People are bragging on TikTok about lying for their own benefit. Is our culture falling apart?

Human history is full of fraudsters and liars who have no problem lying, stealing, and cheating to get what they want. Even a healthy, moral culture will have these types, but in a healthy and moral culture, the knaves will be ashamed of their behavior. A culture may be ill or amoral if people go public bragging about their dishonesty.

Since the Internet genre of “life hacks” was invented, a significant portion of these “
life hacks
” have amounted to lying or cheating. Fraud as a Life Hack is popular enough that it’s spawned its own ecosystem, including people
falsely
claiming to steal stuff and parodies (at least, I think this one is a parody).

Again, what’s surprising isn’t that people lie to get free or nice stuff. It’s that they brag about it.

The latest viral example is “
poor man’s First Class
.”

This British TikTok travel hack guy recommends buying a whole row of three seats on an airplane but making sure two of those seats are fully refundable — and then canceling those two refundable seats 45 minutes before the flight.

The ethical problem here is not merely that you are buying something with the intention of never using it, which is ripping off the airline, but that you are harming other passengers through your dishonesty. At worst, some passengers won’t be able to get on the flight because they’re holding two tickets they intend to return when it is too late for those passengers to buy them.

At best, maybe you forced one of your fellow passengers into a full row of three instead of sitting in a row with an empty middle seat.

Travel writer Gary Leff makes a few
points
about this specific dishonest hack:

• You can actually book more than one seat for yourself. “Poor man’s first class” would be buying 3 seats in a row for yourself, cheap, and 
  major airlines generally let you do this
  , but you’ll need to call.
• Canceling tickets at the last minute, though, doesn’t actually get you these empty seats. Passengers on standby will get them, certainly on a full flight. Other passengers may move into these seats also.
• It’s against airline rules, in fact, it is fraud. You may have your frequent-flyer account closed and could even be banned from travel on the airline.

Leff adds, “Buying seats that you do not intend to fly, to keep other people from buying them, creates actual harm to the airline (it prevents them from earning revenue). They won’t sit idly by. Consequences could be even greater.”

But I have a broader point to make: I think a lot of people believe that if something is possible under the rules, then it is fine. In one 2019
article
on a blatant scam some guy ran to defraud AirBnB customers, the writer stated, “Considering AirBnB’s lax enforcement of its own policies, who could blame the scammers for taking advantage of the new world of short-term rental platforms?”

We all should blame the scammers. If you do poor man’s First Class by intentionally depriving other customers of options, you should feel bad about it.

If we publicly say fraud is blameless, and we publicly brag about dishonestly getting an advantage, that reflects a sick self-centeredness in our culture.