Flight,” I started to get queasy.

But that was before I’d read the Passenger Shaming Facebook page, which left me nauseated.

In fact, Costello’s No. 8 -- “You’re doing things that should only be done in private” -- is really what Passenger Shaming is all about.

“Use your imagination here,” Costello wrote in her post in March. “This could include anything from picking at your bare feet to examining your split ends.”

Passenger Shaming starts up where “Worst Person” leaves off.

The Facebook page, which a colleague brought to my attention, has more than 200,000 likes -- and I use the term loosely.

Here’s what the page says: “Photos taken by anonymous flight attendants & passengers from all over the world. Don’t end up here.”

It’s a veritable cornucopia of bad behavior. People with bare feet sticking up over the seat. People who have trashed their seat area. People who have left dirty diapers in the seat pockets.

The one that pushed me over the edge was the guy who was flying without a shirt.

As Renate Mai-Dalton, one of my professors at the University of Kansas, tried to impress on me, don’t jump to a conclusion and assume you know what’s happened just because you see a situation. It may not be what you think at all.

On the other hand, I can’t think of any logical reason this man would have removed his shirt.

For that matter, I can’t figure out what any of these people were thinking. Of whether they were thinking. Or whether they’re capable of thinking.

Which is why, I suspect, a former flight attendant, who uses the name Shawn Kathleen, started the site. There are also accounts on Twitter (@PassengerShaming, more than 12,000 followers) and Instagram (passengershaming).

Lots of examples are pouring it, according to the Daily Mail: “Since hitting the headlines earlier this month, it has been inundated with photos from anonymous passengers and flight attendants.”

These photos make Costello’s “people behaving badly” seem almost tame. Other crimes against civility documented in Passenger Shaming include used condoms on the floor, drunks being, well, drunks, and lots of bare feet in awkward poses.

On the Facebook page are T-shirts that say “Respect the bulkhead” (as in, don’t put your bare feet on the cabin wall) and “Friends don’t let friends fly with bare feet.” Having just done a column on stinky feet, I couldn’t agree more.

I’m not sure that calling people out will get them to reform. People who aren’t very bright often don’t have a grasp of their own dimness, which is, of course, what makes them not very bright.

On the other hand, there is the hope they can change. Maybe. If not, please, please don’t sit next to me.

Follow us on Twitter at @latimestravel