Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

The game's name is a reference to "six degrees of separation", a concept that posits that any two people on Earth are six or fewer acquaintance links apart.

[4][5] They wrote a letter to talk show host Jon Stewart, telling him that "Kevin Bacon was the center of the entertainment universe" and explaining the game.

The concept was also presented in an episode of the TV show Mad About You dated November 19, 1996, in which a character expressed the opinion that every actor is only three degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.

[9] Playing himself in a 2003 episode of Will and Grace, Bacon connects himself to Val Kilmer through Tom Cruise and jokes "Hey, that was a short one!".

[11] Bacon provides the voice-over commentary for the NY Skyride attraction at the Empire State Building in New York City.

He leaves and returns with a group of people, then says to the clerk, "Okay, I was in a movie with an extra, Eunice, whose hairdresser, Wayne, attended Sunday school with Father O'Neill, who plays racquetball with Dr. Sanjay, who recently removed the appendix of Kim, who dumped you sophomore year.

"[18] American rapper MC Zappa also makes reference to the game in his 2018 song "Level Up (The Ill Cypher)".

[19] The most highly connected nodes of the Internet have been referred to as "the Kevin Bacons of the Web", inasmuch as they enable most users to navigate to most sites in 19 clicks or less.

Gotts published the photos in a book, Degrees (ISBN 0-9546843-6-2), with text by Alan Bates, Pierce Brosnan, and Bacon.