Heated Rivalry, the Canadian collection streaming on HBO Max based mostly on the bestselling romance novels by Rachel Reid, has taken over group chats, algorithms, and brains. For many who haven’t watched, it follows queer, closeted skilled ice hockey gamers as they navigate falling in love and all of the angst that comes with it. There’s additionally lots of intercourse. So. A lot. Intercourse.
However for all of the discuss of homosexual hockey smut, the present at its core may be very candy.
Emma Glassman-Hughes is a author, reporter, and editor at Popsugar, and she or he doesn’t suppose Heated Rivalry is an anomaly. She says the present is profitable as a result of it faucets right into a common expertise: craving. “I feel the individuals are craving each which means,” she informed Vox. “In a extra traditional sense, we’ve seen the success of Heated Rivalry and The Summer time I Turned Fairly. Each these have blown up and actually are good examples of how everyone seems to be simply excited proper now in regards to the burn of a real crush.”
On the newest episode of Clarify It to Me, Vox’s weekly call-in podcast, we spoke with Glassman-Hughes about pining in popular culture and what it says about us.
Beneath is an excerpt of our dialog, edited for size and readability. You’ll be able to hearken to the complete episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. Should you’d prefer to submit a query, ship an e mail to askvox@vox.com or name 1-800-618-8545.
Are you seeing this craving anyplace else, even past TV and films?
Yeah, I consider craving in a reasonably broad sense across the Mamdani marketing campaign in New York. My feeds had been stuffed with power and enthusiasm and true craving and aching for a greater future for some new choices. I’ve additionally seen this New 12 months’s decision pattern on TikTok, the place individuals are aiming to obtain 1,000 rejections in 2026. Meaning placing your self on the market no less than a thousand occasions and proving to your self that you just’re keen to attempt to be weak and face the prospect of failure. That’s large yearner power. Alongside the best way in between the thousand rejections, you’re sure to get some yeses, whether or not that’s romantic companions or jobs or group organizing or no matter it’s that you just’re chasing.
I feel that’s so fascinating, to consider craving past simply the romantic.
If we glance round, it’s actually arduous to exist on the planet proper now, and we’re being inundated with distressing information occasion after information occasion. I feel craving could possibly be seen as a distraction from that, however I really suppose it’s a grounding drive.
Craving is that this deeply bodily human expertise to despair over not having what you need and to really feel the ache of being so shut but to date. We’re all accustomed to the idea of beautiful ache, and I feel craving can present this type of masochistic pleasure too — and all of us want extra pleasure in our lives proper now.
Crushes are enjoyable, however they are often excruciating. On the identical time, they’re form of nice. It’s arduous to explain the way it’s each painful and fulfilling.
After I consider craving, the phrase that comes up is all-consuming. Going again to the romance issue, I’m in a long-term relationship proper now, so it’s been a very long time since I’ve had a real crush, however I really actually miss that feeling. There’s a nostalgic high quality to some individual type of taking up your total world for nonetheless lengthy. It’s [reminiscent] of a less complicated time, once you’re 13 and that’s all you may take into consideration, and nothing actually issues past that.
If I open up my telephone proper now, I’ll most likely see a number of textual content messages about Heated Rivalry. It’s all over the place.
It’s positively an enormous matter of dialog on the Popsugar staff. I’m queer, and all of my queer feminine buddies are very taken with this present and really drawn to those extra weak depictions of masculinity that we don’t actually get to see very a lot of.
I wish to speak about who yearns. Heated Rivalry is particular as a result of it’s about queer males.
I argue in my essay that ladies are regularly the objects of craving, however we see fewer depictions of feminine craving on the market. I feel we see lots of depictions of girls passively wishing or hoping for one thing, however to me, that’s not true craving.
I’ve been fascinated about this loads since Popsugar posted in regards to the essay on our Instagram. Somebody really commented one thing that has caught with me: They had been saying that we’re at all times seeing depictions of girls who need and by no means obtain, and that actually made me suppose. I feel there’s a distinction between the passive wishing and the true gut-level craving, and the latter is what I wish to see extra of from ladies and queer folks this yr. Not simply wistful stuff, however the tornadoes and the storms and the shattered glass of all of it.