WHY U GOT DUMPED

Representation: Gotham Group & WME

Agency: Independent Creators

Product: Lifestyle & Comedy Website

Providing closure to the buffoonery you survived.

The Brief

In 2010, young creators were shooting their shot to monetize internet content. With the rapid rise of YouTube, any Cinderella could go viral when amplified by Facebook and Twitter. My creative partner and I were single, 20-something filmmakers in Los Angeles, searching for the next big move in our careers and love lives.

Astonished by how peers ended relationships and intimidated by a bourgeoning online dating scene, relationship woes wove our creative landscape. Soon enough the popular website, Texts From Last Night, sparked an idea too fun to ignore. We put together a creative team to launch WhyUGotDumped.com as a crowd sourced submission platform.

Creative Approach

Whether the dumper or dumped, everyone has a "dumped tale." With an open call for break up stories in a couple of sentences Twitter style, WhyUGotDumped.com launched. When the platform went live, the dumped tales poured in faster than we could keep up with our day jobs. A band of volunteer creators helped expand the site's content to include advice blogs, missed connections, and a web series syndicated on Funny-or-Die.

While we weren't therapists or witch doctors and didn't sell a potion to heal broken hearts, we did generate merriment and camaraderie by sharing our dumped tales with an online community. With laughter loud enough, Hollywood looked our way.

The Results

William Morris / Endeavor took an interest in our funny little website. The agency had just signed Facebook and were looking to represent more of the web. Instead of book deal like Text From Last Night, WME wanted to capitalize on our collection dump tales for endless themes of love and loss, a concept proven with our web videos. We entered a shopping agreement with Gotham Group to develop a sitcom. Why U Got Dumped was eventually denied a green light for a network television production, however, the journey was a success. We laughed and loved with a community who enjoyed a similar catharsis.