O TYM ODCINKU
This week’s tabs: The NHL tried to capitalize on the hockey romance boom and listicles are making a comeback in the age of AI.
Timestamps:
🏒 0:00 - The NHL tried getting into hockey romance. The league launched “Hot for Hockey,” a series of fan fiction-inspired audio stories featuring real NHL players. They quickly scrapped the entire project just days after launching. We’re unpacking why it felt so off, what the league is missing about its growing female audience, and how sports can tap into women’s fandom without reducing it to romance and WAG culture [not that there’s anything wrong with romance or WAGs].
* The NHL Is Releasing Its Own ‘Hot’ Fanfic. Romance Lovers Hate It, Wired
* NHL’s ‘Hot for Hockey’ campaign ends after not-so-hot reception, Yahoo Sports
📋 16:45 - The listicle is back. In an internet flooded with AI slop, people are turning back to rankings, lists, and curation as a way to signal taste, find community, and create shared cultural context. We’re talking BuzzFeed, Letterboxd, the New York Times’ TV rankings, and why the real value of a list might not be the list itself but what people do with it once its been posted.
* How lists became our greatest defense against endless slop, New Yorker
* The 100 best TV shows of the 21st century, NY Times
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mtdeco.substack.com/subscribe
