Influencer paradise: ‘They were screaming … then they took them away’

This unknown street suddenly exploded and now “mad” residents face swarms of super fans. James Weir knocks on the front door of cultural delusion.

It’s not the Olympics that’s bringing tourists into Paris - it’s a Netflix show about a clueless American girl who refuses to speak the language.

“That’s where she lives,” a man whispers in a New Yorker accent to his girlfriend as they skulk outside a stone building in Place de l’Estrapade, a chic cobblestoned pocket in the Latin Quarter.

He points up at a window on the third floor. She raises her phone to snap photos.

They talk like they know the chick inside.

Suddenly, the large timber doors open and an older woman busts out. She stares at the couple, who are now photographing her. The look on her face isn’t one of surprise. Rather, exasperation - as if this is a daily inconvenience that won’t stop. She whispers something in French.

This is the scene that plays out every day, several times an hour, thanks to Emily In Paris - the fun and frothy Netflix series that has streamed into more than 58 million households since it debuted in 2020.

It’s not the Olympics that’s bringing tourists into Paris. Picture: James Weir

The series stars Lily Collins as Emily Cooper - a fledgling marketing executive who moves to the city of lights to juggle love and career, all while wearing fabulous high heels.

It makes many Parisians and expats le sigh.

“You now see tourists showing up to spots in the city where they film scenes in the show and (they) don’t act respectfully…” says Lindsey Tramuta, an American journalist and best-selling author of The New Paris who moved to the French capital 18 years ago.

“It reminds me quite a bit of Sex And The City fandom and how residents needed to put up signs telling people not to sit on their stoop, as though they were Carrie Bradshaw.”

Like Sex And The City, the HBO show that supercharged cosmopolitan cocktails and Manhattan mania, Emily In Paris is fuelled by fashion, froth and financial fantasy. Both shows, created by Hollywood writer Darren Star, have inspired unauthorised city tours that drag fans to real-world set locations. It has become a travel trend known as “set jetting”.

Fans make the pilgrimage. Picture: James Weir

Within a space of 15 minutes at Place de l’Estrapade, about 43 tourists from countries as far as Japan, Germany and the UK creep down the shady street with sheepish grins and start snapping selfies at all the buildings they recognise.

There’s Emily’s apartment! Ooh la la! And the fountain in the small park! Oui! Look! It’s La Boulangerie Moderne!

“We’re not super fans,” insists New Yorker Lizzie Valle, 38, as she takes photos.

Recent data from travel website Expedia shows searches for accommodation in Paris increased by 90 per cent following the series three launch of Emily in Paris, while interest in flights to the French capital spiked 40 per cent in the month following the season premiere.

No new episodes were released last year, partly due to the Hollywood writers strike, but that hasn’t slowed down fans making the pilgrimage. Instead, it seems to have made them hungrier. And the locals? When filming for the upcoming fourth season kicked off in January, crude messages started getting graffitied on the now-iconic locations in the neighbourhood square.

“Emily f**k off,” read the words spray painted on a shop roller door.

“Emily not welcome.”

Influencers and fans have taken to ‘set jetting’. Picture: James Weir

As more tourists filter through the park, buzzing from the new teaser trailer that just dropped online a few days ago, the door to Emily’s apartment cracks open. Out pops a French girl named Lea, 23, who grew up inside the building that has now become a pop culture landmark. On this day, she’s juggling several bags and negotiates the heavy doors while trying to dodge photographs.

“At first I was thinking it’s funny, because it’s a really quiet area, and nobody knows this building - it’s not a famous building. But, suddenly, it becomes a famous building,” she says.

“And when I’m going out there, people are taking pictures. Now, I don’t think it’s funny. The feeling is not nice. Some neighbours think this is so annoying. They’re really mad about this situation.”

She shuts the large wooden doors and, soon after, another person approaches to take selfies.

“I just love the series and I’m waiting for August 15 for the new series to drop,” says Crystal Nahvadran, 17, who travelled from Lebanon to take pictures in the real-life world of the fictional universe she loves. “It’s gorgeous.”

The new tourist attraction has brought a new crowd to surrounding businesses, but it's not good for business. Picture: James Weir

She saunters down the street to Boulangerie Moderne where she’ll pay two bucks for one of the pain au chocolats, made famous in the show.

You’d think business has boomed for the bakery since Emily In Paris turned it into a hashtagable backdrop on Instagram. However, sales of croissants haven’t necessarily spiked.

A waiter says the business now serves more tourists and less locals because “they see all the fans hanging around taking photos and they don’t want to come in anymore”.

Marion Tamura, 30, has travelled from Japan. She purchases a baguette and proceeds to stroll around the strip with her new carbohydrate-laden accessory, as her friend films content.

At the restaurant next door, a tour group with 15 ladies and several bored-looking boyfriends stop to take photos of the venue, with its shiny red lacquered walls and gold trims. This tour is just one of about five unauthorised Emily In Paris city walkabouts that cost between 35 and 99 euros.

“It’s not the most well known restaurant in Paris but it became popular after the show,” the guide tells the super fans.

She’s talking about Terra Nera, or Gabriel’s, as it’s known in the show. Inside, a fan named Bambi from Atlanta Georgia is finishing her stuffed pasta with a side of selfies as Valerio Abate, the restaurant’s co-owner, shows off the Emily In Paris-themed menu he mocked up for a one-off Valentine’s Day event.

Since the show’s debut in 2020, tension has been brewing in the city. Some Parisians have taken issue with the selfie-snapping tourists clogging up their local cafes while expats haven’t enjoyed the portrayal of cliches and stereotypes.

“The perceived harm comes from the fact it tends to minimise the difficulty of living here,” says Jay Swanson, a US-born YouTuber who moved to the French capital seven years ago.

“And because of that, for some people, it just makes life look like it’s really silly and fun and fancy free and it’s anything but (that) most of the time. It’s a big challenge. All these things about how it doesn’t stack up to what the real experience is like - that’s what ends up driving a lot of people crazy.”

James Weir's Emily In Paris story.

Roommates Sasha Zunec, 26, and Natalia Tone, 25, live in the building next-door to Emily’s and say their lives are nowhere near as chic as their fictional neighbour’s.

For starters, the shop below their apartment isn’t a florist, like in the show. It’s an old printing store that sells toner cartridges.

But the biggest difference?

“Emily says she lives in a chambre de bonne which is a maid’s chamber. We live in one of those and it’s 10 square metres - not 30 square metres,” Natalia says.

They pay a monthly fee of 950 euros - or $1500 Aussie dollars - for the honour.

Sasha only moved in a year ago but had no idea he’d suddenly been cast as a background character in one of the world’s most-watched shows.

“I heard some people screaming, ‘Hey, Emily!’ At the building from the street ... and then they (authorities) took them away,” he says of his introduction to the mania.

Back over near the fountain, Ethan Kellough, a young Canadian man with a baguette from La Boulangerie Moderne poking out of his tote bag, smiles up at the apartment from the TV show.

“We’re living Emily’s life,” he says as his friend takes photos.

The big wooden doors open once more. Out stomps a man holding garbage bags.

Marion, the Japanese tourist who has spent the past 40 minutes snapping pictures, lets out a gasp.

“Oh wow,” she says. “Someone actually lives here.”

Facebook: @hellojamesweir