Opinion-in-brief: Is Big Jet TV Guy the new Francis Bourgeois?
When Tim Berners-Lee created the world wide web in 1989, he probably didn’t envisage that on a windy day in the UK, more than 100,000 people would tune in to watch planes land at Heathrow.
Part of the fascination with Big Jet TV, the youtube channel dedicated to plan landings, was the host’s excitement. It very quickly declined into a kind of Olympics of flying, with the different national carriers pitted against each other. Some BA jets did some excellent landings, while an Air China flight, loaded up with Covid-19 test kits, struggled to come in smoothly.
He’s not the first travel fanatic to find fame. Francis Bourgeois, a TikTok star, has gained a cult-like following for his videos of trains arriving at the station.
Big Jet TV’s lurch to fame was a result of people hiding from the wind for a couple of hours, but it should make us think more widely about the sheer number of people who want more digital engagement on a number of issues. In August last year, a twitter space went viral as people debated the contentious topic of bin collections. If Big Jet TV guy can make more than 100,000 people care about planes landing, what else can we engage people in with something as simple as a Youtube live video?