Chasten Buttigieg Is Involved in Drama About Airplane Seats

People tweet shady things. It's the nature of the platform. But every once in a while that shady thing gets a response. And that response begets another. in a show of one upmanship. This can continue until either one has been bested or both have to return to their lives. It seems, in a recent back and forth, Chasten Buttigieg got the shortest end of that stick.

On Thursday, a Twitter user by the name of DeMarcus tweeted that he spotted Buttigieg, the husband of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, on a flight to Iowa.

"Live footage of me right now passing through first class on the plane and I just passed Chasten Buttigieg," he wrote. With the tweet, they included a gif pulled from the runway category of the 2012 North Carolina Awards Ball, In it, two female figures are walking runway. One, Kaila Prodigy (today she is Kaila Tisci of the House of Tisci), upon passing her competitor, unfolds an oversized fan, effectively shading, and blocking the view of her from the judges. It's clear that the shade was the purpose of DeMarcus' gif usage.

Though Demarcus didn't actually tag Buttigieg in the tweet, the affable and frequent Twitter user came across it anyway and decided to respond.

"Hi, DeMarcus!" he wrote about an hour later. "I'm actually back here in seat 38A. I was waiting at the front of the plane to give my upgrade away. Safe travels and I hope you enjoy your time in Iowa!" The tweet was the perfect, cheery response. Giving up an upgrade? We stan! Possible First Gent of the people. Except ... DeMarcus had more to say an hour later.

"That's odd you were in seat 38A, considering that was my actual seat." he wrote. "I was totally joking with my previous post and don't care about you being in first class! Enjoy Iowa! Super chilly out." With the post, Demarcus included a screenshot of his boarding pass confirming that on the flight from Denver to Des Moines, he was assigned seat 38A.

So what exactly happened here? And also, why sis? Out reached out to the Buttigieg campaign a few hours ago and they have yet to respond. But DeMarcus, has been fielding inquiries about what happened on Twitter for quite some time and a few other users have been doing the sleuthing for us.

According to a screenshot from a commenter on Facebook, Buttigieg did in fact give up a first class seat.

"When I got on the plane, we made eye contact and he asked me what seat I was in," a user wrote to Facebook. After they told him his seat, the user claims Buttigieg said "Well now you are in 3A. Make sure you have a drink."

The rub is that the seat was in fact in 37A, not 38A. Which is a completely valid, small mistake to make when tweeting something out. Except according to DeMarcus, he also wasn't in 37A, which would have been right in front of where DeMarcus was sitting.

To be clear, DeMarcus, who has since uploaded a photo of him sitting in his seat, clarified that he isn't claiming Buttigieg sat in first class. As he says, he doesn't know where the notable sat. All he does know is that it wasn't in 38A.

Oh, and that he's voting for Beto O'Rourke. So maybe it's not Buttigieg that should be second guessed here.