The viral TikTok movement known as “rawdogging” was originally developed to avoid digital manipulation. In this practice, a person (usually a young man) will stare off into space throughout their journey, avoiding anything that could be interpreted as work—be it watching a movie, listening to a podcast, or even reading. In particular, a rawdogger will have fun with a flight tracker map. Some people have referred to this as a form of “meditation.” Some call it “just stupid.” Well, now, in an undeniably stupid turn of events, rawdogging is going digital. Someone decided to make a rawdogging flight simulator, where you can pretend you are staring into space from the safety of your living room.
Rawdog Airlines is a free-to-play online game where players board a plane, take a seat, and then proceed to sit and stare into the middle distance for as long as possible. The game claims to use “eye tracking” technology to make sure you stay focused on your computer screen and don’t cheat by diverting your eyes. When you’re done rawdogging, the game records how long you played and, if you’re one of the top rawdoggers, your results are published on a public list on the game’s website. At the time of writing this blog, it appears that the player known as “mew no sibongo” is the reigning champion, with 18 hours and 40 minutes of game time. Holy shit.
Rawdogging has recently become popular on TikTok, a breeding ground for a number of brain-killing “trends”. Most of these methods are not real world things like pranks by influencers to feed their fan base. It is not clear whether people in the real world fly rawdog with any statistically significant frequency.
As far as I know, rawdogging wasn’t actually invented by attention-seeking Gen-Zs, though Seinfeld which, in 1997, aired the episode “The Butter Shave,” in which Elaine’s on-again, off-again boyfriend, David Puddy, infuriates her by refusing to read, sleep, or do anything without staring straight ahead at the brain—a deadpan version of the fugue state:
Congratulations, Puddy. You really were a rawdogger—perhaps the only one.
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