7 Reasons Why Paris Expats Can't Stand Emily

... And the Expat Influencers Who Still Act Like Tourists

Contents

Introduction

1. Stereotypes Run Wild

2. Ignoring Local Culture

3. A Lack of Realism

4. Exoticizing Paris

5. The "Influencer" Tourist Mentality

6. The Overhyped Glamour

7. The Ignorance of Local Issues

   Conclusion

When I packed for my first international backpacking trip, my father said to me:

Introduction: Why This Isn’t Just Another Rant About Emily in Paris

Paris Is a Dream—But Dreams Need Reality Checks

Living in Paris is a dream for many—and for good reason. It’s a city rich in history, beauty, contradiction, and culture. But after several years here, I’ve seen a pattern emerge, especially among expats and tourists who arrive with wide eyes and unrealistic expectations. And unfortunately, that pattern often starts with Emily in Paris.

A Show That’s Meant to Entertain—But Ends Up Misleading

To be clear, I don’t hate the show itself. It’s entertainment—bubbly, exaggerated, full of clichés, and sometimes fun to mock over wine with friends. The problem is when it stops being comedy and starts becoming a blueprint. When travelers treat Paris like a theme park curated for their Instagram feed, or when expats expect a lifestyle of fantasy and ease, they miss the real beauty—and challenges—of life here.

The Real Cost of Unrealistic Expectations

The glossy fantasy peddled by shows and influencers doesn’t just lead to cringey behavior in cafés and on cobblestone streets. It can actually cause long-term harm. Many expats arrive underprepared, find the reality much harder than imagined, and become bitter instead of adaptable. That resentment can derail their experience entirely—and for some, it leads to packing up and heading home.

Why This Blog Post Matters

This post isn’t just a critique of media portrayals; it’s a call for cultural humility. For tourists, it’s a reminder to travel with curiosity and respect. For future expats, it’s a gentle dose of reality to help you build a more grounded, resilient, and ultimately rewarding life in France. So grab a café au lait—let’s talk about what Emily in Paris got wrong, and how we can get it right.

1. Stereotypes Run Wild

Emily’s Paris Isn’t Paris at All

The version of Paris we see in Emily in Paris is a Pinterest board come to life—romance, baguettes, striped shirts, and impossibly chic people strutting along the Seine. But this glossy portrayal strips the city of its real character. Paris isn’t a perfume ad—it’s a complex, multicultural metropolis made up of layered histories, working-class neighborhoods, immigrant communities, and subcultures that exist far beyond the picture-perfect postcard.

Stereotypes Aren’t Harmless—They Set You Up to Fail

Expats who arrive expecting that postcard version are often let down. When the real Paris doesn’t match the fantasy—when not every café is picturesque, when customer service is blunt, when fashion is more Veja sneakers than runway chic—it can feel like a bait-and-switch. But that frustration isn’t Paris’s fault. It’s the result of having swallowed a script written by people who never actually lived here.

Red Lipstick Won’t Make You Local

Trying to perform Frenchness—through striped tops and stilted bonjours—won’t win you favor or connection. What will? Presence. Curiosity. Listening more than talking. It’s easy to chase an aesthetic, but real integration starts when you stop performing and start participating.

Paris Isn’t a Postcard—So Don’t Act Like It Is

To escape the trap of cliché, start by challenging your sources. Step away from Instagram guides and romanticized shows. Watch French cinema that doesn’t center romance (La Haine, Bande de filles), read books by French authors of color, or follow French news outlets to understand what matters to the people who live here. Spend time in neighborhoods like Belleville, Ménilmontant, or Saint-Denis. Volunteer. Attend a union protest. Go beyond what’s marketed.

You’re Not a Guest—You’re a Neighbor

When you live here, you’re part of the ecosystem. You’re not here to consume Paris—you’re here to contribute to it. That means letting go of curated expectations and allowing the city to challenge and change you. Paris isn’t just a backdrop for your aesthetic. It’s a place with grit, struggle, joy, and rhythm—and if you embrace it in all its forms, it will give you far more than just a cute photo on a bridge.

Would you like me to move on to rewriting the next section (“2. Ignoring Local Culture”) in the same style?

2. Ignoring Local Culture

Culture Shock Isn’t a Free Pass to Be Clueless

One of the most frustrating takeaways from Emily in Paris is how unapologetically the main character disregards the norms of her new home. Her wide-eyed naivety and social faux pas might be amusing on screen, but in real life, that kind of obliviousness comes across as careless, even disrespectful.

Manners, Missteps, and the Myth of Rude Parisians

Many expats arrive already braced for the infamous “rudeness” of Parisians, but the truth is more nuanced. Much of what’s mistaken for rudeness is actually a difference in etiquette. Emily breezes through social interactions without observing basic niceties: saying bonjour when entering a shop, not touching produce at the market, understanding when tu versus vous is appropriate. These aren’t meaningless formalities—they’re signs of mutual respect.

Learn the Rules Before You Break Them

Cultural fluency takes time, and you don’t have to master everything overnight. But making an effort goes a long way. Learn the basics of the language so you can greet people and navigate daily tasks with confidence. Understand how secularism (laïcité) shapes public life, why unions strike often and with pride, and how the French love a good debate—not necessarily to win, but to think. Real adaptation means learning to operate within the culture before questioning it.

You’re Not Here to Change Paris—Let It Change You

Paris is not the backdrop to your reinvention. Living abroad isn’t just about assimilating to a degree, but about letting go of the assumption that your way is the default. Resist the urge to constantly compare France to home. Instead, allow yourself to absorb what’s unfamiliar. When you move through the city with humility and curiosity—not entitlement—you’ll find that doors open, conversations flow, and Paris becomes less like a culture to conquer and more like a community to join.

3. A Lack of Realism

This Isn’t a Netflix Original, It’s Your Life

When you actually move to Paris, you realize fast: it’s not all pastel picnics and perfectly timed career opportunities. Emily's spontaneous promotions, designer wardrobe, and endless free time are about as realistic as skipping your carte vitale appointment and still managing to see a specialist the next day. The show sells an illusion—and illusions can sting once they start to crack.

Croissants Are Cheap. Therapy Is Not.

New expats quickly learn the Parisian reality comes with high stakes: job hunts with red tape, housing nightmares, relationship growing pains, and a second full-time job called paperwork. These things don’t get solved with a camera-ready pout and a trip to the Marais. When your fantasy of ease and elegance hits the brick wall of real life, it can lead to culture shock, burnout, and a deep sense of isolation.

The paperwork is real. The wait times are real. The miscommunications at the préfecture are real. No one is slipping on red lipstick and charming their way through CAF or URSSAF. Expats who expect the process to “make sense” or be “customer-friendly” are often the first to lose their patience. The truth is, learning how systems function (or don’t) is part of what transforms you from a visitor to a resident.

Romanticize Less, Adapt More

Or fuse the two and romanticize the realities the way one would fill up a gratitude journal with everyday blessings. So what does realism look like? Googling whether your colocataire can legally ask for three months of rent up front. Budgeting for both your apartment and the six weeks you’ll wait for Internet. A lukewarm laundromat and a local café that gets your name wrong but your order right.

Instead of chasing the fantasy, build a life that works. Follow people online who talk about mental health, slow adaptation, and the real cost of Parisian life. Learn about mutuelles, tenant rights, and how to refill your Navigo during a transport strike. A life in Paris won’t magically fix your problems—but it might help you grow through them.

4. Exoticizing Paris

Not Your Movie Set

There’s something particularly grating about how certain influencers—and yes, “Emily in Paris”—frame Paris as an exotic escape. This glossy illusion packages the city into a digestible fantasy, complete with cobblestones, string lights, and mid-morning wine. But when Paris is flattened into a mood board, its real depth is lost—and the people who live here become background props to someone else’s story.

Influencers and the Aesthetic Economy

Emily’s obsession with achieving the “ideal Parisian lifestyle” exemplifies the issue. It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of romanticizing an apartment with a balcony, dressing the part, and taking an espresso selfie in Montmartre. But these curated snapshots rarely hint at housing crises, overburdened public services, or the cultural tensions woven into Parisian life.

For expats, this disconnect can be isolating. When your lived experience doesn’t match the fantasy, it can feel like you’re doing something wrong—when in fact, you’re just living in the real world.

Aesthetic Isn’t Access

The most frustrating thing about this exoticized portrayal is how it silences the actual people and narratives that make Paris what it is. The lived experiences of immigrants, working-class Parisians, and people in the banlieues are rarely seen on Instagram—but they’re essential to the city’s heartbeat. These romanticized lenses ignore the mix of cultures, stories, and, like everywhere, inequities. Pretending otherwise doesn’t make Paris more magical—it just makes your view of it shallower.

Paris is Not Your Playground

The most respectful way to love Paris is to acknowledge and learn about more than the postcard version. Respect the people who live and work here—especially those outside the frame of your photos. Read about economic protests, immigrant communities, and French life outside Paris. Recognize that Paris isn’t “your escape”—it’s someone else’s home.

5. The “Influencer” Tourist Mentality

When Aesthetic Becomes Inauthentic

Spend enough time in Paris, and you’ll spot the expats who still behave like tourists—especially the influencers. They cycle through the same curated cafés, pose by landmarks, and post filtered stories that echo a fantasy more than a lifestyle. While there’s nothing wrong with enjoying Paris’ beauty, this surface-level repetition often misses the city’s depth and distorts what living here really looks like.

The Glitch in the Glamour

The issue isn’t documentation—it’s detachment. By prioritizing visuals over substance, these influencers ignore the local culture, political context, and lived experience of everyday Parisians. Their content can feel performative, promoting a lifestyle most expats can’t—and don’t want to—sustain.

Less Selfie, More Substance

If you’ve moved here, use that privilege to genuinely engage. Attend a photography expo at your mairie, wander a non-Instagrammed marché, or join a pétanque tournament in your quartier. Learn about current debates, volunteer, or just spend a morning doing errands in French—it all adds up to a richer life.

6. The Overhyped Glamour

When the Champagne Runs Dry

Let’s not forget the cinematic overkill of "Emily in Paris" and her influencer peers—champagne on balconies, couture parties, and spontaneous vineyard weekends. It’s dazzling, sure. But for most expats, Paris isn’t a luxury spread in a lifestyle magazine—it’s rent, bills, and the occasional treat.

Glamour is the Bonus, Not the Baseline

Most of us aren't spending Sundays at Dior-sponsored brunches. And that’s okay. The quieter luxuries of Paris—fresh bread still warm from the oven, a café where the waiter knows your order, a bench with a view—offer deeper, longer-lasting joy. Learn to see glamour in the everyday.

Budget for Reality, Not Fantasy

You’ll need to budget like a local, not a lifestyle influencer. That means understanding the cost of housing, healthcare, and transportation. Our Pre-Move Reality Check Guide can help with this. A fulfilling life here doesn’t depend on impressing anyone—it depends on building a life that actually works. When you’re grounded in reality, the magical moments will still come—unexpected, unscripted, and far more meaningful than anything on Netflix.

7. The Ignorance of Local Issues

The Eiffel Tower Isn’t the Only Thing Worth Noticing

One of the most frustrating elements of shows like Emily in Paris—and many influencers who mimic its tone—is the complete absence of local context. Social inequality, protests, immigration issues, and housing shortages? Not exactly showing up between the macaron shots and champagne toasts.

Ask Questions, Then Listen

This kind of willful ignorance isn’t charming—it’s dismissive. As expats, we have a responsibility to pay attention. Before posting about a strike or sharing your take on French politics, do your homework. Follow local media, listen to your French peers, and read beyond the headlines. And if you don’t understand something? Ask. Then really listen.

Support Quietly, Respect Loudly

Your privilege as a foreigner may insulate you from challenges others face—acknowledge that. If you have a platform, share space, don’t dominate it. You don’t need to be an expert; you need to be respectful. Living in a place means caring about what it’s going through, even if it’s not your forever home.

Conclusion: Paris Deserves More Than a Filter

Living in Paris as an expat is many things—enchanting, overwhelming, transformative, and at times deeply frustrating. It’s a city full of beauty, yes, but also one of complexity and contradiction. Shows like Emily in Paris and the influencers who mimic its aesthetic may offer light escapism, but they rarely show what life here actually demands: patience, adaptability, and humility.

Idealized versions of Paris can set visitors and new expats up for disappointment. But with open eyes and grounded expectations, you can build a version of Paris life that is far more meaningful than the filtered dream.

So bring your curiosity, your courage, and your willingness to be changed. Paris isn’t a fantasy to step into. It’s a city to grow with, to get to know slowly. And if you let it, it might just become home—not in spite of its imperfections, but because of them.

If you’re curious to explore more—like the history of expats in Paris, or the modern immigrant experience—restez avec nous. More to come soon.

And if you're at a crossroads in your own journey, we're here for that too, with tools in our SHOP, and services you can BOOK.

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