Drawing on Joseph Straubhaar’s theory of cultural proximity (1991), this paper investigates how L’amica geniale/My Brilliant Friend (2018–2024) has garnered its Chinese viewership and whether its Italianness has contributed to its distribution and reception in mainland China. Through content analysis, we consider viewer practices via the bullet screen, a unique commentary function widely used by East Asian video streaming services, to understand how the series appeals to local Chinese viewers and how they comprehend Italian teen television content. According to our data, for most Chinese audiences, this Italian television series shares a similar degree of cultural proximity with Anglo-American television content. In addition, we investigate how the use of promotional materials of the series has misguided Chinese viewers’ perception of My Brilliant Friend as Italian TV. Therefore, this chapter argues that the success of My Brilliant Friend in China benefits very little from its Italianness but much from its representation of girlhood experiences as a kind of universalisable feature.