I was introduced to the famous Carrie Bradshaw circa 2004–2005 after a high school friend insisted I needed to watch Sex and the City (SATC). When she explained the plot, it did not intrigue me much, to be honest. An aspiring, young female journalist and the experiences she shared with her three friends… “Meh!” I said. I enjoyed playing basketball, watching Formula 1, playing Command & Conquer (Do I sound old?). But, just to be a part of the conversation, I gave it a shot. It was way before live streaming existed, but now I know what I did with SATC would be called binge-watching. I watched it religiously.
It was not the “can’t-live-without-each-other” love between Carrie and Big or the fashion that kept me on the hook. The whole thing served as a reminder that true fulfillment comes in many forms, such as being independent, having a job you love, friends you cherish, and a place you call home, and not necessarily the perfect partner and romantic relationship. These messages were important to me as a young woman. Cynthia Nixon, who played Miranda in the show, said she actually loved being a part of it for the women empowerment messaging. (Even in some academic circles, it’s discussed as an example of “postfeminism.” But I’ll leave that for another day.)
Yet, there were also ridiculous things about it, like Carrie being able to buy all those pairs of Manolo Blahniks or dresses from Dior as a freelance journalist writing for a local newspaper or the fact that all Samantha did as a “PR professional” was organising parties. All the characters did settle down one way or another despite the persistent message that there was more to life. The movies created as sequels ruined it all as well.
Then, almost 20 years after this iconic series’ finale, its executive producer Darren Star created a new show: Emily in Paris. The series, starring Lily Collins and her famous eyebrows, is about a young marketing executive (social media manager, to be more accurate) and her life in Paris after she was assigned to represent her company in their affiliate agency. Without taking a look at its trailer, I started to watch it just because it was from Darren Star, and there was a SATC-like vibe. (Don’t worry; there are no spoilers. Also, you cannot spoil something that’s already spoilt, right?)
I watched it. I hated it.
I hated the first season. I hated the second season. And I hated the third season.
But I watched them all. It was like secretly enjoying a weird smell. Every single episode kept me thinking, “This is nonsense!” Still, I wasted 900 minutes of my life with it. The funny thing is that it was not only me. The show was mocked all over the Internet.
Let me quote Carrie Bradshaw by saying, “I couldn’t help but wonder”, why did I love hate-watching Emily in Paris?
I guess, at first, it was all about its simplicity. The show was released during the pandemic. The lockdowns, the fear, the anxiety, the uncertainty… We were overwhelmed. So, we all needed some comfort. We needed “not to think.” I, for one, could not handle heavy stuff like the sci-fi thriller “Dark” for a while. (Whenever I am stressed, I tend to turn to familiar things. I don’t know how many times I have seen How I Met Your Mother, or Modern Family, or 500 Days of Summer. Because of the familiarity and knowing how things will turn out, I find them relaxing.)
And content like Emily in Paris was the junk food we fed ourselves during those “unprecedented” days. There she was… An aspiring young woman moving to a new country. She was glamorous; she was stylish; she was smart. As a marketing executive, she could afford designer items (though she looked hideous most of the time.) She did not speak the language, but she amazed her clients. Everybody loved her except the grumpy French boss at the agency, who, by the way, was also charmed by what Emily did.
She nailed every single pitch; she was never short of ideas. I mean, never! Got creative’s block? Let Emily know et voilà — it’s solved. When there is a whiney client at the agency, who you gonna call? Emily! Do you want to be a social media influencer? Don’t worry, Emily will publish a post for you, and instantly you will have a million likes. It was entertaining, yet full of cliches. I’m sure the French particularly hated the series and how they were depicted in it.
But people watched it. In fact, according to Tom’s Guide, “season 2 generated 939 million minutes of viewership.” Deadline reported that season 3 made it #2 on the US-English language chart in a week. Was everybody hate-watching it? I don’t know.
The truth is I hated it because it lacked effort. Yes, we were craving simplicity, but this was overly simplified that felt like anyone could do it if they had the budget (and maybe a legacy like SATC.) You know how writers deep-dive into the worlds of people that they are planning to write about when they start a project — be it a movie, or a book, or a short story. There was none of it. The plot in Emily in Paris was empty (OK, it’s a rom-com but still…)
(Did you know that when developing the amazing Interstellar, Christopher Nolan worked with the theoretical astrophysicist Kip Thorne? Critics and scientists found many plot holes in the movie. But Nolan later said the science in the movie was “deliberately speculative” because he chose to “cheat on the science for the sake of audience’s enjoyment on occasion.” Nevertheless, he did his research, and he looked for some scientific credibility. That matters.)
I mean, I hope no one picked communications or marketing as their major at the university or started to dream of working at an agency after they watched Emily in Paris. Pitch presentations created in an hour, ideas that the client instantly accepts, long lunches, designer clothes, events where all you have to do is get a seat at the table after only taking care of the guest list or welcoming people at the door.
Let me tell you how it works at an agency: Hours and hours and days and days spent on building a great pitch deck, ideas challenged to death by clients who will “thank you for the presentation” but ask whether or not every columnist will write about the project and if the influencers will publish content about it for free or say “they don’t have that kind of budget” though they asked for a “big and bold” idea, breakfast-lunch-dinner at your desk most of the days, window shopping the designer collections, events where you’ll have to work with 3 hours of sleep because you had to be at the venue the night before or you had to revise a speech for the 42nd time. (I remember, at some point, I had to find my way in the dark, tripped, and almost broke my nose during an event just so the light would not ruin the event’s atmosphere.) Welcome to the life of an average agency employee.
(By the way, Emily in Paris is not the first series that imply agency employees are always having so much fun, going to parties and working every once in a while. But I think Emily working at NASA would be even weirder: Imagine her receiving the acceptance letter, completing the training in a couple of days, and puff! She is the first woman to walk on the moon. Anyway… Let’s not stray from what I came to say.)
So, no wonder whatever Emily does cringes me out. Of course, not everyone watching it knows how life at agencies function.
Then the question here is this: Why are I and millions of others hate-watching it?
Apparently, it was not only me looking for an answer. Vice decided to ask a psychologist. So, turns out “instead of watching these productions for inspiration, chances are, we might be watching them to cringe.” — Wait, what?!
The clinical psychologist JR Ilagan stated in the same article that “experiencing strong emotional responses [even] in the absence of an actual threat, neurotransmitters are being secreted by our brain,” and in a way, we enjoy being able to feel the emotions we are suppressing for some reason (In this case, the suppressor was the pandemic.) Ilagan also suggested that hate-watching is a bonding experience because hating something together (a common enemy) creates a sense of belonging (Apparently, “anthropologists and historians have found that gossip is “part of the glue that holds society together.”)
Countless memes, and articles, and social media posts mocking the show despite the high viewerships are proof of the fact that it is a widely-common phenomenon. Considering it all, maybe the show would not stand a chance if it weren’t for the pandemic; who knows?
Hate-watching or hate-doing is normal. We need those feelings too! After all, what matters is being self-aware and knowing where to stop. The fourth season is already announced, so I cannot wait for the thrill of feeling all the emotions that I need to feel. (Hi, I’m Özge, and I am a hate-watcher for fun in my free time.)
In any case, financially, I’m sure the executive producer Darren Star got what he was hoping for. However, if he thought he was creating the “next SATC,” he definitely missed the mark. Maybe, he was aiming for “hate-watching” all along. If so, he was on to something.
