MADRID – The divide between locals and newcomers in Spain has been deepening in recent years, with protests around overtourism and debate over foreign property buyers becoming a regular feature of daily life.
Social media influencers are helping to stoke the tensions, with young American and British content creators sharing views on the country that often risk reinforcing stereotypes.
In a recently resurfaced TikTok video, 24-year-old American Avery Myers says she has been living in Spain for about a month before listing “the things which would drive Americans insane” about Spanish people. “They just don’t drink water, they just drink water and wine,” she claimed. “You are going to get cigarette smoke in your face at all times. Everyone smokes cigs here. You drive by a school and there’s children smoking cigarettes at recess. Beer and wine every single hour of the day.
“If you are walking in the street, especially in the city, nobody moves for you. You are just going to collide. They don’t move out of your way.”
More than 322,000 people have now watched the video on TikTok, one of many Myers has posted about the differences she has observed between Spain and the US. Some suggested her content was tongue-in-cheek, or “ragebait” designed to attract engagement, but most Spaniards were unamused by what they perceived as ignorance.
One commenter on X remarked that: “Every time it is clearer that Americans are a plague infected with two neurons trying to find their place in the world”, though they added: “Not all of them are like that.”
In other recent videos, Myers complained about how Spaniards socialised, going out at around midnight, always dressing to impress and never wearing leggings or “sweatpants”, which she described as a “real struggle” for her. She also objected to having to use a plug adaptor and claimed it was hard to find protein in Spain, a country known for its high-quality meat, fish and seafood. One video shows Myers – who plays for a women’s ice hockey team near Madrid – visiting a Lidl supermarket to try to find high-protein, American-style food.
“If you wanna experience America stay there,” one commenter suggested. Her content was even picked up in Spanish media. National newspaper headlined its story: “An American woman is surprised [by] the Spanish lifestyle: ‘They don’t drink water, they drink wine and beer’.”
Anthropologists said Myers’s comments were a case of “ethnocentrism”.
“She is a classic case of this concept which is judging another culture by the practices and values of one’s own culture with the belief that her culture is better,” Antonio Montañés Jimenez, an anthropology researcher at the University of Oxford, told The i Paper. “When these cultural cliches are made on social media they can prompt the biggest reactions.”
Myers did not reply to a request for comment from The i Paper.
She is not the only expat to come under fire for this approach. Another American TikToker posting “culture shock” videos criticised the complexities of sorting recycling into separate bins for glass, paper and plastic, and the “kids’ portion” sizes of restaurant meals.
Experts said the divisions reveal the contrast between Southern European cultures and those in Northern Europe and North America.
Alberto del Campo Tejedor, professor of anthropology at the University Pablo de Olavide in Seville, told The i Paper: “A segment of Spanish society is weary of the prejudices and stereotypes stemming from Northern Europe and the United States. Bullfighting – much like drinking and smoking in public – is viewed as an uncivilised custom, perpetuating an age-old dichotomy that pits the industrialised, civilised nations of the north against the countries of the Mediterranean rim, which are deemed underdeveloped not only economically but also in terms of the ‘civilising process’.
“Spain fascinates because its people do not live to work – but rather the reverse – yet it simultaneously draws scorn and criticism rooted in long-standing stereotypes: North versus South, civilised versus uncivilised, Protestant versus Catholic, industrious versus idle, and religious fanaticism versus rational, measured behaviour.”
Daniel Efford, a British expat who’s spent nearly four decades living in Spain, runs a YouTube channel warning new residents about Spanish pitfalls like bureaucracy. Efford, who lives on the Costa del Sol, says the problem is that expats have a “tourist view” of the country.
“They look at life from the holidaymaker view and don’t really consider what happens behind the scenes,” he says in one video, advising people moving there to do their homework, talk to locals and learn the language.
Spain remains extremely popular with US expats. The population of Americans in Spain rose from 54,000 in 2021 to 76,000 last year, according to the Spanish National Statistics Institute. Around 266,462 British-born residents lived in the country as of January 2025, Spain’s national statistics organisation, Instituto Nacional de Estadística, reported.
But this popularity appears to only worsen the problem, with locals blaming holiday lets and foreign buyers for rising house prices that are making life unaffordable for locals. Last year, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez said he would impose a 100 per cent tax on non-EU citizens who bought property in the country, though this stands little or no chance of being passed by parliament. Regional authorities in popular locations including Ibiza, Mallorca and Barcelona have even threatened to prevent non-residents from purchasing property.
While many anti-tourism protesters say they welcome visitors up to a point, they claim holidaymakers are damaging Spain. In February, MPs in Catalonia voted to double the tourist tax, making it one of the most expensive holiday destinations in Europe.
Despite the culture shock, the foreigners seem likely to keep coming.