Anna Good
A TikToker who posted an amusing video reaction to a child screaming non-stop on his plane ride to Berlin, which he called a “29-hour flight,” has since received criticism from other TikTokers and parents who called his video and reactions to it “judgmental” of parents who are likely having a harder time of it than bystanders.
Henry Beasley, who posts on his band’s TikTok account @balubrigada, posted the original video on October 4, and it has gained well over 12.6 million views thus far. The text overlay on the video reads, “Rate my 29-hour flight to Berlin,” and shows his eyes twitching progressively worse and worse as the screaming goes on.
In the overlays, Beasley makes witty commentary such as, “A nice long one here,” and giving props to the screaming child’s “great projection” in his “stellar performance.”
Quite a number of viewers felt bad for the musician, and said that airlines “shouldn’t let kids on flights longer than 4 hours,” and that “Honestly there should be kid-free flights and kid flights.”
This sentiment isn’t shared by all, however, and many folks on TikTok, who either work with children or are parents themselves, have offered the suggestion that maybe people should just be a bit more compassionate for what the parents are having to deal with.
“This is a you problem, not a them problem,” another person commented in a Stitch of Beasley’s video, adding in her video caption, “there are kids who need to take flights as well.”
One TikToker said, “I know it sucks when there’s a screaming baby on a plane, but I promise you that no one is more miserable than the parent of that child right now, because they’re the ones who are having so much anxiety and stress that they can’t calm their baby down.”
Yet another mother stitched the video to say, “There are so many people in this comments section who are saying they would pay extra for kids-free flights, and please, pay extra for kids-free flights. Make the flights with the kids cheaper and just only allow parents with kids so we can all help each other.”
She went on, “We can all just have a compassionate, kind, loving flight, without people who are judgmental and horrible toward these tiny human beings who have a right to public transportation.”
There are for the most part no official regulations in place regarding crying and disruptive children on board flights, but there have been instances of flight attendants scolding parents for their child’s behavior, and one mother was even asked to leave her first class seat because of her baby’s crying.
Beasley followed up on the viral video by responding to one of the viewers who wanted kid-free flights by saying, “Or you could just plug in some earphones and then crank some bangers directly into your skull,” and shared a variety of his band’s latest tunes.
Admittedly, they are pretty banger, but they wouldn’t do much to drown out a child’s screams.