Heated Rivalry, the Canadian sequence streaming on HBO Max primarily based 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 a variety of intercourse. So. A lot. Intercourse.
However for all of the speak 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 assume Heated Rivalry is an anomaly. She says the present is profitable as a result of it faucets right into a common expertise: craving. “I believe the persons are craving each which method,” 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 concerning the burn of a real crush.”
On the most recent 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.
Under is an excerpt of our dialog, edited for size and readability. You may take heed to the complete episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts. If you happen to’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 have been stuffed with vitality 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 development on TikTok, the place persons are aiming to obtain 1,000 rejections in 2026. Which means placing your self on the market at the very least a thousand instances and proving to your self that you simply’re prepared to attempt to be weak and face the prospect of failure. That’s huge yearner vitality. 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 simply’re chasing.
I believe that’s so attention-grabbing, to think about craving past simply the romantic.
If we glance round, it’s actually exhausting to exist on the planet proper now, and we’re being inundated with distressing information occasion after information occasion. I believe craving could possibly be seen as a distraction from that, however I really assume 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 aware of the idea of beautiful ache, and I believe craving can present this kind 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 similar time, they’re sort of nice. It’s exhausting to explain the way it’s each painful and gratifying.
Once 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 kind of taking on your complete world for nevertheless lengthy. It’s [reminiscent] of an easier time, if you’re 13 and that’s all you’ll be able to 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 in all places.
It’s undoubtedly an enormous subject of dialog on the Popsugar staff. I’m queer, and all of my queer feminine pals 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 discuss who yearns. Heated Rivalry is particular as a result of it’s about queer males.
I argue in my essay that ladies are ceaselessly the objects of craving, however we see fewer depictions of feminine craving on the market. I believe we see a variety of depictions of ladies passively wishing or hoping for one thing, however to me, that’s not true craving.
I’ve been fascinated by this loads since Popsugar posted concerning the essay on our Instagram. Somebody really commented one thing that has caught with me: They have been saying that we’re at all times seeing depictions of ladies who need and by no means obtain, and that actually made me assume. I believe 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 individuals this 12 months. Not simply wistful stuff, however the tornadoes and the storms and the shattered glass of all of it.
