Actress Patricia Arquette quickly followed up, tweeting to her followers: “Leggings are business attire for 10 year olds. Their business is being children.”
And United scrambled to explain itself, eventually saying that the travelers were on “company benefit travel,” for which there’s a dress code that doesn’t apply to all other travelers.
United’s tweet was correct. Arquette’s tweet was also clever, and correct — about ten-year-olds in general, but not in this situation.
Of course, the “Internet” did not really “erupt.” People were angry on Twitter. And there’s a huge difference.
Think of the angriest, most opinionated guy in your office. Does he speak for you and your colleagues? Probably not.
The point is, sometimes the people who erupt on Twitter aren’t representative — they’re reactive. That’s what happened here.
As a general rule, are leggings improper attire? For shopping at Target, no way. For ten year olds? Generally, no. For anyone — adult or child — attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner? It might be inappropriate. It depends. Context matters.
For airlines? Leggings are on the high end of what people wear nowadays. People used to dress up for air travel, even for vacations. Now adults routinely dress like they’re going to a slumber party when they fly. So people initially learning of the leggings story had to know there was more to the story, before anyone “erupted” on Twitter.
Plus, “non-revs,” short for “non-revenue,” are subjected to a dress code, which only they can access on the United website with a password; it’s not publicly available.
Was a United employee a little overzealous in this case? Probably. But denying boarding to Pass Riders was within the employee’s discretion. Airline employees have a lot of discretion, if you haven’t noticed.
I once flew “non-rev,” in college, thanks to the kindness of others, who took pity on a twenty-year old with a negative account balance. I naively wore jeans and was almost denied boarding. I should have known better. They cut me a break. That was back in 1999. The point is, this system has been around for a while.
In this case, people on Twitter simply didn’t understand the Pass Rider system, and instead saw what they wanted to see: a nationwide ban on yoga pants, or misogynist, ageist policies of discrimination against women and children. And just like that, an outrage was born.
Where’s the Twitter outrage when that happens?
If you want to push a candle through a paper plate and hold a vigil, protesting the bare-chested old guy in the exit row is a noble cause. There’s no reason to erupt over a dress code that is part of an agreed-upon contract between airline and Pass Rider. All the airline is trying to do is raise the standards of those under its control. The general public should try to do the same.
