TORONTO — If you can’t travel, fake it.
This is the premise of a new social media challenge that’s taken off in China, where thousands of people are faking being up in the air at 30,000 feet.
My favorite entry in Fake Plane Ride Challenge. #budgetravel #toodleloo https://t.co/SDtFwYt8SW pic.twitter.com/HXfNAINU6F
— J Boyce (@beijingboyce) February 19, 2019
How exactly are they doing this? By using the hole of everyday household items like a toilet seat and the bottles of cleaning products to replicate an airplane window, and placing them on top of video footage of travel scenery on a smartphone. They then zoom out to reveal that they’re not actually on an airplane – it was all just fancy camera work!
According to the news site ‘NextShark’, the ‘fake plane ride challenge’ first started on TikTok, a video-sharing social media platform, in early February. From there, it gained traction on the Chinese social media platform Weibo, where it has already logged more than 27 million views.
We are blown away by the creativity of many of the posts and videos. But as hilarious and innovative as they are, we think we can all agree that nothing beats the magic of ‘real’ travel!
People are winning the 'fake a plane ride' challenge by using toilet seats and household products https://t.co/jKrcGiLx72 pic.twitter.com/0wsHnGRBMX
— New York Post (@nypost) February 19, 2019
