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But the internet never forgot it. The phrase “Kissing Ramon Some More” began as a sarcastic Reddit thread in 2019. User @Cinephile_Trash posted a looped GIF of the kiss slowed down to half speed with the caption: “Unpopular opinion: I could watch this awkwardness for an hour. Kiss him some more, Mike.”
“In 2008, every movie kiss had to look like The Notebook —epic, fluid, and obviously choreographed,” Dr. Friel explains. “But the Ramon kiss is different. Mike’s hand shakes. Ramon accidentally bumps noses. They stop to breathe. It’s real . In a post- Fleabag world, audiences crave emotional clumsiness. We want to see people figuring it out in real time.”
By J. H. Miller, Staff Writer
But fifteen years later, a grassroots movement has emerged online, simply titled It isn’t a sequel, nor a reboot. It is a retrospective analysis asking a provocative question: Did we misjudge the chemistry between protagonist Mike and the mysterious Ramon? The Scene That Divided Audiences For the uninitiated, The Valencia Diversion (2008) follows Mike (Steven Plemons), a neurotic travel writer who gets lost in the Andalusian countryside. He is rescued by Ramon (Diego Luna-esque newcomer Javier Soto), a laconic olive farmer with a secret past.
“Absolutely. I used to wince seeing it. But my daughter found the ‘Kissing Ramon Some More’ edits last year. She said, ‘Dad, this is so vulnerable.’ That hit me. I was trying to act passionate . But the director kept yelling, ‘Be worse at it. Be a real human.’ So I stopped acting. I just... kissed a guy I had a crush on in the dailies.” Kissing Ramon Some More
By asking for “more,” the fandom isn’t demanding a sex scene or a dramatic confession. They are demanding duration. They want permission to sit in the awkwardness, to see two people figure out what they mean to each other without a punchline or a fade to black. Kissing Ramon Some More is not a real sequel. There are no production deals, no casting calls. But it exists in the best possible place: the collective imagination.
Why the sudden love for a scene everyone once hated? Dr. Lena Friel, a professor of performance studies at NYU, argues that the scene’s revival speaks to a shift in how we view on-screen intimacy. But the internet never forgot it
It may not be the most elegant kiss in cinema. But it might be the most honest. And honestly, we could all use some more of that.
To everyone’s surprise, the post went viral. Within weeks, fan edits appeared on YouTube and TikTok featuring the song “Crush” by Cigarettes After Sex. The hashtag #KissRamonSomeMore has since accumulated over 40 million views. Kiss him some more, Mike
“You mean kiss Ramon some more? [Laughs] In a heartbeat. I texted Javier [Soto] last week. He’s a theater director in Barcelona now. He said, ‘Tell them we never stopped kissing.’ I think that’s a yes.” The Fan Edit That Changes Everything The most famous fan creation is a 12-minute short titled Más , by YouTuber “Quiet Violence.” It loops the original kiss, but slowly adds layers of audio: a heartbeat, the sound of rain turning into a roaring ocean, and finally, a whispered conversation recorded via AI voice cloning that imagines what Mike and Ramon say after the cut. Mike (AI): “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to do this.” Ramon (AI): “Then don’t. Just stay.” It is haunting. It is artificial. And it has been viewed three million times. A Cultural Reckoning Why do we need to kiss Ramon some more? Perhaps because the original kiss ended too soon. In 2008, queer indie romances were still required to be either tragic or purely comedic. The Valencia Diversion tried to live in the middle—a place of nervous, banal intimacy.
The first kiss happens in the rain. It is clumsy, desperate, and lasts exactly four seconds. Critics panned it as “performative” and “physically uncomfortable.” Roger Ebert famously wrote that the kiss “had all the passion of two mannequins colliding in a windstorm.”