One would think it takes a little more than a pair of dark glasses and a beanie to really disguise such a well-known celebrity such as Alicia Keys. It might even be easier to tell if a fan of Keys happened to really pay attention to what she was saying. She was actually quoting song lyrics, saying the word Grammy’s, and dropping so many hints that it was amazing that a couple of the people, or at least one of them, didn’t recognize her right away. If while watching the video you find yourself wondering just how it took so long for some of the riders to realize that their Lyft driver was Alicia Keys and not a woman named Laura that resembled her, don’t feel too bad since the reason behind this is likely that we don’t always look at people when we hop in a cab, or an Uber, or a Lyft, and it’s not so much a mark of disrespect as it is a bad habit that we don’t want to get to know the people that are doing us this service even if we’re grateful that they’re there to help us out. Having taken Uber and Lyft in the past it’s easy to state that both are great services that come in handy since for those that don’t drive it’s useful, and when vacationing in a city you’ve never been too it’s EXTREMELY useful. Let’s just say Uber and Lyft were two of my best friends while in New Orleans since there are long stretches between parts of the city.
But it’s not hard to think that a celebrity could in fact pass themselves off as someone else in some cases since unless you happen to be a very chatty person it’s easy to think that you might make small talk, a lot of people tend to sit in the back, and it’s not always common practice to get to know the person that’s only going to occupy a short amount of your time. It’s been said that the average distance taken for a Lyft ride is around 6 miles, while the average for Uber is around 5 to 7. That’s not a long distance and obviously some rides are much longer while others might even be a little shorter depending on the needs of the rider. But for short rides a lot of people might not even want to make small talk, as getting to know a person or even caring enough to look at them in all that time might not be on their agenda, as antisocial as that sounds. A good Lyft driver, meaning someone that’s courteous and makes the drive a little more engaging just by being friendly and paying attention to their rider as much as possible, will likely find themselves with someone that either doesn’t want to talk, which the best drivers will respect, or willing to engage in small talk up to a point. Much like any service job it’s knowing your clientele that makes the difference, and while Alicia was doing something that’s fairly positive since her riders were pleased to find out who she was, the idea of a Lyft ride is that you call someone,they pick you up, they take you to your destination, and they drop you off. What happens in between those moments is up to the rider and the driver, and while Alicia did sound like she was prying a bit it’s usually this kind of driver that will either be told, hopefully politely, that a person doesn’t want to talk, or will open the rider up a bit to being friendly.
Thankfully her riders were on the friendlier type since otherwise some of her questions might have been construed as being a bit nosy. That’s the trick with any service job though, it’s about getting to know people even if you’ll never see them again. It’s about being friendly, being open, and not being afraid to just talk to people. But with any ride that we take the average person is at least going to engage in small talk until they don’t want to any longer since being in the same car with someone and just staying quiet is kind of awkward. That’s why a lot of people will talk, and in this case that’s why a lot of people were bound to recognize Alicia Keys finally since she’s a pretty distinctive individual, and the hints she was dropping were far less than subtle. It’s hard to think that fans of the singer would be unable to tell who she was, but the only defense really is that there are quite a few people in this world who look like other folks, so it could be that they were holding their words until they were certain. John Berlau of Forbes has a little more to say on this subject.
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