Spilled drinks, shattered laptop screens and bruised knees.

A new video shows the reasons why seat recline on airplanes has gone from an acceptable practice to an extremely annoying nuisance for many airline passengers.

The video is part of an advertising campaign launched in late November by furniture company La-Z-Boy, which includes a petition urging travelers to “Stand up. Don’t sit back while flying.”

The petition had more than 186,000 signatures as of Monday, a La-Z-Boy representative told CNBC Travel.

The tongue-in-cheek campaign from the company known for its oversized plush lounge chairs touches on an increasingly sensitive issue fueled by expanding passenger sizes and shrinking seat pitches.

Unlike drunkenness and hygiene issues – such as clipping fingernails and taking off shoes – which are widely despised by fellow passengers, opinions on reclining seats fall mainly into two camps: those who say don’t do it , and others who argue that the tilt button is there for a reason. (A third, more nuanced position considers reclining acceptable on long-haul or overnight flights.)

La-Z-Boy’s campaign places the company firmly in the “never sit back” category. The petition states: “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

Another video from the campaign shows how a reclined seat can flutter through the plane like falling dominoes, eventually ending up in the last row of the plane – a row that is as unpopular because there is no way to recline as for it It’s praised for being one of the few seats on the plane where you can sit back with impunity, depending on the plane.

A 2023 survey of 18 markets by market research firm YouGov found that attitudes toward seat recline vary by region, with Europeans least tolerant of the practice. Europe is also home to the tallest people in the world.

However, it bothered fewer than one in three travelers in the United Arab Emirates.

According to the survey, passengers from the United Arab Emirates overall were bothered by fewer in-flight behaviors – including personal hygiene and noisy children – except for one. The survey found that respondents from the United Arab Emirates were more likely to view public displays of affection as unacceptable than respondents from Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.