It was a normal Friday afternoon for me when I had just finished school and jumped into my bed. I pulled out my laptop and wandered on the Netflix home screen where I had seen that a new show called Emily in Paris had just come out. Being a lover of “small-town girl moving to a big city” type of shows, I knew I needed to watch. 

I started the first episode and was immediately hooked, as actress Lily Collins, who plays Emily, moves to Paris from Chicago to work in a marketing firm and restart her life. She breaks up with her long-term boyfriend, meets new friends, and rises above obstacles that every American would expect when moving to a new country. To completely restart her life, she creates an Instagram with the handle @emilyinparis, and that quickly begins to gain followers, likes, and engagement.

As I was moving quickly through the series, I just had to tell all my friends about it, just to find out they all could not get past the first episode! I was shocked! How could they not like my new obsession? They all explained to me that they could not get over the fact that the plot simply was not true. So that got me thinking, what is the false reality that Netflix creates in the new hit show, Emily in Paris?

Let’s start with the language that Emily speaks. It is obvious that Emily is American and will speak primarily English, however, it is strange that she moves to a foreign country with absolutely no knowledge of their language. Many would expect her to learn at least the basics of the language, and it is nice to see many characters stand up for their culture by mentioning that it is straight-up rude.

Speaking of rude, the show is consistently highlighting the rudeness that comes from Parisians, however, that is a very cliche stereotype, and Parisians around the world started to take offense to it. The show has had several references to how Parisians show up late to work, ruin marriages and relationships, and call each other names. Junior, Sydney Barnes (11) adds that “since I have never been to Paris, this show does not make the people sound exciting, and instead, rude.” This simply gives a terrible name and reputation to a wonderful culture and city.

Lastly, is the very idea that Emily becomes an influencer overnight. Emily went from having an Instagram account with simply 20 followers that we can assume were her friends and family, to posting a very mediocre picture and gaining hundreds of followers overnight. 

Anyone with basic knowledge of Instagram knows that to get “insta-famous”, you must put so much effort into your pictures, and simply posting from the Instagram camera app itself, is not sufficient. Her fame rises so fast and she quickly finds herself with over 20 thousand followers and invitations to “influencer exclusive” events by just posting unedited, terribly posed, spontaneous pictures on her page.

Overall, the plot of this show is rather cheesy, but “oh so cute!” and it definitely gives its viewers a fictitious idea of what life in Paris is like.