Part of the reason why the show unexpectedly broke through with so many men had to do with each season dropping in full during the winter, the past two of which have coincided with Covid surges. Reporter Matthew Zeitlin, 32, was drawn in this way. “Winter is very depressing, and I get some mild seasonal affective disorder and typically get gloomy in the winter. This is such a counterpoint in every way,” he told me. That it was unchallenging was all the better. “I have a pretty simple relationship with the show. It’s 30 minutes long, so you’re in and out. There’s no complicated plot machinations that you have to keep track of. It’s usually pretty basic,” Zeitlin added. “You need that as part of your TV diet, I firmly believe.”
Timmy Ngo, 27, who works in entertainment and watched both seasons in one sitting also opted for a nutrition metaphor: “It’s like junk food. It’s just so easy to watch.”
Many more echoed the appeal of the smooth-brained simplicity. Dylan Baldie, 31, the lead singer of the band Cloud Nothing told me that “in other shows, you’re really supposed to feel like you care about these things. And this show doesn’t have that. It doesn’t feel like it matters. It feels like you’re just watching someone’s funny Instagram video or something for a long time.” Indeed, Emily in Paris is less a sitcom with traditional plots that propel it forward than a constantly moving moodboard. “With Younger, you can kind of squint at the TV screen and see some semblance of a plot,” a female friend told me, “but with Emily in Paris, it’s like they just kind of gave up and decided to just put her in different situations.”
If the substance separates it from the television shows that are discoursed to death then so does the style. For dudes desperately cranking up the brightness during House of the Dragon, it can provide a welcome respite. Kyle Chayka, 33, author of The New Yorker article “Emily in Paris and the Rise of Ambient TV” and Emily in Paris fan, pointed to the visuals as part of the appeal. “Aesthetically the show is super fun,” he said. “It’s very brightly colored and energetic and the cinematography is pretty nice, which sets it apart from the kind of dark horror fantasy genre that also seems to be doing very well right now.”
For others still, it can provide a way to connect with the feminine world. Take Stephan Koleff, 29, a project manager. “To be honest, I like to watch shows that most people would feel are directed towards a female audience just because I feel like, as a straight male, there’s a lot to learn from these types of shows,” he said. “That’s why I watched a show like Sex and the City. I was a watcher of Gossip Girl. You inevitably learn a little bit more about women that you maybe wouldn’t normally have known.”
It’s also a show you can watch with your romantic partner. “When it actually launched, I was in Paris, staying with a girl who I was dating. So we watched it together and got hooked pretty quickly,” Daniel Zarick, 33, the owner of a software company, told me. He now watches it with his current girlfriend.
And sometimes, life really does imitate art—or at least, the Peyton Manning SNL sketch. As hockey beat reporter Danny Austin, 38, told me: “My friend Brett, he’s a former professional snowboarder. We will just spend full nights texting about Emily in Paris eight months after the show debuted.”
“I canceled my Netflix six months ago, and I’m getting it back for season three,” he added.
Gabriella Paiella
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