As we all know — and my grandfather loves to say — flying is not what it once was! Smaller seats. Less legroom. Out of control fees for in-flight meals, checked bags, or even carry-ons. Charging us $25 to print a boarding pass! Why does flying suck so much these days? It has a lot to do with power — and how greed has overtaken our entire economy.
With this highly viewed video, we used airlines and their notable decline in customer service and satisfaction to demonstrate five of the biggest problems with the U.S. economy. Our goal was to use a relatable and frustrating experience, flying, to make these complex economic problems more tangible to the public. By focusing on monopolies, corporate consolidation, and worker treatment, we aimed to educate viewers on how these systemic issues affect our everyday experiences.
We highlighted how unchecked corporate consolidation, especially in industries like airlines, leads to reduced competition and diminished service quality. By focusing on monopolies, we aimed to expose how a lack of regulatory enforcement allows a few dominant corporations to prioritize profits over consumers. Our goal is always to educate. It’s behind the curtain of corporate secrecy that abuses take place, but by spreading awareness, we can begin to hold them accountable. We also aimed to advocate for stronger regulations to protect consumers, fair compensation and better working conditions for those working in the industry, and government intervention to tackle monopolistic practices.
We aim to educate millions of people about economic inequality and threats to American democracy through compelling digital content. To bring the idea of “corporate consolidation” and outsized corporate power to life, we used the airline industry as an entry point to illustrate larger economic issues. We began by developing a clear (and humorous!) narrative to connect these to everyday frustrations with flying. Key features included engaging visuals, clear data points, and a focus on relatable experiences.
A major challenge was simplifying complex economic topics for a broad audience, which we overcame by using visual storytelling and combining education with direct, real-world examples. When tackling this project, we also had to work around research obstacles. Corporate transparency is hard to come by, especially when it comes to the airline industry. We hoped to “lift the veil” on some of the corporate secrecy practiced by these companies in order to arm our audience with the knowledge they need to be informed consumers. Frustratingly, opacity is often used as a weapon of deception by these companies. When consumers are oblivious to the extent of their abuses, the industry giants are never accountable.
The fact that the presenter, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, who has been in and around government for 58 years, is willing to dress up as an airline captain if that’s the most effective way to teach millions of people economics, made this video possible.
With 4.2 million views across platforms and nearly 200,000 engagements, this video reached a large audience and demonstrated our ability to cut through the typical social media “noise” and engage a wide audience on key economic issues. The message of the video was not simply an economics lesson, but also a moral one as summed up in the last lines: "Try to be a little nicer to service workers and your fellow passengers – on planes and in life. After all, we're all on this journey together."
Virality is often achieved by funny or lighthearted content that requires minimal engagement from its audience. What makes this video's success especially impressive is that it tackles highly complex macroeconomic issues, demanding more attention and thought from viewers. Despite what is typically a roadblock to virality, this video managed to break through, using clever narrative storytelling and the classic combination of humor and a gimmick. We were even recently cited as the top emerging progressive news brand on TikTok and Instagram.
