Middle-seat plane passenger shares ‘rage’ over two men ‘manspreading’ next to her

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

The middle seat on an airplane is normally viewed as the least-wanted seat while traveling, with one woman on TikTok discovered the latest way the seat is unappealing.

In the video, Erin Rempel, who goes by the username @erinrempel on the platform, showed herself sitting in the middle seat with two men on either side of her, who have stretched their legs far enough that she appeared squished into her seat. Text across the screen of her video read, “female rage.”

“Why would anyone EVER need that much room??? I tried to get him to move but he wouldn’t,” she wrote in the caption of her video.

After posting, her TikTok went on to receive more than 18 million views, with many people taking to the comments to express how they were equally as mad as Rempel, with many calling out the display of “manspreading.”

Manspreading is when a man spreads his legs out in a public seating area, typically either taking up an extra seat in the process or invading others’ space.

“Girl you need to say something. They do not need to be over that much, if you’re nervous, call a flight attendant,” one commenter pointed out.

“Please just own your space. Take it. It is YOURS,” another commenter suggested to her.

The suggestions continued, with one person telling Rempel to kick the front of her chair “like a toddler,” while some came up with various phrases she could tell the two men on either side of her.

Other commenters reflected on their own stories where they were in a similar situation.

“I had that happen to me and I said ‘Ayo, If y’all gonna get into the space I paid for then give me money for the next flight, ‘cause I ain’t dealing with that right now’ They moved. 16-year-old me had enough,” one story from the comments section read.

“Once when I was on a train I saw a man manspreading so much that he took up two whole seats,” another story read.

“Yep, this happened to me and I just slung my leg right over the top of a stranger and he was very aware of space after that,” a third person recalled in the comments.

This isn’t the first time a video of someone’s seat on a plane has gone viral on TikTok, as a woman previously showed off her perspective of the very first row on her plane while traveling.

Jess Smith took to TikTok to post a six-second video with text across the screen that read: “When you book row one as a treat but it turns into you facing the ENTIRE PLANE??”

“Never going to recover,” she echoed in the TikTok’s caption. Although her seat was at the front of the plane, her seats were facing the opposite direction of every other set of seats on the plane, so she could be seen by everyone and she could also see them.

The video led to people in the comments section attempting to come up with suggestions she could use to make the experience slightly less embarrassing.

“I’d start giving a speech or something. ‘So you probably wonder why I’ve gathered you here today,’” one suggestion from the comments read.

“I would take out a pad of paper, stare at each person for several minutes then fiercely write notes, switching between giggle fits and angry scowls. If it’s going to be uncomfortable, I’m going down my way,” another person wrote.