A viral internet trend has travelers carefully arranging the items in their airport security trays and posting the resulting photos on social media. While many people enjoy seeing the images, others comment about the potentially long waits at security checkpoints as influencers stop to photograph their belongings.
What are people doing with the trays?
Photos and videos of carefully curated security trays have been posted millions of times on social media. The photoshoots include items one would take on a trip and are often centered around a theme or color. For many, they are a way to show the essentials they travel with. For others, the photoshoots are used to highlight specific destinations, accessories, or items they like to travel with.
Designer handbags, sunglasses, and footwear often take center stage in these “TSA tray aesthetics” videos as travelers reveal their go-to travel essentials or fashion staples.
Quite a few people online have found creating videos and photos to be more of an art as they carefully arrange things in a visually pleasing way. Many of the videos have a minimalist style, with only the essentials arranged in a symmetrical fashion, while others are brimming with colorful accessories, books, makeup, and passport cases. One of TikTok’s most popular airport aesthetic influences, Piper Taich, shares videos of her trays with coordinating shoes, makeup, books, and handbags. Her most popular post is captioned:
“In my art director era.”
In another video (above), she shares what goes into creating the aesthetically pleasing trays.
Are they actually holding up the line?
Naturally, commenters online are quick to express their indignance that someone would stop an already long line to arrange their trays and photograph them before passing through security. For many influencers, this is what they do. However, this is not always the case. The videos are not even always shot on location. Some influencers, like Taich, have trays at home that they purchased on Amazon or elsewhere and use for the photoshoots.
Many of those who take photos at the airport do so in the staging area where people typically stop to put on their shoes, avoiding the ire of fellow travelers and TSA or other security agents. When asked if the photoshoots were causing a problem, a TSA spokesperson told FOX reinforced the idea it is best to do the filming once clear of security while hyping up the
TSA precheck
program:
“We are glad to see that travelers are staging bins for efficient passage through the screening technology…it may be best to take pictures at the end of the screening so there are no delays for other travelers in the checkpoint.
“We see a lot of shoes in some of those bins posted to social media, so we like to remind travelers that TSA PreCheck passengers are low-risk travelers who do not need to remove shoes, belts, 3-1-1 liquids, food, laptops and light jackets at the security checkpoint.”
Last month, the TSA revealed that its PreCheck program had surpassed 20 million users and that the average wait time for members in the security line averages 10 minutes,