Not sure what forum to throw this in, but I had a coworker show me his Instagram account I was very surprised to see what appears to be mostly foreign, young FOs (and some attractive females doing yoga and flying a 737), that post pics of themselves in the cockpit. Some post a pic of their fancy aviator watch while grasping the thrust levers. Rarely is the captain or other crew seen in the same shot. Likewise, a ton of gopro videos accompany their profiles as well (does gopro sponsor airline FOs?). The same can be seen with FAs, primarily from the ME.

I am curious - is this the new wave of millennial narcissistic pilots everyone keeps talking about? Do these airlines they fly for endorse this as a PR outlet? Why is this such a phenomenon overseas, or has the FAA already cracked down on that nonsense?

Foreign countries clearly don't care as much as our beloved FAA does.

No pictures = not true, so please backup your statement and show us the proof!!!

https://www.instagram.com/pilotmaria/?hl=en

God bless Google

I think the FAA cracked down on guys in the U.S. about 10 years ago when everyone was posting pics of themselves in the cockpit on their MySpace page. I don't have Facebook or instagram or any social networking but from what I see from others, constantly taking selfies in uniform to upload on social media is common in good old 'Merica too. I think it's pathetic

I don't recommend it.

I think if your profile is on private so the whole world cant see it and you are careful who follows you then there shouldn't be a problem..

There are tons of these profiles. Most seem to have a "follow your dreams", motivational type theme, with hundreds of broken English comments along the lines of "I want be pilot too. I follow dreams." It's actually kind of frustrating because they paint a totally unrealistic picture of their jobs, especially considering most work for Ryanair. Some have blogs as well. These people literally make me want to quit flying. I kind of wonder if it's some sort of paid recruiting campaign.

Probably one of the most popular is pilotmaria. I made a snarky comment on her blog once. Of course it wasn't approved. Another one is this Air France dude, afpilotview. It takes all my willpower to not comment, "wow, you landed?" on his videos. There are tons of similar accounts though. All equally awful. A few are from the US.

There are some cool non-circle-jerkers on IG though. Indopilot comes to mind (great pics, but recently left papua)

Narcissistic personality disorder is 1 of the 10 clinically recognized personality disorders listed in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5.

Wow. Couldn't agree more. These ding-dongs make me look forward to retiring and never getting on an airplane again.