"When Harry and I began working on the show, we came up with a list of dream episodes, standalone topics that we wanted to get to at some point, guests that we thought would be somewhat tricky to get but whose opinions we wanted to hear, etc. One of the first things Harry put on the list was an episode about House of Highlights. We knew we had to have Samer Kalaf on, since he wrote about them a few years ago for Popula."
"The three of us walked through the history of HoH, from its founding in the wake of LeBron James going back to Cleveland, through the supposed Bleacher Report golden age, the copaganda era, the ESPN takeover, and the current totally sludged-up place it is in now. As this history shows, it broadly mirrors the rest of the online world through this time period."
House of Highlights originated following LeBron James's return to Cleveland and rose during Bleacher Report's perceived golden age. Samer Kalaf, who previously wrote about the platform for Popula, contributed to an exploration of its trajectory. The platform moved through phases characterized by copaganda content, an ESPN takeover, and a present 'totally sludged-up' state. These phases illustrate shifts in ownership, editorial priorities, and audience engagement. The platform’s evolution mirrors broader transformations in online media, showing how grassroots or culture-focused pages can become corporatized, change tone, and decline in quality over time.
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