Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
IMDB/Netflix
evening sitdown
Your evening longread: Emily in Paris and the rise of 'ambient TV'
It’s a coronavirus-free zone as we bring you an interesting longread each evening to take your mind off the news.
EVERY WEEK, WE bring you a round-up of the best longreads of the past seven days in Sitdown Sunday.
And every weeknight, we bring you an evening longread to enjoy which will help you to escape the news cycle.
We’ll be keeping an eye on new longreads and digging back into the archives for some classics.
The series Emily in Paris is an example of what Kyle Chayka has termed ‘ambient TV’ – shows that you barely even have to look at, but can still follow. While a few of the examples in the piece are specific to America, it might make you look at what you’re binge watching in a new way…
(The New Yorker, 12 mins reading time)
The purpose of “Emily in Paris” is to provide sympathetic background for staring at your phone, refreshing your own feeds—on which you’ll find “Emily in Paris” memes, including a whole genre of TikTok remakes. It’s O.K. to look at your phone all the time, the show seems to say, because Emily does it, too. The episodic plots are too thin to ever be confusing; when you glance back up at the television, chances are that you’ll find tracking shots of the Seine or cobblestoned alleyways, lovely but meaningless. If you want more drama, you can open Twitter, to augment the experience.
have your say