Another interesting story resulting from social media use recently hit the national news. A dedicated Twitter user boarded a plane for a 50-minute flight. While waiting for the aircraft to take off, she noticed a couple across the aisle from her engaging in an argument. It started to get pretty emotional and heated as the young man and woman discussed ending the relationship right there. This Twitter user, Kelly Keegs, started to live tweet the whole mess. For those not familiar with “live tweeting,” think of it as a descriptive radio play-by-play of an event that happens to be transmitted through social media as opposed to the airwaves.

Kelly Keegs recently became a very famous Twitter user.

When Kelly caught wind of the argument she started to tweet out the dialogue between the couple word for word. Early on in the dispute she also tweeted out a photo of the pair. (I would love to re-hash the whole conversation for you, but it would do the feud much more justice and save me time if I just direct you to a spot where you can view the whole back-and-forth). The argument reached a boiling point and a breakup seemed imminent but then surprisingly the couple started to makeout. It gets a little better…

Once the kissing started, the plane was finally ready to take off so Kelly had to power off her phone. Once the aircraft touched down, however, it was right back to Twitter. Kelly reported to her followers that right when the wheels went up, the couple ordered six vodka drinks that they chugged between makeout sessions. What a flight!

Just a little sample of Kelly’s play-by-play tweets.

Now some people hail Kelly as a Twitter hero. A growing group, however, thinks differently. They label Kelly as a nosey, manipulative, drama queen menace. When I first heard of this story I thought long and hard about the moral dilemmas involved. In my heart I definitely wanted to side with the group who is petitioning for Kelly to be kicked off Twitter. But I feel if I do take a strong stance against her I might seem like a huge hypocrite for two reasons.

First, I am a chronic live tweeter. Mind you, I don’t just do it for my job or monumental events. I live tweeted my sister and fiancé going to the movies together. I live tweeted the entire 90 minute special of the 101 Sports Jeers of 2013. I live tweeted my dad shoveling the driveway. Many outraged people out there find the whole concept of live tweeting utterly stupid. Although the more reasonable folks just take issue with the subject matter of what she was live tweeting, I find it hard to strongly criticize someone who engages in the same practice I routinely do.

Second, I sometimes tweet out photos of random people. When I saw Kelly’s depiction of the #PlaneBreakup I wanted to immediately blurt out that the tweets themselves were fine but it was the photo of the couple she sneakily took that crossed the line. How could she broadcast what they looked like to her whole social media audience? But then I took a step back. In the past I have also tweeted out photos of strangers doing interesting and bizarre things. I never briefly considered that the image I took of the person holding the dog at the DMV might be retweeted 4,000 times, exposing her identity to everyone. Of course this didn’t happen to me but it did to Kelly (replace the image of the lady at the DMV with the arguing couple).

The infamous photo that Kelly Keegs took.

So what this all means is that I can’t say one bad word about Kelly Keegs. Until I change some of my own social media habits, I don’t have the tiniest bit of room to talk. I do think the situation is more unfortunate than funny but that is pretty much all I can say. I have no business calling a fellow Twitter user out.

But who I will call out is the airline. Did they really serve the couple SIX vodka drinks?! All at once?! On a 50-minute flight?! I have traveled on flights of that duration before and seen the airline kibosh beverage service completely. To think that they brought an obviously distressed couple that much alcohol seems a little strange. Can someone please cue Dierks Bentley’s “Drunk On a Plane”?

I would definitely watch something where a late night show brings the couple AND Kelly Keegs together for a reunion. I would love to see what goes down and what is said. I am sure someone would tweet about it. Don’t Blink.