A woman brought a microphone onto an airplane to rant about the pandemic in a viral TikTok.
The video, uploaded by singer Jawny, shows a woman shouting through a headset as she blamed the pandemic on people losing “faith”.
Since it was uploaded one day ago, the video has been viewed 1.8 million times and has received almost 200,000 likes.
On-screen text added by Jawny reads: “I bought in flight wifi just to post this. We are in the air right now.”
The incident took place on a New York-bound Delta flight.
At the start of the video the woman can be heard saying: “This is my microphone. You can’t take it. I tried borrowing yours, you don’t want to let me use it. I’ve brought my microphone, I’m going to use it.”
Addressing the other passengers, she said: “The pandemic started all because humans had lost a little bit of faith.”
Interjecting the tirade, a woman, who seemed to be a flight attendant, tried to speak to her.
“You’re going to cuff me?” the woman exclaimed.
Another flight attendant tried to de-escalate the issue, but the woman didn’t budge.
The flight attendant said: “Take your seat immediately or we’re going to have to cuff you.”
“I don’t need to be cuffed. I’m completely harmless. Also I think you’re all enjoying this because like I said, I’m not terrible to look at,” she protested.
She sauntered down the aisle away from the flight attendant and proclaimed: “The reason why the pandemic started, basically because the internet…”
The woman’s monologue was cut off by a flight attendant who ushered her back up the aisle. A man, who seemed to be a passenger, got up to help the flight attendants.
She continued trying to deliver her speech, saying the pandemic started because “no one here has any faith” and because people are “stuck to [their] stupid devices” and “don’t even know what reality is anymore.”
“My dog has better sense than any of you,” she said after she grabbed her bag from her seat and walked down the aisle out of shot.
In a statement to indy100, Delta Airlines said: “The safety of our customers and employees are always our top priority. We are aware of the video and appreciate the swift thinking of our flight crew who actioned their extensive training to safely deescalate the situation. The flight continued to JFK and landed on-time without incident.”
The top TikTok comment with 42,000 likes reads: “She really though she was gonna do a TED talk during the flight.”
Another person wrote: “That no fly list gonna be so long it’ll look like a CVS receipt.”
“Karens in the air. We call them Airens,” another user wrote.
Others questioned if this was a deleted scene from the film Bridesmaids, whereas others predicted that portable microphones would now become banned from carry-on bags.
Content creator Garrett Watts also weighed in on the comment section and wrote: “I’m gonna do this but just defend the Matrix trilogy.” Now that’s a rant we would want to hear.
Indy100 has reached out to Jawny for comment.
