Curious as to the history of this practice. Did it start with leaving peanut shells / spilled popcorn and just evolve into “they’ve got people for that / they’re cleaning anyway?”
Curious as to the history of this practice. Did it start with leaving peanut shells / spilled popcorn and just evolve into “they’ve got people for that / they’re cleaning anyway?”
Comments
Honestly, I think it’s just laziness meeting “someone else will handle it” vibes. Popcorn and peanut shells were probably the start, theaters realized cleaning crews exist, and boom, leaving your trash under the seat became a habit. Humans will take the easiest path every time.
It’s been the norm since I was born
And I’m old
Edit: I’ve actually worked at large sporting events like NBA finals and the speed at which they clean places like the Staple Center ^or ^whatever ^its ^called is crazy
Somewhere between 30 and 60% of people do not have whatever it is that makes the rest of us decent human beings. Not sure if that’s an America thing or a human thing.
Most people aren’t very good people. I don’t leave my garage behind, I throw it away.
It’s totally wild. Especially people who make a huge mess! It’s one thing to leave like a can or bottle or whatever behind, maybe because you forgot to pick it up, but I have seen the most heinous messes and people who have no common decency to even try and clean it up. Sure, in most cases there are people being paid to clean it up, but they are still your fellow humans just trying to make a buck. Don’t be an asshole.
Is this the norm in the entire country? I have never seen this before. I mean yeah some people are dicks and leave trash behind but I’ve never noticed people specifically putting all their trash under the seat instead of throwing it away
People do it on airplanes as well. It’s extra frustrating considering that we (as flight attendants) walk through multiple times with trash bags to collect literally all the trash and all they have to do is hand it to us. Just reach their hands into the seat back pockets and give it to us. They don’t even have to walk it down the stadium steps or take it out the movie theater doors. At my airline, we are responsible for cleaning. People leave all sorts of terrible things in their seats like spilled foods/drinks, dirty diapers, underwear (seriously I’ve found it more than once), used needles, and just soooo much trash. It’s complete poor laziness and a lack of respect of other people. I never left trash behind even before I had a job because that just wasn’t how I was raised.
Sometimes I’ll just take a quick dump at my seat if the game goes into overtime or something
When they charge captive audience pricing they can pay to clean it up.
For instance, McDonald’s (was) is cheap so I don’t mind cleaning up my table. A nice steakhouse is expensive and they clean up for me. If they are charging $15 for a $2 beer or $12 for $1 worth of nachos, I’m not going to feel too guilty about cleaning up behind myself. I’m not going to be a complete slob, but if there’s more than a handful of stuff I’m not making multiple trips.
Whenever I think of this phenomenon, I remember the time when my dad took us to a major league baseball game when we were small kids. When we were leaving, my sister and I started to pick up our trash and Dad goes, “No, just leave it.” We complained that it was littering, and he said, “They pay people to clean this up. Do you want them to lose their jobs? They need something to do.”
Even as a kid, I recognized that was pure bullshit. But we left it because Dad said so.
Now, as a parent of my own kid, I wonder if he just wanted to get us out of there as quickly and with as little fuss as possible and didn’t want to have to deal with the trash. I’ve never seen him leave trash anywhere else, even when we’ve been to other stadium games like that.
I pick up my trash. It’s my trash, so my responsibility. I even try to pick up the little crumbs of popcorn that may have got left on the seat at the movies (within reason).
As a kid in the 90s I was taught this was the expected way to deal with hose items. Onle ibtot eh 2000s was there a push to have people not do that
Gonna speak for us over 50 folks. When I was a kid, you would absolutely throw your popcorn etc on the floor, it was the norm, Heck, most pizza places would have p-nuts in the shell. You just threw the shells on the ground. Now that is a novelty. When i reached the age where I realized it was wrong, and the usher position changed from being an actual usher to general clean up crew, I guess everyone else did too, so it stopped mostly. HS age probably. Now, it is rude and I bemoan anyone ding it. We were dumb, but just following our elders example, much like smoking back then….