For me it was 50/50. 50% it was a joke. 50% the guy was "one of those a-holes". They exist so it's hard to tell.
They aren't always American as some other commenters have pointed out. Was on a tour bus from Paris to Giverny and some Italian guy thought it was okay to watch his sport events out loud the entire way. Had a similar experience on a long distance train in Germany and another in a train in Japan (western person, not American). It's crazy to me people don't get how annoying it is. I'm sure they'd be annoying if I pulled out something louder but it apparently never occurs to them.
I did not read it as a joke. Granted,I'm not American and English is not my first language.
In a way it made me think "wow, it had to be an American who doesn't care about others than him and is rude and self centered"
Which is stupid a stupid generalization I know. And also goes to show the ambiguity of written language. And how strong our preconceptions can impact our judgement (as it did mine initially).
The dry sarcastic humor of the author made it very obvious to me that this was satire. I have a very similar sense of humor, at least partly. And I'm a native American English speaker.
Giveaways:
>I logged in to my JetStreamers Diamond Altitude account and started clicking.
Satire! It's not called that, but it's a similar marketing wankery version.
>This clickable rascal would allow me to access the entire internet through my airmiles account. This would be slow. It would be unbelievably stupid. But it would work.
"It would be unbelievably stupid but I'm going to do it anyway!"
>Several co-workers were asking me to review their PRs because my feedback was “two weeks late” and “blocking a critical deployment.” But my ideas are important too so I put on my headphones and smashed on some focus tunes.
Even this was a sarcastic/satirical leadup.
>I’d forgotten to charge my headphones so Limp Bizkit started playing out of my laptop speakers. Fortunately no one else on the plane seemed to mind so we all rocked out together.
Limp Bizkit is a very famous (or infamous) band that gets notoroiusly mocked. The odds of even a single person rocking out with that playing out of laptop speakers is tiny. Two people? Everyone on the plane? 0.0% chance.
I don't know why I put so much effort into explaining this.
