Carmie Sellitto knew he had food poisoning before he boarded a nine-hour flight. He got on the plane anyway.
He threw up repeatedly, spent an hour in the bathroom, and kept a running tally of toilet visits for his 1.3 million TikTok followers.
The video hit a million views. The comments were not kind.
The 26-year-old London-based food influencer, known for reviewing high-end snacks and once taste-testing a £750 Harrods Easter egg, shared footage from the flight to an undisclosed destination that showed him getting progressively worse over the course of nine hours.
“Do not even ask me how I got myself in this situation, but I got food poisoning and had to travel nine hours,” he said in the clip.
“Tell me why airlines don’t have any paper bags to throw up into? I thought that was a normal thing airlines had.”
It started fine, then it didn’t
Sellitto said the first two hours were manageable. Then the turbulence kicked in.
“There was so much turbulence, my stomach was not dealing with it very well,” he said.
“It gave me so much anxiety. Throwing up in random places, especially on a plane, just does not work well.”
At one point he ate some of the airline food, worried about having nothing in his system.
It came back up. He spent a cumulative hour of the flight in the bathroom.
His friends on board were reportedly frightened by how ill he looked in the final stretch.
“It got to like an hour before the flight ended and my friends were so scared for me because I kept throwing up,” he said.
“It was awful.”
“You’re literally my nightmare”
The backlash was immediate and specific. Viewers were not angry about the content itself.
They were angry that he got on the plane at all.
“No, you don’t HAVE TO travel with something that might be contagious. How about start to show some respect for others?” one commenter wrote.
“Are we aware masks exist? You did in fact not have to risk the crew’s or passengers’ health,” said another.
“You’re literally my nightmare,” agreed someone else. Others suggested changing the flight or extending his stay.
Sellitto was unbothered. “I’m not going to miss my £800 flight… thank you though,” he replied to one critic.
Some followers sided with him. “You are right, if it was me, there was no way I was wasting my £800,” one person wrote, while acknowledging it was also their worst nightmare as a fellow passenger.
“My biggest fear is being on a plane with someone that is throwing up,” one person said.
Why it matters
The video works as content precisely because it made people angry.
Sellitto’s decision to film himself being visibly ill on a plane, and to frame it as relatable comedy rather than a lapse in judgement, guaranteed a comment section full of strong opinions.
That is the engagement model working exactly as intended. For creators, the calculation is increasingly transparent: a video that makes a million people annoyed is worth more than one that makes ten thousand people nod.
Whether Sellitto planned the backlash or simply did not care about it, the result is the same.
Airline etiquette content reliably generates debate because flying is one of the few remaining experiences where strangers are forced into close proximity with no option to leave. Everyone has an opinion.
Everyone thinks theirs is correct.
Sellitto landed, presumably recovered, and will almost certainly review something expensive again soon.
His fellow passengers have not been heard from.
