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27th Jun 2024

People shocked by new trend of men ‘rawdogging’ flights

Charlie Herbert

It’s not for everyone…

People have been left shocked after hearing about the latest travel trend of men ‘rawdogging’ flights.

Before your mind goes into overdrive about what that means, we’ll enlighten you.

Rawdogging a flight is the latest travel trend where passengers forego in-flight entertainment, music, snacks, and sleep, enduring long flights with no distractions.

Instead of watching films or listening to music, the ‘rawdogger’ just sits silently and watches the real-time flight map on the screen in front of them, for the entire trip.

The idea has become something of a viral trend recently, with men sharing their own ‘rawdogging experiences’ online.

In a video on TikTok, @oiwudini posted a video with the caption: “Just rawdogged a 7 hour flight (new personal best). No headphones, no movie, no water, nothing. Incredible. The power of my mind knows no bounds.”

Meanwhile, @westwashere racked up almost 300,000 likes on a TikTok of him completing a “7 hour flight only watching the maps.”

Speaking about the reasoning for ‘rawdogging’ – or ‘barebacking’ – flights, West told GQ that he had “got sick of watching the same movies” on flights, and said consuming no entertainment on a flight was like a form of meditation.

He told the publication: “Visually, you are kind of impaired. You only get to look at the seat in front of you, to your right or left if you’re at the window. All you hear is that drumming sound of the engine. It’s just white noise.”

Another man said they can’t focus “on anything on a plane” because they’re a nervous flier, so he’s used the flight map as his only entertainment on a plane for years.

The concept of sitting in silence with absolutely nothing to do for hours on end has, unsurprisingly, left people baffled.

In a post on X, one person wrote: “I can’t think of anyone worse that Rawdogging a flight. Give me the booze, put on the movie, bring them snacks, I’ll put the pod on.”

Another said: “To me this is just wasting time. You could sleep, or do a whole host of activities to catch up on work, life, etc.”

A third wrote: “People who raw dog flights without headphones, a book, a movie etc etc just sitting there eyes open for hours are not human to me.”

Some shared their own experiences though, with one person writing: “I’ve done this quite often actually, especially when I travel alone. I enjoy the low distraction environment to organise my thoughts/work through ideas without the expectation of black & white output.”