Ronald Young Jr.
speaker
945 appearances
13 recordings
3 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 24 Aug
Ronald Young Jr.’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 10 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 3.
Appearances
Recently, I read a book that I felt characterized my experience flying very accurately. It's called What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat. And the name of the chapter was Into Thin Air. Here's a passage.
I've followed Aubrey's work for many years and was very excited to talk with her about air travel as she's talked and written about it extensively. We talked quite a bit about what she does when she flies in order to shrink herself.
Aubrey's doing the same thing I'm doing, attempting to avoid a crab walk to the front of the plane, doing whatever we can do to make sure our neighbor is comfortable and doesn't complain. Because if they get the flight crew involved, trouble could arise.
That is a terrible feeling that nobody should have to experience. But I feel like it's important to state that even without incident, flying is generally a terrible experience. I remember during a recent trip, I was sitting in my seat, and as I watched the rest of my traveling companions trudge past me to their seats, I realized that no one seemed to be having a good time.
It could be the first leg of a trip that ends in a vacation. They could be headed to see their loved ones or family or to collect a million dollars. No matter the destination, most people had expressions of some level of irritation.
That is Hannah Sampson. She's a staff writer for The Washington Post.
Hannah has written a lot over the years about airlines making changes in their services and amenities, and I wanted her to tell me the general state of air travel and what flying was currently like for most travelers.
If you've flown recently, this isn't exactly breaking news. But what bothers me is that the conversations I've heard about flying have often included straight-sized people complaining about sitting next to a fat person as an additional frustration of flying, as if we're just another thing contributing to cramped spaces and planes instead of people who are sharing this experience with you.
Aubrey Gordon again.
But that's often not a question that comes up because like Bridget said earlier, it feels like it's our fault, or at least we're made to feel like it's our fault as fat folks.
This is your host speaking. This has been my thinking recently. Why is anyone on a plane mad at other passengers? Unless someone is being inconsiderate invading your space, like, say, putting their feet on your shoulders or drooling on you while they sleep, when we're flying, there's going to be a lot of incidental encroaching on each other's spaces. It's just going to happen.
But we're all in this together. There's no reason to be mad at someone that's in the same situation that you are. Even if a baby is crying or someone is snoring, you could put on headphones.
But it seems that we're expecting that the tacit agreement is that if you're going to fly, you better conform to the space that you're allowed rather than allowing for discussion about why that space seems to be shrinking. And one of the reasons for the squeeze is that airlines have been constantly changing how they offer services.
These changes, Hannah says, stem from the introduction of budget airlines like Spirit and Frontier.
I remember when the idea of basic economy was introduced. This bottom rung level of travel that I think is beautifully characterized by Hannah saying, be glad we saved the space for you. Airlines essentially took the parts of travel that we assumed would come naturally as a part of the ride and have begun charging for each portion of it. Everything was becoming a la carte.
And the reason this is happening feels pretty obvious. But I asked Hannah for her take anyway. There has been no balance when it comes to revenue versus passenger comfort. Why do you think that they are on the side of revenue versus passenger comfort?
This is flying right now, capitalism at its finest, essentially charging to the point that for some folks, flying isn't even an option for them financially. And for those who can afford to fly, you can expect to have a more cramped trip regardless of where you're going, unless you cough up more money. And this is frustrating for everyone. Here's Aubrey reading from her book again.
I can't tell you how many times I've been slammed by the beverage cart because I was leaning into the aisle to get away from my seat neighbor. Or explain to you the anxiety of having to walk down the aisle to a bathroom that I can barely fit inside of. And even in these times, I wasn't mad at the airline. I was mad at myself.
Whenever I think about losing weight or imagine myself thinner, one of the first experiences I think about is comfortably sitting in an airplane seat. But that target is moving because the seats keep shrinking. After the break, we talk about why.
So in my conversation with Aubrey about airlines, she mentioned something specific about the seat sizes shrinking.
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