Under the Influence (with Jo Piazza) - September 06, 2026


Sunday Nice Things： Did Emily Ruin Paris？

Topics
Emily in Paris TikTok ruin tourism
The Tradwife Era Is Over. So Why Are We Still Obsessed？ ＂How Not to Look Like Shit＂： Bobbi Brown on Makeup, Aging, and Being Scrappy Forever

Episode Stats


Length

34 minutes

Words per minute

162.56

Word count

5,570

Sentence count

337

Harmful content

Misogyny

4

sentences flagged

Toxicity

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
00:00:00.000 You want to impress them on a first date, but also play it cool.
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00:00:35.800 at FX's The Drop, a snowfall saga.
00:00:39.060 Streaming September 9th on Hulu on Disney+.
00:00:41.340 Click or tap the banner to sign up now.
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00:01:20.580 Hey all, Jo here and you are listening to Under the Influence.
00:01:24.460 I love Paris.
00:01:25.900 This is very obvious, right?
00:01:27.280 I mean, I just wrote a whole book about it.
00:01:29.520 Have you read The Parisian Heist yet?
00:01:31.320 If you haven't, what are you waiting for?
00:01:33.280 It is the book everyone I know is talking about this summer.
00:01:35.940 And I'm not just saying that because I wrote it.
00:01:38.300 I saw three people reading it on the beach that didn't even know me last weekend.
00:01:42.040 Okay?
00:01:42.580 Get your orders for the book in.
00:01:44.260 Get your book clubs reading it.
00:01:45.820 And if you've read it and loved it, do not forget to leave it a five-star review on both
00:01:49.920 Amazon and Goodreads.
00:01:51.660 It helps. 0.93
00:01:52.560 It's kind of dumb, but it does. 0.59
00:01:54.240 And I appreciate you so, so much.
00:01:56.420 Anyway, back to Paris, okay?
00:01:58.280 I have something a little bit different for you today.
00:02:00.560 Today I'm sharing an episode from another podcast that I think you're really going to like.
00:02:04.300 It's the global story from the BBC.
00:02:07.040 And the question they're tackling in this one is a great one.
00:02:09.500 Did Emily ruin Paris?
00:02:11.740 Whether you love Emily in Paris, whether you hate watch it,
00:02:14.640 or whether you just can't escape it because it's all over your social feeds,
00:02:17.960 there's no denying that it's had a huge impact.
00:02:21.400 Sidebar, let's get every Emily in Paris fan reading the Parisian heist.
00:02:25.640 Okay?
00:02:26.300 Mm-hmm.
00:02:26.860 Mm-hmm.
00:02:27.440 The show's turned cafes, streets, and entire neighborhoods in Paris into tourist hotspots.
00:02:34.380 Last time I was there, there was a line around a block for a cafe that I've gone to dozens and dozens of times just because it happened to be in one episode for like five seconds.
00:02:43.680 But the question this podcast is asking is what happens when a TV show becomes so popular that it starts changing a city in real life?
00:02:51.400 I watched this happen in New York City with Sex and the City, and I will tell you that for a good stretch of time, the Sex and the City tours were really super annoying in the West Village.
00:03:02.120 Okay? 1.00
00:03:03.040 I had a bunch of drunk, middle-aged ladies sipping their Cosmos, taking their fake Manila Blahniks off on my stoop. 0.95
00:03:09.600 In this episode, co-hosts Asma Khalid and Tristan Redman, who lives in Paris himself, dig into what's been named the Emily Effect. 0.86
00:03:17.040 And they explore the surprising ways that other TV shows and movies can shape the way we see places, sell places, and sometimes even transform them all, even transform them all together.
00:03:29.860 If you like this episode, definitely search for The Global Story wherever you get your podcasts.
00:03:34.380 Every day they cover one big story at the intersection of America and the world.
00:03:45.860 Hey, Asma.
00:03:47.040 Hey, Tristan.
00:03:48.720 I'm talking to you from Paris, where I live.
00:03:52.880 And we are smack bang in the middle right now of Emily in Paris time.
00:03:59.940 It's a period of the year, Asma, for those who celebrate,
00:04:03.880 which begins in the spring and it lasts until the end of the summer,
00:04:08.460 maybe in September.
00:04:09.220 And it's the time of the year when hordes of tourists,
00:04:13.440 many of them American, descend on Paris and they come to visit the home of the TV series
00:04:21.180 Emily in Paris. I know you are a fan and they're often drinking wine on the train and then they
00:04:27.520 fan out into the city and they go to the Emily spots but they also often take over some places
00:04:33.540 in town like there'll be like a boulangerie which they go and take pictures of themselves outside of
00:04:38.400 and some Parisians are a bit tired of the situation
00:04:43.280 and that is what our episode is going to be about today
00:04:47.000 because some Parisians are asking themselves
00:04:49.280 if Emily has ruined Paris
00:04:52.320 or maybe just some spots of Paris.
00:04:55.520 I've watched every episode of Emily in Paris.
00:04:57.720 I'm not going to say it is the most advanced,
00:05:01.400 sophisticated TV viewing,
00:05:04.260 but I would say that, you know, Tristan,
00:05:06.220 And a lot of people would look at a show like Emily in Paris and look at what you're describing that happens in Paris over the summer and think, OK, loads of tourist dollars are coming into your city.
00:05:17.080 What's the problem?
00:05:19.360 Even the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, has said that this show is good for the image of France, that he sees it as super positive in terms of attractiveness for the country.
00:05:30.860 Well, that's what we're going to delve into today on The Global Story.
00:05:35.200 So let's do the official business.
00:05:37.480 From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redman in Paris.
00:05:41.160 And I'm Asma Khaled in Washington, D.C.
00:05:44.160 Today on The Global Story, do shows like Emily in Paris do more harm than good to the cities they're set in?
00:05:50.340 Or does Tristan just need to get over himself?
00:05:57.200 I feel like I need to be straight up here.
00:05:59.460 Tristan, I have been watching Emily in Paris since the first season came out in 2020.
00:06:04.220 We were in the midst of the pandemic, and it was just some good, harmless TV fun.
00:06:10.380 There was a lot going on in the world.
00:06:12.300 We could not travel, and Emily in Paris took us somewhere.
00:06:16.260 Bonjour.
00:06:16.860 Bonjour.
00:06:17.460 I'm Emily.
00:06:18.480 You're a new neighbor?
00:06:19.280 Enchanté. 0.99
00:06:20.140 You've come to teach the French some American tricks?
00:06:23.420 This is a show that came out in the fall of 2020 on Netflix,
00:06:27.640 and it chronicles the adventures of this young Midwestern woman,
00:06:32.620 a woman from Chicago. I, too, am a somewhat young woman from the Midwest. And it shows her
00:06:39.800 earnestness as she is. I like how you laugh that I'm a young Midwesterner. And the show chronicles
00:06:46.760 her adventures in Paris as she's this young marketing executive trying to find her way.
00:06:52.900 Paris is the most exciting city in the world. You never know what's going to happen next.
00:06:57.180 It is a caricature of an overly eager Midwesterner,
00:07:04.220 which I, too, can relate with.
00:07:05.880 There are scenes from the beginning of the show
00:07:08.200 where Emily meets her new best friend in Paris,
00:07:12.140 and one of the first questions she asks is if she's from Indiana.
00:07:14.760 They had you at the mention of Indiana, Asma, didn't they?
00:07:19.300 Netflix said that the first season was seen in 58 million households.
00:07:23.720 It was the most popular comedy show of that year.
00:07:26.260 It was quickly renewed.
00:07:27.880 They're currently filming the sixth season.
00:07:31.220 The final season, according to Netflix, will be out at the end of this year.
00:07:35.900 And the show has changed the city of Paris a lot since it first launched six years ago.
00:07:41.060 And we're going to get into that today.
00:07:42.620 Tristan, you say that the show has changed the city of Paris with the influx of tourists it's brought in.
00:07:48.780 But can you quantify that for us?
00:07:50.400 I mean, how much tourism has it substantively brought to Paris?
00:07:54.180 Well, that's a good question.
00:07:55.380 and it depends who you listen to,
00:07:57.080 I'm going to give you the two opposing camps on this.
00:07:59.620 So Ted Sarandos, who's the head of Netflix,
00:08:02.900 claimed in 2025 that 39% of tourists to France
00:08:08.380 came because of Emily in Paris.
00:08:10.800 And something like that figure has actually also been picked up
00:08:15.700 by Emmanuel Macron.
00:08:17.000 But there was actually a study done on this.
00:08:19.960 So one in 10 tourists to France,
00:08:23.280 say, according to this study by Ipsos, which is a polling agency, one in 10 people who come to
00:08:30.160 France say they came because they saw a TV show or a film. And of those one in 10, 38% cited Emily
00:08:40.260 in Paris as the show that motivated them to come to France. So on balance, that's like almost 4%
00:08:47.700 of the people surveyed. So it's not a huge amount. So a much smaller fraction. Yeah. Yeah. How
00:08:52.820 popular is tourism writ large in Paris in the summer months? I mean, do we have any sense of
00:08:58.260 how much money it also brings into the economy? So the French government figures are just over
00:09:03.380 100 million people visit France every year. And that amount is increasing every year as well.
00:09:09.700 Around a quarter of those, according to the French government, visit the capital city. And that puts
00:09:14.400 it in the top handful of most visited cities in the world. We can't quantify exactly what
00:09:22.060 the boost from Emily on its own would be. The head of Netflix, he says his company invests
00:09:29.920 $250 million annually into the French cinema and TV industry.
00:09:35.180 So let's talk a little bit more about the show itself, Emily in Paris. Tell us who's behind the
00:09:39.760 show and why they wanted to make a show like this. Well, the supremo of Emily in Paris, the writer
00:09:45.940 is a man called Darren Starr, who's famous for making a string of hits. He made Beverly Hills
00:09:51.520 90210. He made Melrose Place. He made famously, famously Sex in the City. And Emily in Paris is
00:09:59.060 his latest show. Now, he says that he first became interested in France when he was at college.
00:10:06.260 he's told the New York Times I know how French people look at me when they look at Americans
00:10:12.120 I can see some of their prejudices I can see some of my prejudices and this plays into this whole
00:10:18.740 idea that the show itself is you know full of stereotypes and cliches about who French people
00:10:24.140 are and who Americans are so he has really leant into all of this Emmanuel Macron in fact awarded
00:10:32.060 him the Légion d'Honneur, which is, you know, something akin to a Presidential Medal of Honour
00:10:37.720 in the United States or the Medal of Freedom. Macron said to Darren Starr at the time, he said,
00:10:43.280 you make France shine across the world.
00:10:51.600 When this show came out in 2020, let's just say the reviews were divided,
00:10:58.500 largely depending on where you were.
00:11:00.940 So the Hollywood Reporter called it strikingly watchable.
00:11:05.140 In France, it was a different picture.
00:11:08.300 The film mag Premier said, 0.99
00:11:10.420 The French are all mean and all lazy 1.00
00:11:13.460 and never arrive at the office before late morning. 1.00
00:11:16.660 They're incorrigible flirts with no concept of being faithful.
00:11:21.080 The entertainment website Sense Critique
00:11:24.300 called the show, quote, science fiction.
00:11:27.260 and said that it was so full of cliches
00:11:30.600 that the writers probably considered
00:11:32.760 sticking, quote, a baguette under each Frenchman
00:11:36.080 or even a beret on their heads.
00:11:41.920 An asthma.
00:11:43.540 To that effect, I have some props for you today.
00:11:47.500 My beret.
00:11:48.900 Yeah, here's my beret.
00:11:53.400 OK, so from a French perspective, 0.82
00:11:55.740 the big problems with the show are the shamelessness of the stereotypes of french people so they're 0.97
00:12:02.260 portrayed as rude chain smoking heavy drinking work shy womanizing lecherous sexist unfaithful 0.92
00:12:10.860 and unwashed paris is this place where every every man that emily meets is basically a kind 0.97
00:12:18.000 of six foot four male model the city looks like a museum i mean it looks beautiful yeah paris is
00:12:25.300 stunning, but it's also, you know, it's a real place where... I don't understand, Tristan,
00:12:28.740 aren't some of these cliches good? You're saying Paris looks stunning. I would love for folks to
00:12:33.340 come in and be like, Washington DC looks stunning and portray all our people as beautiful.
00:12:39.040 I think Parisians are quite sensitive to the idea of their city being fetishized and not just by
00:12:43.940 outsiders. So I remember a few years ago, there was a candidate for the mayor of Paris, and she
00:12:48.600 did an interview in which she said that she found the metro romantic and her candidacy basically
00:12:56.560 died and sank without a trace after that point because Parisians thought it was so ridiculous
00:13:01.220 that she said that the metro was romantic I mean the metro is quite smelly it's very hot 0.69
00:13:06.760 and it's quite dirty so people are like have you ever been on the metro and that was the end of
00:13:11.880 her candidacy and I haven't really seen her politically ever since so the idea of fetishizing 0.99
00:13:16.160 the city. It's like, we can do it, but we don't necessarily like it when other people do it very
00:13:21.340 much. Though it does depict some really beautiful aspects of Paris. I would say that it depicts this
00:13:25.960 beautiful city with amazing food and a sense that Emily, who's a workaholic, ought to just
00:13:31.080 chill out and enjoy life more as they depict the Parisians do.
00:13:35.360 Well, Asma, I went to the belly of the beast. I went to the fifth arrondissement, which is
00:13:40.180 the Latin Quarter, which is where Emily in Paris is mostly filmed. And I had something of an
00:13:46.880 unexpected and very lucky scoop. I stumbled across them filming. There was like, you know,
00:13:52.720 there was rubbernecking Parisians and rubbernecking tourists. Some of them were visitors who'd arrived
00:13:58.460 from all over the world who couldn't believe their luck that they just stumbled across this shoot.
00:14:02.460 And I got a spectrum of opinion from them. Where are you from? I'm from Vancouver Island
00:14:07.580 in British Columbia, Canada.
00:14:09.040 What has the show told you about Paris
00:14:11.020 that made you really want to come here?
00:14:13.060 I like the diversity, the culture, the history.
00:14:17.560 I've enjoyed watching her mishaps,
00:14:20.400 being an American, coming here to Paris and learning.
00:14:23.700 I think it just, it brings so much to the city.
00:14:26.300 And for people like me,
00:14:28.720 who would never have come to Paris,
00:14:30.820 I think you've got one person here
00:14:33.620 that's here now because of it.
00:14:34.980 So I can only imagine how many more there really are.
00:14:37.580 When you think about this show, Emily in Paris,
00:14:40.000 what kind of impact has it had on the city as a whole?
00:14:42.700 Like, I heard you just now being a bit annoyed
00:14:44.560 that they'd shut down the streets.
00:14:47.260 Yes, because it's a kind of privatisation of the public space,
00:14:51.900 because we can't stay on the streets,
00:14:54.320 because they need the street empty for the shooting.
00:14:57.980 And it's a bit annoying for the people of Paris.
00:15:03.260 For North American people, actually,
00:15:05.300 I think it's very interesting for them to have that big picture like of Paris
00:15:08.800 and just to continue to have some dreams about it the way it is.
00:15:12.700 Because if we really show them like the reality of what is Paris,
00:15:16.160 it will not be a dream anymore, actually.
00:15:18.960 So just let's keep it like a fiction.
00:15:21.200 And actually some of the people who feel most strongly
00:15:24.520 about the portrayal of Emily in Paris
00:15:27.820 are actually some of the Americans who live here.
00:15:30.580 And as it happens, I have been speaking to one of them.
00:15:34.000 she's called Lindsay Tremuta, she's a writer, a travel writer, and somebody who also gives tours
00:15:40.420 in Paris. My main issue is why do we keep suggesting that showing real Paris in all of its
00:15:48.880 complexity with its warts and its gifts and its beauty, why can't all that coexist and still be
00:15:55.320 a dream to people? Because ultimately people are still moving here. It painted both Americans in
00:16:00.800 a certain way and the French in a certain way. Very true to these old stereotypes. The dumb 0.69
00:16:06.060 American, the entitled American who comes over thinking they can take over everything, run the 1.00
00:16:10.500 show, get what they want, don't really need to speak the local language. And then the very 0.97
00:16:15.580 arrogant, but chic and put together, minimally eating Parisian woman. 1.00
00:16:23.180 What do you make of that, Asma? 0.91
00:16:24.700 You know, I was talking to one of our producers earlier and she described the show this way and
00:16:29.000 I thought it was really apt. She said, it's cringe, but it's fun. And so it's interesting
00:16:33.980 to hear Lindsay's critique of it all, because I understand what she's saying is, why can't
00:16:39.180 Paris be depicted more fully? But I'm also struck by that this is a show of Emily, a
00:16:45.740 Midwestern American young woman who has never lived in Paris. And the story's told through
00:16:52.340 the eyes of that naive experience. As we've touched on, the president of France seems to
00:17:00.020 love that Emily in Paris exists as a show. I mean, he sees it, it seems, as a bit of soft power,
00:17:06.080 a way to bring more filmmaking to France. Absolutely. Yeah. Emmanuel Macron is all in
00:17:12.300 on Emily in Paris. In fact, his wife Brigitte has even done a cameo in the show. Basically,
00:17:18.860 Emmanuel Macron wants more foreign films and TV shows to be filmed in France.
00:17:24.880 He says it's good for soft power, as you say, Asma,
00:17:27.580 and also that it projects a positive image of France around the world.
00:17:32.380 So he's brought in this reform sort of tax breaks to encourage filming
00:17:36.520 under which expenses such as the salaries of non-European actors
00:17:40.780 and hotels will qualify for a 30% tax rebate
00:17:45.260 if they're attached to a filming project.
00:17:47.480 Now, I should say that France has a particularly big cinema tradition and also big cinema industry and foreign investment that goes towards helping keep that alive is obviously very welcome.
00:18:01.200 But his agenda and the agenda of people who live in Paris, actual Parisians, they don't necessarily coincide one with the other.
00:18:17.480 I don't think I can be your friend, Isabella said.
00:18:21.080 Rebecca's stomach flipped.
00:18:23.360 This is the love story of real hinge couple Isabella and Rebecca,
00:18:26.920 written and read by me, Temi Denton-Hurst.
00:18:29.380 Listen to the free audiobook now.
00:18:34.680 Head back to the streets in FX's The Drop, a snowfall saga.
00:18:39.440 Watch Wanda Bell and Leon Simmons fight to reinvent themselves in 90s Los Angeles,
00:18:44.060 where the fallout from the crack epidemic fuels the rise of West Coast rap.
00:18:48.840 Ambition, loyalty, and survival collide
00:18:51.540 as everyone risks everything to build something lasting
00:18:54.900 and FX's the drop, a snowfall saga.
00:18:58.160 Streaming September 9th on Hulu on Disney+.
00:19:00.440 Click or tap the banner to sign up now.
00:19:04.120 Before you knew what a stock was,
00:19:06.420 you traded snacks, cards, turns.
00:19:09.700 You knew what something was worth because you felt it.
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00:19:33.820 many parisians might ask why is emmanuel macron so strongly associating himself
00:19:43.940 with a series that portrays french people in what they see as a negative light
00:19:50.660 and a common criticism of emmanuel macron that you hear in france is that he's detached from
00:19:58.560 the needs and concerns of regular French people. So maybe his critics would say that's playing into
00:20:05.340 all of this. Tristan, as I listen to you explain the perspective that a number of Parisians have
00:20:19.840 had towards Emily in Paris, I cannot help but think, OK, I understand. Maybe you don't feel
00:20:26.720 like you're personally agreeing with the stereotypes or the cliches of your city,
00:20:31.040 of your neighborhood. But this is not unique to Paris. I mean, haven't cities all over the world
00:20:36.180 been coping with, you could say, or reaping from perhaps some of the economic benefits of
00:20:40.540 TV and movie tourism? Sure. I think what this boils down to is probably I'm a bit of a nimby,
00:20:46.460 aren't I? Not in my backyard. Well, we wanted to find out a little bit more about where else 0.92
00:20:53.620 Europeans might be experiencing something a bit like this.
00:20:57.440 And also in the United States, our producer, Zandra Ellen,
00:21:01.020 has been out and about in New York City where tourists all these years later
00:21:05.240 are still flocking to one of the most iconic TV sets
00:21:09.820 more than two decades after filming ended.
00:21:17.420 Tristan, it's not just Paris that producer Darren Starr
00:21:20.960 has created a fantasy world from
00:21:23.040 of high fashion, flings, and lunchtime cocktails.
00:21:27.060 He also, of course, brought Sex and the City to life
00:21:29.920 on the streets of the West Village.
00:21:32.700 The show about four fabulous girlfriends
00:21:35.100 chasing 11 thrills in New York
00:21:37.100 from the 90s to the mid-2000s
00:21:38.980 has left an indelible mark on this neighborhood.
00:21:42.320 Why do I think living in Manhattan is so fantastic?
00:21:44.980 Because it is.
00:21:45.940 There's always a new neighborhood,
00:21:47.300 a new restaurant, a new man.
00:21:50.960 On a visit there last weekend, I met tourists from across the world
00:21:56.360 who'd come all this way to taste the pink cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery
00:22:00.600 or hop on board the three-and-a-half-hour Sex and the City bus tour.
00:22:04.560 Was this an important stop on your trip?
00:22:06.880 Yeah, because I love Sex and the City.
00:22:09.420 Me too.
00:22:10.620 No, me too.
00:22:11.360 Do you identify as a Carrie?
00:22:13.800 My favorite really is Charlotte.
00:22:16.580 I love it, I love it, I love it.
00:22:18.140 It feels like it's a good place to live.
00:22:20.500 The West Village, with its beautiful buildings and lush foliage and delightful little bistros,
00:22:26.000 has changed substantially over the decades.
00:22:28.500 It's home to the Stonewall Inn, where in 1969, a police raid sparked riots that changed
00:22:34.400 the course of the queer liberation movement.
00:22:37.160 But today, with the average apartment selling for $1.5 million, the West Village has become 0.69
00:22:42.680 a place for wealthy 20-somethings to live out the fantasy that Sex and the City helped
00:22:47.360 create.
00:22:47.860 And not everyone's super happy about the attention the show's brought to the neighborhood.
00:22:53.640 While I'm there, a resident of the building where Sex and the City's protagonist,
00:22:57.120 Carrie Bradshaw, lives, comes out to have a word with the Taurus on his stoop taking photos.
00:23:02.920 He says, this never ends for us.
00:23:05.700 It's the imposition that never ends for us.
00:23:08.980 It strikes me that his objections might not be about loiterers at all.
00:23:13.380 Maybe what he's really angry about is that he lives in a real place.
00:23:17.860 whose public mythology has been shaped, at least in some small part, by Darren Starr's imagination.
00:23:24.320 Well, in the interest of casting our net wide, we've been looking into the situation in London
00:23:29.900 with our senior producer, Hannah Moore, who you've heard on the show before.
00:23:33.380 Hannah's been down to Notting Hill, which is where the famous film was shot.
00:23:38.080 The Richard Curtis film with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, it came out way back in the late 90s.
00:23:44.480 It's still having an effect on the neighbourhood now.
00:23:47.040 Hannah has been looking into it for us.
00:23:49.280 I've come to one of the most iconic filming locations of Notting Hill.
00:23:53.260 It's the Notting Hill Bookshop,
00:23:54.800 which features in the film as the travel book company
00:23:57.200 where Hugh Grant's character, William Thacker, works.
00:24:00.700 And 27 years after the film came out,
00:24:02.840 people are still coming here from all over the world.
00:24:06.060 And I've been speaking to some of them.
00:24:08.420 My name is Bianca. I'm 20. I'm from Australia.
00:24:11.220 The film came out before you were born, right?
00:24:13.520 How do you know about it?
00:24:14.780 on TikTok. It's like so popular on TikTok. I think that's what makes Notting Hill especially popular
00:24:21.420 because it's all on social media. My name is Frederico and I come from Portugal. We came
00:24:27.460 because we are huge fans of the film. I was expecting to see your grand here but he's not
00:24:33.020 here today. I'm so sorry we've disappointed you. He should be in there. I'm James Malin and I'm
00:24:41.240 one of the owners of the bookshop with my brother Howard. I've heard that you've had several
00:24:46.920 proposals in the shop. Usually three to four each year. We have had people from Brazil and
00:24:56.060 from Australia. We even had one guy from New York and he met a girl inside the shop. They went for
00:25:05.100 a drink 18 months later they came back for their anniversary I think there's
00:25:12.000 something in the air maybe
00:25:22.040 I'm walking down the iconic Portobello Road you'll have definitely seen
00:25:27.420 pictures of this the beautiful pastel colored houses and it features
00:25:31.240 prominently again in the Notting Hill film you remember that scene of Hugh Grant walking down
00:25:37.460 the market and the seasons changing around him there's actually been a market here since the
00:25:41.760 1800s but in the past few decades tourism has just exploded here. Hi there my name is Cheryl
00:25:50.880 Devlin I'm a green grocer in Port Bella Road I've been here over 50 years and my family's been here
00:25:57.120 150 years blimey and we're the last one standing how have you seen this area change well if you
00:26:04.920 look around it's catering for tourists my trade is totally finished we have a cardo delivering
00:26:11.260 here to the houses above who are very wealthy people and i'm downstairs just come and see me
00:26:16.300 you know let me say hi in the mornings they don't buy nothing is it social media then that's bringing
00:26:21.380 people here could be i don't have one in posh phone so i don't know what social media means but
00:26:27.000 word of mouth yeah and it's meant to be a famous portobello road i can't see what's famous about
00:26:33.320 it now and all the characters are not here no more the crazy people no notting hill tour would be
00:26:39.300 complete without a visit to the blue door this is where hugh grant's character in the film lived
00:26:45.000 number 280 westbourne park road and i've just been watching people here over the past 10 15 minutes
00:26:50.580 come up take a selfie and it just reminds you that this is a film location but it's also
00:26:56.080 somebody's home what's your name Andrew and you've lived in this area for 30 years you said yeah I
00:27:02.140 used to work for the BBC down in Shepherd's Bush all those years ago and I didn't know at the time
00:27:07.060 I was living on a film set but two years after I bought it I was living on a film set and you can
00:27:12.020 see this is an endless stream of people all day long all seasons on the pillars there used to be
00:27:19.240 some very graphic language about tourists but as you can see today somebody has taken it off
00:27:24.760 but from time to time the residents they do get annoyed i mean 10 o'clock at night in the middle
00:27:30.780 of january you'll come past and there'll be somebody doing a little instagram and thank
00:27:35.620 you richard for adding about 20 extra value to my house how much has it gone up by in value because
00:27:41.360 the average price the average house price around here is like 1.6 million which is like 2.2 million
00:27:47.500 I can't say what I paid, but I can tell you that what I paid in 1996, it already doubled by the year 2000, quadrupled by the year 2010.
00:28:00.380 So I was very lucky.
00:28:02.080 It sounds like there are definitely some positives and negatives to living in that maelstrom of Notting Hill, right?
00:28:07.660 You know, one thing I was struck by in listening to those dispatches is how much tourism can live on and the scenes of movies and TV through TikTok and Instagram now in this new era.
00:28:20.440 Well, it's interesting that you should mention that because our friend Lindsay Trimuto, who we heard from at the beginning, mentioned that.
00:28:28.440 You know what? I'm going to say something that shouldn't be controversial, but maybe given the premise of the episode is that I would say if anything is starting to ruin certain spots in Paris, it's TikTok.
00:28:40.740 Oh, really?
00:28:41.120 Yeah, yeah, because the eyeballs on that platform, I would assume, far exceed anybody who's watching Emily in Paris.
00:28:50.600 And you get these same places that are promoted by influencers and content creators over and over again to the point where there are lines out the door.
00:29:00.100 You know, I find that the gap between the moment something opens and the moment that it now becomes overrun and lines out the door is very short.
00:29:10.060 It would take a lot longer for that to happen in the past.
00:29:12.420 So I would say, let's look to the content creators
00:29:16.240 who turn everything into a piece of video
00:29:19.020 that's going to be gobbled up and forgotten
00:29:20.960 once they've been in the line, by the thing,
00:29:24.400 and then go on to the next spot.
00:29:26.080 So it sounds like really we should be making another episode
00:29:28.260 called Did TikTok Ruin Tourism?
00:29:30.400 I would listen to that and I would watch that.
00:29:32.340 So, Asma, when I was in Place de l'Etrepade,
00:29:35.080 which is Emily Square,
00:29:36.500 and I'd been hanging around,
00:29:37.760 talking to people there for a little while,
00:29:39.480 And I started to feel a bit bad.
00:29:41.640 I started to feel like a bit of a curmudgeon
00:29:43.380 that maybe I should just get over myself.
00:29:45.500 These people who come on holiday,
00:29:46.800 they're taking nice photographs of each other,
00:29:48.260 they're hanging out and having lunch.
00:29:49.780 What harm could possibly come from that?
00:29:53.220 So yeah, I found myself feeling a bit chastened
00:29:55.560 at the end of all that.
00:29:57.120 No hard feelings towards the people who come to visit Paris.
00:30:00.560 You know, we're journalists.
00:30:01.900 It's all about going and seeing things with your own eyes.
00:30:04.300 You can criticize anyone for doing that.
00:30:06.180 And I suppose the reality is now
00:30:08.580 that more and more of my fellow Americans are traveling.
00:30:13.100 You can look at the stats, Tristan,
00:30:14.720 and now about 50% of Americans have passports.
00:30:18.760 When we were prepping for this story,
00:30:20.560 I saw that it was less than 5% of Americans
00:30:24.060 who had passports in 1990,
00:30:26.320 which is when that classic movie, Home Alone, came out, right?
00:30:29.340 And they took a family trip to Paris in that movie.
00:30:32.600 And so more Americans are traveling to Europe.
00:30:34.720 And when we do that or when we travel elsewhere,
00:30:37.640 we're able to see what the cliches are
00:30:42.460 and how those cliches might jive or not
00:30:45.540 with the reality we witness.
00:30:48.880 I couldn't agree more.
00:30:50.400 I'd say come one, come all, the more the merrier.
00:30:53.380 Just don't assume that when you get here
00:30:55.160 we're all drunk, chain-smoking, unfaithful, 0.99
00:31:00.380 dirty, smelly people who never take a shower 0.99
00:31:02.500 or indeed dressed as I am right now. 0.99
00:31:05.560 Time to take off that beret.
00:31:06.740 Can I take off the beret now? I'm quite hot in here.
00:31:17.580 That's it for The Global Story today.
00:31:19.460 As always, if you have thoughts or questions for us, you can drop us a line.
00:31:23.220 Our email address is theglobalstory at bbc.com.
00:31:27.200 We got a message recently from Drew, a listener in Southern California,
00:31:30.940 who writes, my daughter and I are big fans of The Global Story.
00:31:34.800 Why, thank you.
00:31:35.400 He adds, I was hoping to gift her with some BBC merchandise, and if available, something branded The Global Story.
00:31:42.420 Now, The Global Story is a fairly new show, so we don't actually have merch.
00:31:46.560 But BBC bosses, if you all are listening, please heed what Drew had to say.
00:31:51.780 We too would love some merch.
00:31:53.460 Maybe a coffee mug, a cup for tea.
00:31:56.180 So big bosses, hope you are listening to the people.
00:31:58.940 Our episode today was produced by Hannah Moore.
00:32:01.660 Our executive producer was James Shield.
00:32:03.820 Our digital producer was Matt Pintus.
00:32:06.380 Our senior news editor is Chyna Collins.
00:32:09.100 And I'm Asma Khalid.
00:32:10.780 Thanks, as always, for spending some time with us.
00:32:13.140 We hope you all have a nice weekend, and we'll be back again on Monday.
00:32:33.820 Thank you.
00:33:03.820 you want to impress them on a first date but also play it cool so what do you do
00:33:18.700 i'm rufy thorpe and i wrote and read a real love story about a hinge couple that navigated
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00:33:42.300 Ambition, loyalty, and survival collide as everyone risks everything to build something
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