Ryan Schultz – News and Views on Social VR, Virtual Worlds, and the Metaverse, plus Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI's Impact on the Metaverse
I first read the news on LinkedIn this morning: MeetinVR, a social VR platform I last wrote about on my blog back in 2022, has announced that it is shutting down its services as of April 30th, 2026:
The technology landscape is characterized by constant change. As we look ahead, we recognize significant shifts occurring in the enterprise sector:
Industry Focus Shift:Key platform providers are strategically re-aligning their enterprise VR initiatives.
Market Maturity:The core VR market is evolving, allowing new forms of spatial computing to emerge.
The Rise of AI-Enabled Glasses:We are seeing an acceleration in the development and focus on AI-enabled glasses and next-generation augmented- and virtual reality, signaling the next generation for workplace collaboration.
In light of these industry dynamics, and to finish strong, we have made the strategic decision to conclude MeetinVR services.
MeetinVR services will officially cease on Thursday, April 30, 2026.
Now, there is enough technojargon in this press release to make me grit my teeth (and we are far, FAR away from “the rise of AI-enabled glasses,” in my opinion). And the “industry focus shift” gobbledygook of “key platform providers are strategically realigning their enterprise VR initiatives” can brutally be summarized as metaverse companies are folding because there’s still not a market for business users.
Let’s face some brutal facts in the harsh and unforgiving light of the inevitable crash of the artificially-heightened expectations of the recent metaverse hype cycle (of which I, being the writer of a popular blog on just that very topic, was actually around for during the beginning, middle, and end.) Still with me? Good.
Facebook (which had gone to all the trouble and expense of rebranding as Meta during this ridiculous hype cycle) has dropped millions of dollars into acquiring Oculus and trying to build a business metaverse platform, and failed to even to entice its own employees into using it (let alone anybody else). Linden Lab (the makers of Second Life) spent millions of dollars into building a shiny new social VR platform called Sansar, which never took off, and now languishes in a near-moribund state, supported only by a passionate cadre of volunteers determined to keep it alive. (Now, Sansar was designed for consumer as opposed to business use, but I’m quite sure the original development team would have been happy to see it take off for corporate use, too. Aside from a few music festivals, that never happened, though.)
And frankly, given the perilous political and economic times in which we now live, people have far greater concerns on their minds than whether they can meet up as avatars to conduct business in a flat-screen virtual world or on a social VR/AR platform accessible via a headset. The current tsunami of generative AI tools like ChatGPT threatens to gut lower- and middle-management white-collar jobs (something that’s not being talked about enough, in my opinion). If metaverse platforms weren’t able to sell themselves during a pandemic, when everybody was forced to sit at home, they certainly won’t be able to sell themselves now, when businesses are cutting costs, and people are worried about keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads.
I predict that we are going to see a “metaverse winter,” much like the previous “AI winters,” when the initial promise and hype of the technology hits what the Gartner group politely calls “the trough of disillusionment.” And I predict we are going to see a lot more shutdown announcements like this throughout 2026.
All the PR spin in the world (“to finish strong”? Really??!?) cannot hide the fact that the metaverse business is in a period of retrenchment, possibly a long one. And no, generative AI is not suddenly going to be some sort of magic wand that can make everything all better again. That’s just laughable.
It’s time to go back to the drawing board, for a rethink (that, I can agree with in this press release). And I do wish the team behind MeetinVR every success in whatever they decide to do next.
PLEASE NOTE: This is now a somewhat edited first draft of the notes I was frantically taking during this livestream, because I wanted to get the information out there on this very interesting application of the Apple Vision Pro! Yesterday I came across this announcement of how the Apple Vision Pro was being used in research to determine its effectiveness as a support for those suffering from anxiety and depression. As an avid AVP user, as a subscriber to Explore POV, and as a mental health consumer, I was definitely not going to miss this presentation, which was being streamed on LinkedIn (a first for me; usually I am on Microsoft Teams or Zoom for this sort of online event).
I was originally thinking I would go in using my AVP’s Virtual Display feature with my MacBook Pro (my usual work setup lately, what with my neck and shoulder pain), and then I thought: naaah, let’s not overcomplicate things. Apparently, this is also being streamed to YouTube, which I will look for later. UPDATE: Added the YouTube link at the end.
Any omissions and errors are my fault; sorry guys, I can only take notes so quickly!
The speakers in the livestream were:
Hala Darwish, Associate Professor, School of Nursing/Neurology/Neuroscience Graduate Program, University of Michigan (currently conducting research, still in its very earliest stages)
Jeremy Dalton, XRHQ (moderator of the event; formerly PwC Head of Immersive Technologies)
James Hustler, Explore POV (3D video creator, whose app was chosen as the Apple Vision Pro App of the Year 2025, https://exploreimmersive.com)
Event description: By immersing patients in breathtaking natural environments using the Apple Vision Pro, research is now underway to discover whether these experiences can support those suffering from anxiety and depression. Join James Hustler, creator of the award-winning Explore POV app, and Dr. Hala Darwish, Associate Professor at the University of Michigan, for a live discussion hosted by Jeremy Dalton from XRHQ. Together, we will explore the technology, the clinical thinking that inspired it, and what it could mean for the future of digital therapeutics.
(Unfortunately, I missed the first few minutes while I was fiddling with my sound settings, and trying to get my earbuds to work properly, so I missed Jeremy’s and Hala’s introductions.)
James Hustler travels the world to record amazing 3D videos and share them via his subscription service, Explore POV (which I have written about before here). He had been living in a motor home in New Zealand during the pandemic, when he had started recording 3D videos to share with friends.
Hala is in early stage research, interested in the relationship between mental health and the environment. Many people do not have access to certain environments (e.g. an urban environment with very little nature). Also, people can have access issues (e.g. a disability). Hala was looked into VR as an alternative to real-life nature experiences, and in 2019 when she started, the tech wasn’t quite ready (they tried with 360-degree videos, and she felt it didn’t really work well, i.e. low resolution; caused motion sickness, etc.). She then tried computer-generated nature graphics for patients with MS (multiple sclerosis). In 2023, the Apple Vision Pro was released, and Hala had a demo. The decision was made to switch from 360-degree VR video to 180-degree VR video.
James: The VR 360-degree video format is not new, but until recently, it hasn’t been at a high-enough resolution to create a true sense of presence. i.e., it changes from an intellectual response to an emotional response of being there. Explore POV is now recording at 16K resolution, and experimenting with Apple Immersive Video. The goal is to capture a scene so that the user feels like it’s lifelike and real to them.
Hala: transporting the individual to these natural environments does appear to have health benefits (mental and physical health, stress relief, etc.). In addition to anxiety and depression relief, Hala’s area of research, VR is also being used for the treatments of phobias (exposure therapy), performance anxiety (e.g. fear of public speaking), and as a method of pain management and distraction, among other uses.
James, when asked about feedback to his videos: Explore POV was created as a travel app, but people by the hundreds are contacting him about the mental and emotional response to the VR video scenes, telling him it’s the first time they’ve climbed a mountain or paddled a kayak. People have told James that they use the Explore POV app to relax after a stressful day’s work. This sort of feedback has opened James’ eyes to the possibilities of 3D video in VR. He had originally approached his work from a technical challenge (e.g. how do I create the highest-resolution 3D videos in VR?). He stressed that all these responses are anecdotal, but that we need scientific evidence.
Hala, in talking about her research: we want to run clinical trials (but we are currently testing feasibility and safety with a limited number of patients with progressive multiple sclerosis and depression). If we give AVPs to patients to use at home (e.g. with disability), how are they going to be able to use the headsets? The first study splits the patients into three groups. It’s a cross-over study: one group gets standard treatments first, then VR treatment, the second group gets VR treatment first, then standard treatments. The third group has just standard treatments, with no VR intervention. It is an early-stage feasibility study, with 14, 14, and 12 patients in the three categories of patients being looked at. She is also interested in researching longer-term responses to VR treatment.
Hala: in my opinion, exposure to natural scenes in VR appears to be a good adjunct to standard therapy. It’s still too early to come to any definitive conclusion. We first want to see if it has an impact on stress and anxiety levels, and then eventually expand to a larger number of patients (right now it’s a small number).
Which environments create greater impacts? James: we would expect to see what we’ve seen compared to previous academic research studies using real-life nature scenes (e.g. MRI brain scans after exposure to nature, e.g. taking a hike). There is already a good body of academic literature dealing with the impact of real-life nature on people’s anxiety and depression.
But we don’t have anything beyond anecdotal results for the use of nature in VR so far, nothing scientific; this research is still in its very earliest stages. For example, one early patient had a very good response to a desert environment (but it’s only a sample size of one!). James: if we’re aiming for calmness, certain VR video environments would probably help with that, e.g. flowing water, watching a sunset while sitting on a mountain, etc.). But again, at this point it’s purely anecdotal.
I asked a question in the text chat during the livestream that was actually asked of James, the creator of Explore POV, which was: Has James created specific VR video environments for Hala’s research? The answer was no; James has not yet created specific VR video environments for Hala’s research. However, they’ve now shot approximately 200 videos in 20 different countries so far for the Explore POV app (I think he said 200, but it was hard to take accurate notes!). He notes that they are a small, nimble team who can rapidly adjust to meet any requests from Hala’s research team, if needed in the future.
My question got asked!!
In response to a question from another user about the use of Apple’s SharePlay feature, where you can share an experience together with other Apple users via their Personas: James would love to add this feature, if he can. Yes, he would love to make Explore POV more of a multiplayer experience, if possible. He talks about people sequentially experiencing the same VR video in Explore POV, and thereby “sharing” the experience with others (e.g. a father and his daughter, if I remember correctly).
James: for people who can’t physically travel due to disability or for soke other reason, the technology is unlocking experiences that they might never experience otherwise. He thinks that it’s an amazing position to be in where we can give some of these people a taste of visiting remote places, with impacts in not just healthcare but also conservation, education, etc.
Hala: the academic research process is slow due to recruitment bottlenecks, but she estimates 2 years for the duration of the study (before results are published). he notes that most of the time, the people who most need the nature exposure do not have the opportunity to access it (for example they cannot afford an Apple Vision Pro).
(Unfortunately, Hala crashed out of the stream soon her comments, and the other two speakers wrapped it up!)
Conservation, education and healthcare are the three areas of what James wants to focus on with Explore Immersive. In addition to working with Hala on her research study, he’s also working on conservation and education applications as well. He hopes to start new partnerships in these three key areas, and wants to make Explore POV more than “just a travel app.”
Here’s the 53-minute YouTube video, in case you missed the livestream (unfortunately, you do have to actually go over and watch it on YouTube, as I am not allowed to embed it into my blogpost). Sorry! I do very strongly urge you to go over and watch it, though; it was amazing and inspiring.
No, I will no longer be writing about Second Life, although yes, I still will be playing it.
Well, as long-time readers of my blog know by now, I am absolutely terrible at sticking to any promises I make about my blog content. Right? Right??!?
My four-week Heated Rivalry-inspired endorphin high ended when I got into a car accident last weekend (ironically, on my birthday). Both vehicles involved were damaged. I was badly shaken up, and the accident triggered some body aches, and, of course, aggravated my already-existing neck and shoulder pain. It was my first car accident in almost twenty years, and I feel like such an idiot. Now I have to fit in visits to my insurance agent, my car dealership, and a bodyshop in between visits to the physiotherapist, massage therapist, and doctors. I have been exhausted, and I have been taking some sick days to rest, relax, and recuperate. Frankly, I’ve been a bit of a mess these past few days.
To get my mind off my current troubles, and to avoid a depressive spiral, I have been doing a deep dive into the Heated Rivalry fan fiction community over at Archive Of Our Own, as well as popping in to check the latest fan art, memes, and fan fiction recommendations on both Reddit and Tumblr. And so it was, that I decided to take two of my minor male alts (i.e. alternative, non-main avatars) and transform them, as best I could, into the gay hockey players Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov of the hit Crave television series Heated Rivalry, based on the Game Changers series of novels by Nova Scotia author Rachel Reid. (Some people who are artists can draw fan art; I instead choose to use my 18+ years of Second Life avatar creation and styling know-how to create models for my own form of fan art.)
I posted the results in several successive Primfeed posts (which most people probably don’t have access to, since you need a Second Life account to access the posts, as I have my account set to private), as well as to Tumblr, where they have been favourably received (you have to agree to view potentially mature content to see my pictures, even though there’s no nudity or sex, and you might have to actually sign up to Tumblr to see this, I don’t know; all the pictures are reposted below, anyway).
So, I decided this evening to finally share some pictures of my works-in-progress, as well as include detailed styling notes for both my Shane and Ilya avatars. First some pictures (please click on each one to see it in a larger size):
Ilya Rozanov Styling Credits:
Head, Eyes, and Hairbase: LeLutka Kris head (a freebie from a previous LeLutka December event)
Head Skin: Varka by Gloom (Velour Ivory skin tone; this was a previous weekend sale item Dreamer Pixelmaid told me about)
Eyebrows: Nuve Charlie eyebrows (EvoX, light brown tintable; free group gift; the Nuve group costs L$350 to join, but you get dozens of EvoX eyebrow fatpacks!)
Facial Moles: Ellie beauty marks and moles for EvoX from Guapa (not a perfect match, but close enough for now)
Neck Moles: Izzie’s neck moles (medium)
Hair: WingsDG ER0714 brown pack (this was probably the hardest thing to find; I tested out a lot of hair at a LOT of different places before deciding this one came closest to Ilya’s shaggy, curly hair!)
Body: Meshbody Legacy Special Edition Basic (free, from the Avatar Welcome Pack)
Body Skin: Velour Picasso Homme fit figure in Ivory skin tone (along with chest, leg, and happy trail body hair and body moles included in the package).
Toenails: Purec Nature Nails Male (free group gift; group is free to join)
Shape: My own, starting from the included body and eyebrow shapes included in the Varka skin package, and playing with the face, head, and body sliders to match up with internet pictures of Ilya Rozanov/Connor Storrie (still a work-in-progress, although I am very happy with this result).
Animation Overide: Tuty’s sLIFE Free Male AO (free)
Plaid Jacket: Rowers Beck Jacket #1 Legacy/Athletic (got this for free with a Rowers store credit from a previous Shop and Hop event)
Shorts: Hardcore (HD003ST) Men’s Slim Fit Shorts black (I bought this for free using free Hardcore store credit from a previous Shop and Hop event)
Head: LeLutka Eon Lite head (free, from the Avatar Welcome Pack)
Head Skin: Nick skin from Alexandrite (Velour Moon skin tone; this was also a weekend special deal that Dreamer Pixelmaid told me about)
Eyebrows: Nuve Dylan eyebrows (EvoX, black; free group gift; the Nuve group costs L$350 to join, as I said above, but you get dozens of EvoX eyebrow fatpacks!)
Eyes: Florest eyes from Alexandrite
Freckles: Voglia Freckless at 25% (a gift from a previous shopping event, which will do for now until I find the perfect Shane freckles!)
Hairbase: Dura black hairbase BoM EvoX (F1-01; free group gift)
Hair: Jack hairstyle by ADE (free group gift; group is free to join)
Body: Meshbody Legacy Special Edition Basic (free, from the Avatar Welcome Pack)
Body Skin: Velour Eros Lite for Legacy (Moon skin tone; this was a freebie from Velour from the very first LeLutka December event, six years ago)
Shape: My own, starting from the included Nick body and eyebrow shapes, and playing around with the face, head, and body sliders to match up with internet pictures of Shane Hollander/Hudson Williams (still a work-in-progress).
Animation Overide: Tuty’s sLIFE Free Male AO (free)
Plaid Jacket: Hardcore (HD008JK) Men’s Jacket with Hoodie R/B (I bought this for free using free Hardcore store credit froma previous Shop and Hop event)
Shorts: Arcback Shorts Blue – Legacy Basic (free; I believe I picked these up at the new Avatar Shopping Island here).
Bed with built-in cuddle poses and animations: Dutchie’s gay sex bed (I had Shane and Ilya test out the in-store model to take the cuddle poses, but I’m pretty sure I am going to go back and actually buy this, because the animations are marvelous! UPDATE Feb. 1st, 2026: Yep, I bought it!)
All other pictures taken on my super-secret desert island where I can rezz objects like pose stands for a short period of time before they are automatically returned. And, no, I am not telling you where it is! One new place I can recommend is The Fitting Room (I wrote about it on Primfeed here, but my Primfeed is set to private, so you’ll need to set up a Primfeed account to be able to read that post).
The Fitting Room offers private change rooms and photo studios.
UPDATE Jan. 30th, 2026: Okay, I finally found a good, large, front-facing picture of Shane Hollander from the internet (thanks again to Dreamer Pixelmaid!), and I spent some more time fiddling with the head and face sliders to make my Shane Hollander avatar look a little bit more like Shane Hollander/Hudson Williams. Here’s what he looks like today:
I’ve still gotta work a bit on the head shape (or perhaps, use a different head than the LeLutka Eon one). However, this is (as a drugged-up Shane Hollander in the famous hospital scene from episode 5 of the TV show would say), BET-TER. 👍😉
Also, based on a helpful suggestion from Graeme Strange on Primfeed, I found a modify/copy/no-transfer gay cuddles/sex mat, which can be made invisible, and therefore can be incorporated with any Second Life bed! While I still like the Dutchie’s bed I mentioned above, and I am probably gonna go back and buy it, the Devinz mat cost only L$1,499 and was therefore an instant buy for me. Thank you, Graeme!
I couldn’t find it on their SL Marketplace store, but here’s the vendor at the Devinz Designz PG & Adult Furniture Store (exact SLURL), plus a few poses of Shane and Ilya cuddling that I took yesterday evening using their gay sex mat (click on each picture to see it in a bigger size):
UPDATE Feb. 1st, 2026: Okay, I bought some more hockey equipment for Shane and Ilya. First, some more pictures (please click on each one to see it in a bigger size):
I already talked about the hockey T-shirts above in my avatar styling credits, but here’s what I added:
The hockey pants from Meva (which only come in a Gianni size) fit my avatar’s Legacy Basic body fairly well, with a few alphas required in the hips. upper leg and knee area. These come in a very complete fatpack to change the texture of multiple parts of the pants and knee guards, and are L$495 here: exact SLURL (the Meva store has a central spawn point, so use the Show on Map feature and follow the red arrow/beam to the menswear section).
The only decent black hockey ice skates I could find were part of a hockey gacha from Sese PA, which I bought for L$120 from a reseller here on the SL Marketplace: https://marketplace.secondlife.com/p/11-Sese-PA-Winter-Hockey-Skates-black/26694430 (again, I needed a foot/ankle alpha and a toenail alpha for the Legacy Basic body used here).
To cover the bare skin between the skates and the kneepads, I just created a new underwear layer, using a wool fabric texture, adjusting the waist and length, and tinting it dark grey.
WARNING: This is yet another one of my Ryan-Schultz-patented meandering editorial blog posts, written during the week I turn 62 years old. I promise you, I will soon return to regularly-scheduled programming about (as the tagline of my blog now states) “News and Views on Social VR, Virtual Worlds, and the Metaverse, plus Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI’s Impact on the Metaverse.” (Hey, at least, this time, I didn’t write a whole goddamn paragraph for the blogpost title. 😜)
My birthday always falls in the very coldest of winter weather here in Winnipeg, and today has been the coldest day this season by far:
Screenshot
According to the Environment Canada website, with the windchill factored in, it feels like -48°C (that works out to -54°F for you metric-system-averse Americans). Even worse, it’s going to stay this cold for at least the next seven days, according to the forecast:
This is the time of year when we intrepid Winnipeggers, bundled up in layers covering every square centimetre of skin except for the eyes, stumble between our homes and our cars, and then rush from our cars to our workplaces, mumbling the following hallowed mantra: “noearthquakesnovolcanoesnoearthquakesnovolcanoesnoearthquakesnovolcanoes….“
But fear not! While I beaver away in my (thankfully heated) cubicle at the University of Manitoba Libraries, I am surrounded by the sights and sounds of gentle waves rippling along a sandy beach in Bora Bora, one of the Apple Vision Pro’s expertly-designed immersive Environments:
The clouds gently hover, and the palm trees sway, as I work away on my MacBook Pro, using the Virtual Display feature in my Apple Vision Pro headset. Simply by reaching up and turning the upper right knob on my AVP, I banish my drab workspace surroundings in wintry Winnipeg, and replace it with a tropical paradise!! (Drinks with umbrellas not included; they would frown upon that at work.)
I have already written at length about my continuing neck and shoulder pain, due to a couple of deteriorating joints in the cervical part of my spine, the first serious sign that my aging body is starting to wear out. However, having now had some everal months’ experience with this discomfort, I now know that the two biggest triggers of that pain are:
Sitting too long in front of a desktop computer or notebook computer, hunched over my keyboard; and
When I get stressed, my neck and shoulder muscles tend to tighten up, and soon my shoulders are aching.
So, I now spend between 4 and 6 hours per workday using the Mac Virtual Display on my trusty Apple Vision Pro headset with my MacBook Pro, because I have discovered that, instead of looking down at a small screen at arms-length, my neck gets less sore, and I can work for longer stretches, looking up and ahead at a large, clear, ultra-high-definition screen hovering in the space over my desk, which is designed to appear as if you were looking at it from about 1.8 metres/6 feet away from my eyes:
Focal distance in the context of VR headsets refers to the distance at which the lenses allow your eyes to focus comfortably. In the case of the Apple Vision Pro, the actual focal distance is set around six feet.
This means that, regardless of the virtual distance of an object in the digital space, your eyes will focus as if that object were six feet away.
Also, when I upgraded my AVP from the first edition (with the M2 graphics processing chip) to the refreshed model (which contains a top-of-the-line M5 chip), I noticed that the eyestrain I used to experience after about an hour and a half while wearing the unit has completely disappeared. Hooray! And the new dual-strap knit band fits much more comfortably on my big fat head. Aside from the occasional neck-wrenching mishap, the Apple Vision Pro is worth every single penny I have spent on it. And I will be first in line to purchase the next edition of this wonderful headset. As I said before, I am all in.
Thankfully, I have finally received the final report from the Ergonomics Office at my university, with a detailed shopping list of recommended equipment to purchase. Like many of my younger work colleagues, I will be getting an adjustable-height sit/stand desk, risers to place my MacBook Pro and my brand-new Dell Windows notebook at the proper eye height, new desktop monitor holders and keyboard trays, etc. I am also learning (with the help of my ergonomist and my physiotherapist), how to take regular breaks, to stretch, walk around the office, and do some neck, shoulder, chest, and upper-back strengthening exercises.
The good news is that, because of all these changes, I am now in less frequent pain than I was a few months ago. But it has come at a cost. You see, I need to save what I like to call my “good neck” hours for my paying job as an academic librarian, which means that I have has to cut back significantly on my extracurricular, after-hours activities that used to require me to spend similarly long stretches of time sitting in front of a desktop computer at home.
One of those activities that I have had to cut back on is, unsurprisingly, my beloved virtual world of Second Life. Trying to navigate my small army of avatars and alts through all the Advent calendars and Christmas gifts in December just about did me in last month, and I have decided that my body is telling me that I desperately need to rebalance my real life/Second Life ratio a little bit, and spend more time in (gasp!) the real world. 😜
Speaking of the real world, I have maintained my boycott of mainstream social media platforms, in order to continue to focus on my good mental and emotional health. And for the same reason, I am not really paying attention to the traditional news media right now, either; if I have zero personal control over it, I simply don’t want to know. Every so often, my eyes hover over a newspaper headline at the supermarket checkout line with the latest story about Trump and Greenland, I grimace and roll my eyes, and I promptly move on with my day, focusing on those things I do have some control over (like my job, my friends, my community, and my obsessive little hobbies like Second Life). I have found that, simply by avoiding toxic social media and if-it-bleeds-it-leads news media and the doomscrolling both trigger, I have never been in a better headspace overall, and I intend to continue this approach moving forward into what appears to be yet another year of batshit craziness, train wrecks, and dumpster fires.
Trump who? Greenland what?? Don’t care, not my circus, not my monkeys.
I find I don’t miss Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X/whatever the fuck Apartheid Clyde is calling it this week, at all, and I spend precious little time on Mastodon, Bluesky, and Substack (although I do check the latter from time to time, mostly for AI/GenAI news). The only social media spots I pop into now are selected subreddits on Reddit (like r/AppleVisionPro and r/VisionPro), Primfeed (think Twitter/X, but only by and about Second Life), and now Tumblr (for the wonderfully creative Heated Rivalry fan art, memes, and fan-edited music videos using clips from the TV show). Even a couple of Discord servers devoted to Heated Rivalry have popped up, where fans share fanfic recommendations! It lifts my spirit and makes me happy.
For the past four weeks, ever since my SL friend first told me about Heated Rivalry and suggested I watch the show, I have been riding a wave of feel-good hormones like serotonin and oxytocin from the Crave TV series about a hidden love affair between two professional-league hockey players (I wrote about it here). And I am not the only one feeling that heady rush after watching the show! Many commenters in posts on the r/HeatedRivalry subreddit talk about the impact the show has had on them, and many have watched the entire TV series multiple times. The best and most concise summary of this phenomenon (which one joker suggested we call “the Heated Rivalry Mass Psychosis Event” 😂) is that watching the show makes you feel as though you are falling in love. There are many Reddit and Tumble posts from people who, like me, feel that the show has given them an important insight on their lives and how they are living them.
The following Reddit post is one example I saved because I could relate to it so much:
One Heated Rivalry fan’s emotional response to the show. I could 100% relate to this person saying that they had cut themselves off from dating, romance, and intimacy, because watching the TV show made me realize the exact same thing about myself. I could share with you dozens of other examples from Tumblr and Reddit about how the show has impacted viewers. This show has genuinely struck a chord with many people in the LGBTQIA+ community (and probably in the straight world, too).
And—just as I had with the movie Brokeback Mountain, almost exactly 20 years ago—After watching the Heated Rivalry television series, I bought and read books 2 and 6 of Nova Scotia author Rachel Reid’s book series Game Changers (the original source material for season 1 and the already-greenlit season 2 of Heated Rivalry), and then dove head-first into the Heated Rivalry/Game Changers-inspired fan fiction posted to Archive of Our Own (AO3 for short). Here’s a link to AO3 of HR/GC fan fiction, sorted in descending order by kudos (fan likes). WARNING: please note that many of these fanfics have an adult content warning for explicit gay sex scenes! One of the ironic things I find about explicit gay fan fiction (also called slash fiction) is that it is primarily written by, and read by, an audience that is predominantly straight women (although, of course, it also has many fans among the LGBTQIA+ community).
Connor Storrie (left) plays Ilya Rozanov and Hudson Willaims plays Shane Hollander in the surprise hit Crave TV series Heated RIvalry (showing on HBO Max in the U.S.)
Yesterday, my hometown newspaper, the Free Press, devoted a full two-page spread about how Heated Rivalry has become a major pop-culture moment, with ripples spreading out far beyond the queer community and fan fiction writers. I had to laugh when I read a column (original; archived version if you hit a paywall) where three FP reporters were discussing their squeamishness about watching the gay sex scenes in Heated Rivalry. Straight people clutching their pearls over depictions of gay sex in mainstream media are just so funny to me.
I mean, c’mon, people. For God’s sake, if you’ve ever watched Bridgerton, there’s just as much (non-genital but ass-showing) nudity and (non-X-rated) sex happening there, and nobody needs to fetch their smelling salts for that! We do the exact same things in bed that you do, straight people (and no, on second thought, I am NOT gonna spell it out for you here). 😉 Please get OVER yourself.
Okay, end of rant…switching to other topics.
I have two things coming up that I wanted to share with you, my faithful blog readers. First, I have been honoured to be asked to be one of the keynote speakers at the 2026 Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education conference, taking place in the virtual world of Second Life March 19-21, 2026. Of course, I said yes! I haven’t picked a topic or even a presentation title yet, but expect an announcement soon-ish.
Second, although it is not official official (and I really should wait until I get the official letter from university administration, which I was told should happen about the end of March), the University of Manitoba Libraries has approved my application to take a one-year Research and Study Leave (at full salary) to start later this year, where I am relieved of my regular academic librarian duties, and can work on a special project. Academic librarians at the University of Manitoba are members of the faculty union, and just like the the professors, we have the right (and the opportunity) to pursue research. Again, more details later. I’ve only mentioned this to a couple of people so far, but I think I can share that much detail at this time.
So 2026 is going to be a very interesting year for me, on several fronts! Heated Rivalry has inspired me to make some significant choices and changes already (some of which you will hear about, and others you won’t). Wish me luck!
