How A Romantic Comedy Crossed Oceans, Borders, And The Inter-webs To My Inbox

In reverse chronological order, this is the path that “The Kissing Booth,” which I have not seen, took to be on my radar. Let this be a testament to the power of networks (and teenage romantic comedies).

Bob Lefsetz (a music industry guy) mentioned the movie in his newsletter, which he learned of from Rich Greenfield, a stock analyst at BTIG (a finance industry guy).

Greenfield covers media and Netflix specifically, so he’s always paying attention to what is moving needles. Lefsetz is always curious in why things are popular. I love finding out two people I admire read each other’s work.

The rabbit hole continues: the show itself (h/t to Lefsetz’s readership) is actually based on a story published on the Canadian writing platform Wattpad. The original story was written by a then 15-year old Welsh girl.

Let’s pause to put this in perspective.

Several thousand years ago a guy named Moses reportedly came down from a mountain with a set of rules carved into some stone tablets. He and his friends used those rules to help govern their lives in the wilderness. Over time, the specialness of that group spread into a global community.

Today, a teenager can take advantage of a writing platform based several thousand miles away from her, get “found,” have her story optioned and produced as a feature length movie on a direct to streaming platform, to soar to the top of the charts in a few years.

The cycles have compressed, and the networks have expanded. Try following the path back to origination for something you’ve enjoyed or recently heard of and then imagine how that would have happened 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago, etc.

All we have to do is harness a little piece of this network’s power…