Meet Jake Bass: a 20-something Aussie CEO who just went viral for all the wrong reasons. His offence? Bragging about a $50,000 Emirates first-class flight to Dubai — and then serving up a motivational speech that made the internet’s collective eyes roll.
Bass kicked things off with a post on Threads that read like the opening of a TED Talk no one asked for: “Just flew my dad with me to Dubai. First class. Emirates. $50,000 flight. (A world away from the $1,200 I used to pay in economy.) 470 passengers. Only two in First Class — us,” he wrote, before launching into a metaphor about pilots, course corrections, and how “just a slight change in direction… changes everything”.
Photos of Jake and his dad living their best lives in first class — sipping drinks, lounging in pods, and generally looking like they’d never heard of an airport queue — were included for good measure.
Instead of applause, Jake’s post triggered a full-blown online pile-on. The comments section quickly turned into a roast session, with people calling him “greedy,” “selfish,” and “insufferable.”
One user summed it up: “The difference between you and the 468 behind you is that they didn’t waste $50,000 on something as temporary as a seat on a plane.”
Another: “Funny, because without my glasses, I read your name as Jack Ass. I’ll leave it at that.”
People also accused him of exaggerating the price and making his experience look even fancier than it was. Safe to say, nobody was buying what he was selling.
Just when you thought the drama had peaked, Jake dropped a bombshell: the whole thing was written with the help of ChatGPT.
“I say what I believe, and I get ChatGPT to work in a controversial way,” he told The New York Post.
“It’s the algorithm that makes me sound like a douche.”
Apparently, the post was designed to “trigger emotion, create division, and spark mass engagement”.
“To be completely honest, I don’t think what I said was wrong at all. I shared a perspective — one that challenges people to reflect on their own choices, and that makes a lot of people uncomfortable,” he said.
He even tried to win back the crowd by offering to fly one lucky follower anywhere in the world, provided they followed him on Threads and Instagram.
Not content with one viral moment, Jake tried the same trick days later, posting another “epiphany” from the Emirates First Class lounge, looking down at economy passengers. The response?
“Your post comes off as super smug schmuck, implying that those who can’t afford to fly first class are just victims of their own poor life choices. Bad form,” someone replied.
Despute the hate, Bass seems to be steadfast in his choices calling the backlash “the worst case of tall poppy syndrome“.
So, what have we learned? If you’re going to spend $50,000 on a flight, maybe just enjoy the free champagne and keep the AI-generated life lessons to yourself.
Lead image: Threads
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