TORONTO — Leave it to TikTok to come up with travel’s latest craze.
It’s called ‘raw-dogging,’ a new trend that’s blowing up on the social media platform, particularly among males, requiring people to sit through a long-haul flight with zero distractions or forms of entertainment. This means no phones, movies, music, books or even sleep, food and water. If people can just sit there, for hours, without any stimuli, they get instant bragging rights (and, we imagine, a new appreciation for life’s little pleasures).
The craze can arguably be traced back to the Apple TV+ series ‘Hijacked,’ in which Idris Elba’s character sits stone-faced throughout a seven-hour flight from Dubai to London after thieves take control of the plane. This prompted a slew of copycat travellers to take the same approach (minus the bad guys) and share their experience with the world.
One TikToker named @oiwudini, a Manchester-based DJ and producer, boasted about his “new personal best” of raw-dogging a seven-hour flight with “no headphones, no movie, no water, nothing.”
@oiwudini 🧘🏻♂️ #fyp
New York-based comedian @kareemrahma said his seven-hour rawdog flight changed him and that he operated “in a different spiritual realm.”
@kareemrahma Just rawdogged my longest flight yet. #bareback #rawdog #airplanes #flights #travel
All fun and games (and likes and follows) aside, there is a serious downside to this weird new trend. Concerns over dehydration and deep vein thrombosis (the formation of blood clots in the legs that can sometimes occur during air travel due to sitting for prolonged periods) need to be addressed. So if you decide to raw-dog your next flight, know your limits, be safe and don’t be a hero (unless, of course, you’re Idris Elba).
