I’ve noticed there’s a whole subset of young American women who seem to believe Europe is some sort of utopia and they wanna live in Paris or Rome or London so badly. I mean, there’s a whole TV show called “Emily in Paris” that is based on this.
The way I see it, the US is the land of opportunities and dreams so it seems wrong to leave the US for Europe.
I’d be interested in the context for a lot of these views.
38 comments
Maybe it’s just to experience something different while still being in a safe environment, but it think it’s mostly because Europeans like to pretend it’s a utopia on social media.
> The way I see it, the US is the land of opportunities and dreams so it seems wrong to leave the US for Europe.
Christ.
Paris has always been romanticized as a city of lonely poets and philosophers sipping coffee at the salons and cafes, a veritable Bohemian Mecca. I am pretty sure Americans aren’t the only ones to hold this notion.
It’s the same thing that many non-Americans do with romanticizing American High School or College.
Media pushes that ideal. An ideal that’s different and exciting.
So, yeah some American girls want to go to London or Paris based on the media that they have seen.
At the same time, many French or English or random European girls want to go to New York, Los Angeles, or random suburbia based on the media that they have seen.
From a tourist’s perspective, europe is amazing; history & pretty sights for a lifetime. One can’t fault an outsider for looking at Venice as a romantic fantasy, while not moving there personally
People dream of living in a cabin in the woods, on a far away beach, or a cool city, very different from their own current situation.
Paris (to some of us) is amazing. The food, the museums, the history… And it’s def not only Americans who think about Paris– some a lot more than here. Some people build it up so much in cultures that are a bit obsessed with material goods and fashion that it’s a pretty big let down. Look up Paris Syndrome.
But I’ve seen a lot of people who want to move from where they are and then find out it’s not so awesome. Some people moved just because their political party didn’t match up with their state and they are sorry.
But there’s a lot to love about Paris’s culture. I wont go into it but there’s some reason for the hype.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
>I mean, there’s a whole TV show called “Emily in Paris” that is based on this.
Literally this is why. Americans get a bunch of shows and movies that highlight the nice parts of Europe, they don’t show the downsides. So American girls grow up thinking Europe is some sort of wonderful fairytale land with pretty buildings and attractive men
I mean, I was once a young woman who lived in Europe, so here’s my perspective – it’s just different. It’s a normal thing to want what you don’t have…like really really old buildings and food and hanging out at the plaza and such. Going to a school founded in 1218? America could never lol.
Why do young women dream of adventure in a foreign (but safe) city? Especially major cities in the countries of our closest allies. Mystery of the century right there.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
Probably thirsty for european men? 🙂 :shrug:
The grass is always greener.
>The way I see it, the US is the land of opportunities and dreams so it seems wrong to leave the US for Europe.
The way they see it, the US is an endless series of soulless strip malls, and identical planned communities, with relatively little in the way of high culture.
European countries are filled with beautiful old architecture, small hilltop towns, *actual* Medieval castles, monasteries, cathedrals, basilicas etc.. In the US, any building older than the 1700s is preserved and becomes the responsibility of the local historical society/landmark commission. On the West Coast, people get excited about buildings from the early 20th century! In Europe, you pass by Roman aqueducts and drive on Roman roads like it’s nothing.
A Paris friend once told me that upon graduation in France, most people head to Paris if they have most of their teeth and limbs. Why would some of our young women be any different.
I’m not a young American girl, but I have lived in Germany and absolutely loved it. If it were possible, I’d move back in a heartbeat.
I just the lifestyle, infrastructure and culture suited me very well.
I think people only romanticize the nice parts of each country.
It just made national headlines that the students of Baltimore city public schools were largely failing standardize tests in mathematics. Try telling those families they were born in the land of opportunity.
I don’t know any young American girls who romanticize about living in Europe. Traveling? Yeah definitely.
>The way I see it, the US is the land of opportunities and dreams so it seems wrong to leave the US for Europe.
You realize you’re doing the same thing, right? Romanticizing living in the US?
I’m not exactly a “young” American girl, but I romanticize living in Europe because my cancer treatment would be paid for and my trans son would not have his existence threatened by the law. I daydream about dusting off my middle school Spanish…
An overlooked selling point of Europe to a lot of Americans is that European cities are (mostly) very walkable. The cities are zoned differently and built before the car, so being able to walk everywhere around cool historic cities is a novelty to Americans unless you live in a city like NYC, Chicago, or SF.
Some European countries have cheap education, cheap health care, 25+ PTO days, sick days without end, paid parental leave for 12+ months. Why not dream about living in Europe?
Grass is always greener on the other side. US media often only shows the shittiest parts of our country, while we only ever hear about the things that are going very well in Europe other than the occasional war when there are political points to be gained.
Shit, I’m a middle aged man who went down a Romance language rabbit hole during the pandemic, and became obsessed with the French, Occitan, and Catalan languages. I am dying to immerse myself in France and Iberia. I feel like I am a bit above the typical fat stupid American in being able to love and appreciate the history, architecture, landscape, art, and culture, probably not all the same reasons young wistful ladies romanticize Paris or Europe for, but maybe a few.
I’m no longer young and I don’t want to live in Paris, but I do still often fantasize about moving somewhere else…Madrid, Seville, Copenhagen, Sydney, Singapore, etc. Why? It would be something new and different. I’ve traveled a bit, but I’ve lived in the US my whole life and in different regions of the US, so been here, done that. I like pretty old architecture better than strip malls and big box stores and shoddily built housing developments. I would prefer to be able to take trains all the time rather than driving. I’d feel safe living in those places, whereas there are other interesting places in the world I wouldn’t want to move to because I would feel less safe.
>I’ve noticed there’s a whole subset of young American women who seem to believe Europe is some sort of utopia and they wanna live in Paris or Rome or London so badly. I mean, there’s a whole TV show called “Emily in Paris” that is based on this.
>
>The way I see it, the US is the land of opportunities and dreams so it seems wrong to leave the US for Europe.
>
The mystique of what’s far away. The Americans you’re talking about think of the US as the home of the familiar. It’s hard to romanticize a place when you’ve spent more hours sitting in traffic jams than you have with friends at the beach or meeting cute guys in cafes.
Europe is far away, unfamiliar, and so stories romaticizing it aren’t tarnished by what they actually experience. If they visit, it’s probably short and focused on seeing the best and avoiding the daily grind at home. Lots of movies set in Europe make it look very appealing.
For you? I’m guessing that while you may have visited the US, you haven’t lived here long enough for it to become familiar and prosaic. You probably think California and imagine beaches of Hollywood stars or something. I think of California and remember babysitting my cousins. Pleasant, but hardly the stuff dreams are made of
Largely the same reason they do it with LA, NYC and San Francisco. Big cities are desirable places for the curious and ambitious.
It’s a good question.
It’s probably for the same reason that people fantasize about living here. They read a book, watch a movie, go in vacation when they’re a kid, and have an idealized vision of the town.
“Everything living in London must be living like Oliver Twist! Singing maids, a beautiful home in Mayfair!”
It’s the appeal of fantasy.
Just wanna say paris is shit. Venice on the other hand. And yes ive been to both.
I’m just going to talk about white Americans since I think this attitude is most prevalent among that group and I’m the most familiar with how they’re raised.
The vast majority grow up in one of three environments – a cookie cutter, car dependent, soulless, boring subdivision in a suburb with nothing but chain businesses and nothing interesting to do; a depressing, economically stagnant, culturally empty, prison-like small rural town; or a working-class, rough around the edges neighborhood in a city where they see vast wealth every day but none of it is theirs and achieving it for themselves seems so distant due to a lack of opportunities growing up. With media and the internet being so widespread, every teen in America can get a glimpse of what life is like in another country. It’s foreign, it’s exciting, it’s romanticized, and it’s always focused on only the best parts of those places. I’m a dude, but in high school I was convinced I wanted to go live in Dubai after finishing college having grown up in the hellish suburban environment in my first example. The glitz and glam, the global population, the huge buildings, the beaches, the economic opportunities for foreigners, it all appealed to me. Now I’m pushing 30 and have the life I thought I could have there except I stayed in America (but travel abroad plenty).
So many kids here don’t know anything about what real life is like in our amazing cities because they’re never exposed to it. Parents just talk about the “crime” and “traffic” and “it’s so expensive” and “it’s so hectic” and “you work so much you can’t enjoy living there” and a dozen other negative things that paint a poor picture of our cities. So you sit in your room before bed with a pre-conceived idea that American cities suck and look at all the awesome cities in Europe and just wish you could go live there because it’ll be perfect. Then life happens and you eventually realize it’s not that easy to move to another country and start figuring out what your options are here in America. And they’re awesome.
Our cities are not perfect and have plenty of issues, not denying any of the downsides. But if you think you want to live in a cosmopolitan urban environment (as I do), then we have so much going for us. Boston, New York, Philly, DC, Chicago, Miami, Austin, Nashville, Denver, LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Minneapolis, etc. If there’s no city in America that you can envision yourself happy in, the problem is internal and not with America.
Probably seems interesting to explore an exotic romanticized place far from home.
Universal healthcare
Because our media portrays Europe as a “romantic” or “exotic” place with a lot of rich cultural heritage, history, and architecture.
European cities being generally older and less car-dependent influences the perception. Europe (at least the parts of it that Hollywood likes to show) is the land of “beautiful old buildings”. The USA, even if “the land of opportunity”, is often seen as an architectural wasteland full of boring glass-box office skyscrapers, big-box shopping centers like Walmart, seas of near-identical suburban tract housing, and noisy freeways. An exception being the picturesque small towns that the Hallmark Channel loves.
Europeans are amazed by out yellow school busses and WalMarts apparently. Americans are amazed by century-old buildings, actual cities, and great architecture and culture
For the same reasons so many international people (and people from other states here) romanticize about living in NYC. So many people come here expecting it to be like the movies and what they see on TV, they suffer from what I like to call: main character syndrome. They think that suddenly because they’re in this huge, great city that the entire place and everyone in it revolves around them and their activities.
Oh you’re trying to walk down the sidewalk? Sorry, but I’m gonna take up the entire thing by having my friends take pictures of me in front of this building eating a cupcake I just got from this trendy bakery down the block. My followers have to see it!
You’re trying to catch your subway so you aren’t late to work? Sorry, I gotta make sure to walk as slowly as I possibly can because I have to film myself walking so all my friends and followers can see I’m taking the subway just like people in the movies do! Then I’m gonna stop right in the middle of the stairs so I can get a good picture of myself. You can go around me!
​
People see what they see in the movies and they think going there will solve their problems. When in reality, we’re all just normal people living day to day, going to work, paying bills. Paris, London, NYC are regular places with regular people. It isn’t a movie, here.
https://www.theonion.com/european-men-are-so-much-more-romantic-than-american-me-1819594261
The same reason so many European men fantasize about living in America.
I don’t think we do. I think that’s cheap and easy tv.
The same reason that the women of your country romanticize living in America.
They see all the benefits of living in the foreign countries mainly the luxury lifestyle and want in