He doesn't talk about sex

What used to be pop and rock stars, actors, or athletes are, for many young people of the TikTok generation, influencers today. People who accompany them every day on their smartphones, and whose opinions sometimes carry more weight than those of their parents. For the latter, this form of fame often remains difficult to comprehend. Not everyone can understand why people would voluntarily watch others cooking, travelling, putting on make-up or whatever else they might be doing.

The fact that an English teacher from the north of the country is likely to be better known to many young Luxembourgers than quite a few ministers or politicians seems downright absurd to some.

That's precisely why we travelled to Wiltz, and – we admit – the world of influencers and content creators hadn't exactly been our world up until then either.

The journey to Wiltz is a long one – a very long one – for city dwellers like us. But Argent Difficile, alias Philippe Esch – as our interviewee is actually called – grew up here and insisted on meeting us here, in his hood. Currently, the two-metre-tall man, whose TikTok and Instagram stories are shared thousands of times, lives in Clervaux, where he teaches English at the local lyceum. Yet Wiltz remains the place where he feels truly at home and where he knows everyone and everything.