The #PlaneBae Woman Would Like You To Kindly Leave Her The Fuck Alone
"I have been doxxed, shamed, insulted and harassed."
The woman at the centre of the viral #PlaneBae saga that briefly captured the imagination of the internet has broken her silence to ask that everyone please leave her the hell alone.
In case you missed it, #PlaneBae was a viral Twitter thread earlier this month started by Texas woman Rosey Blair, who secretly chronicled an apparent meet-cute between two strangers on her flight from New York to Dallas. The world fell in love with the story, although there was also considerable backlash over the fact that two people had unwittingly become the biggest thing on the internet since that time that cat did that thing.
Unpopular opinion: the #PlaneBae thing is creepy. I would NOT want the people behind me on a plane live-tweeting a private convo and tagging me on social. Neither would most people.
— Dona Sarkar (@donasarkar) July 6, 2018
Now, the woman featured in the thread has spoken up to confirm that yes, she found the whole thing deeply invasive.
“I am a young professional woman,” she said in a statement to Business Insider. “On July 2, I took a commercial flight from New York to Dallas. Without my knowledge or consent, other passengers photographed me and recorded my conversation with a seatmate. They posted images and recordings to social media, and speculated unfairly about my private conduct.”
“Since then, my personal information has been widely distributed online. Strangers publicly discussed my private life based on patently false information. I have been doxxed, shamed, insulted and harassed. Voyeurs have come looking for me online and in the real world.”
“I did not ask for and do not seek attention. #PlaneBae is not a romance – it is a digital-age cautionary tale about privacy, identity, ethics and consent.”
“Please continue to respect my privacy, and my desire to remain anonymous.”
The woman’s statement comes days after Blair deleted the #PlaneBae thread and apologised for her actions. “The last thing I want to do is remove agency and autonomy from another woman,” she wrote on Twitter. “I wish I could communicate the shame I feel in having done this.”
— Rosey Blair (@roseybeeme) July 10, 2018
Blair was subject to fierce criticism over the thread, as well as a now-deleted video in which she encouraged her followers to find the woman on social media, despite acknowledging that she wished to remain anonymous.