{"id":155669,"date":"2021-12-02T13:00:36","date_gmt":"2021-12-02T18:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=155669"},"modified":"2021-12-02T17:22:04","modified_gmt":"2021-12-02T22:22:04","slug":"nyc-adayinmylife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2021\/12\/02\/nyc-adayinmylife\/","title":{"rendered":"#nyc #adayinmylife"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Screenshot from “Restaurant Reviews: Lucien” video<\/a> by @theviplist<\/p><\/div>\n

Earlier this year I was obsessed with watching movies set in New York: campy comedies like Martin Scorsese\u2019s After Hours<\/em>\u00a0felt like a night out when I was still hiding at home; erotic thrillers like A Perfect Murder <\/em>and Dressed to Kill<\/em> made the city seem more enticingly dangerous than it was during lockdown. As New York reopened, I stopped watching movies and started going out. Dining at restaurants, once a luxury, felt like a necessity\u2014a way of re-entering the fantasy world of New York that I had streamed over the past year. It didn\u2019t matter where I was going or who I was dining with. I just wanted to be out and around people, to feel like a main character living in New York City. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m not the only one who\u2019s been going out more, at least according to TikTok. On my feed, iPhones pan across crowded New York City restaurants and plates loaded with steaks and pastas and gooey sauces, while raspy voice-overs celebrate or bemoan the food. These videos are more than restaurant reviews, they\u2019re a sales pitch for the city\u2014a reminder to whoever is watching that New York is back, and there\u2019s no better way to celebrate than by spending money.<\/p>\n

Like any other form of cultural mythmaking, TikTok generates desire for new experiences, shaping the way we navigate cities\u2014and determining who gets to enjoy them. In the late eighties, the romantic blockbuster When Harry Met Sally <\/em>functioned in part as a postcard for tourists and would-be New Yorkers curious about whether the infamous crime rates in Manhattan were beginning to decline. Harry and Sally, two University of Chicago graduates who move to the Empire State to pursue their careers\u2014one becomes a journalist, the other a political consultant\u2014experience the city as a land of promise, a place where good jobs and big apartments (and true love) present themselves to those willing and able to show up.<\/p>\n

\u201cA day in the life\u201d videos on TikTok follow a similar narrative structure, showcasing the idealized lifestyles of college freshmen and entry-level marketers, most of them young white women, while they document their transition to NYC. Montages<\/a> of neatly decorated studio apartments, strolls through Soho, and skyline vistas are punctuated by party scenes in rooftop lounges or laser-lit clubs. These videos provide an on-ramp to gentrification postlockdown, not unlike what When Harry Met Sally<\/em>\u2019s charming vignettes of Rockefeller Center, Macy\u2019s, and now-iconic restaurants like Katz\u2019s Delicatessen did for Mayor Giuliani\u2019s \u201crevitalization\u201d of New York in the nineties. The majority of today\u2019s New York\u2013centric social posts are consumed by newcomers unbothered by unemployment rates or eviction moratoriums. Strung together in the feed, they generate a map for the young and upwardly mobile, whose idea of settling in the city isn\u2019t finding or giving back to a community so much as engaging in commercial activities: spending money at bars and restaurants and boutiques to feel like they belong.<\/p>\n

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@katebartlett<\/a>life is good can\u2019t complain \u2665\ufe0f ##fashionstudent<\/a> ##fashionschool<\/a> ##nyc<\/a> ##newyork<\/a> ##dayinmylife<\/a> ##dayinthelife<\/a> ##fashioninstituteoftechnology<\/a>\u266c Call me – 90sFlav<\/a><\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n