If you are online, you know that people in Europe are finding out the hard way that if you try to steal from an American we….will make sure we get our stuff back. Now, The Summer I Turned Pretty has weighed into that discourse just on accident.
In season 3 episode 9 of the show, Belly Conklin (Lola Tung) is in Paris and leaves her backpack unattended while trying to pay for her lunch. A classic move for an American because for the most part, you can leave your bag in a restaurant on its own and no one will touch it. In Paris, that’s not really the case and she returns to find her backpack gone. Luckily, she has an AirTag in it.
To be fair, I saw that she had an AirTag in her little bag while on the plane and wondered why we were being shown this. Then, her bag got stolen and I thought to myself that I should have known better. But it is funny because most of us have something in our bags that is easy to track. If someone took my purse at any given time, my AirPods would lead me to the thief. Point being: You can easily find your stuff if you have an Apple device.
Belly does, ultimately, find her bag. She tracks it to a club, confronts the thief, shoves him to the ground, and takes her stuff back. Which is the most American thing I have ever seen. What I found hilarious about the entire situation was that it fed into the current conversation on social media about pickpockets in Europe attempting to steal from American tourist. Spoiler alert: It doesn’t go over well.
Americans won’t let you just take our stuff
One of the most uniting things that Europeans can do is try to insult Americans. It is a real “We can insult ourselves and other Americans but you cannot” energy. And honestly, great. That’s how I’m always trying to be as an American. But the more recent buzz has been that Europeans think that pickpocketing Americans is a smart move.
To be fair, the pickpockets probably don’t realize the people they’re trying to steal from are Americans. In Belly’s case, she literally just left her bag sitting at a table. But if they weren’t aware of where Belly was from, the guy SURELY knew after she tracked him down.
I think it is funny that this part of the episode hilarious because while pickpockets have always been an issue, the recent conversation surrounding it has popped up on social media. The show itself was filmed a while ago meaning that they just lucked into everyone calling out people for trying to steal from Americans but hey, if you want a real example of what an American is like if you try to take our belongings, Belly Conklin shoving a pickpocket to the ground because he stole her backpack is a pretty great example.
(featured image: Eddy Chen/Prime Video)
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