Taking to TikTok, Patrick Warburton joked he was “concerned” for what he sees as his involvement in the “raw dogging” flight trend.
The actor said his Seinfeld character Puddy’s refusal of in-flight distractions on the show was “responsible” for the phenomenon, which sees flyers eschew things like headphones and even drinks for a truly “present” flight.
“My concern is that somebody’s gonna get hurt,” the actor, who also voices Joe Swanson in Family Guy and Kronk in The Emperor’s New Groove, quipped.
“If you go into this thing blindly… not reading, not watching something, you’d better be OK with what’s going on up here,” he continued, tapping his noggin.
“I’m not,” he added.
Well, Patrick, nor am I. Are we simply mentally weak – or is the trend (as I suspect) just a bit pointlessly unbearable?
“They’re idiots”
Speaking to the BBC about the trend, which footballer Erling Haaland partook in with “no phone, no sleep, no water, no food,” Dr Gill Jenkins said that those “raw dogging” flights are “idiots.”
In a previous HuffPost UK interview, nutritionist Toby King said: “The trend requires you to sit still for hours at a time and not take in any food or liquids. This is a recipe for disaster that could have terrifying consequences.”
Those “consequences” involve blood clots and dehydration.
But let’s say you’re in fine fettle after an hours-long test of nerves and sanity.
What could you possibly gain from staring at the plastic back of a seat for four hours, I beg to know? What possible mental enrichment can come from hearing nothing but tannoy chimes and baby sobs as your pores dehydrate under fluorescent strip lights?
It’s not the only suffering-focused TikTok trend
Like 2024′s “winter arc” fitness trend (which, like “raw dogging” flights, seems to mostly involve men), the only point seems to be making a hard, annoying thing more difficult and painful.
In the case of the “winter arc,” participants gave up more than just their headphones – some swore off sex, masturbation, hair (yep, really), and socialising, dismissing them as distractions with “no purpose.”
I wish I could pose a grand theory of pointless viral pain and why it seems to afflict so many Gen Z men in particular, but aside from general mumblings about perceptions of masculinity, I can’t really say what this fondness for recreational agony is about.
All I can say is I won’t be taking part, ta very much.
