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This Week in Dulture…
Approx 5 minute read:
🎇 The best yearly recap I would ever read
🏀 The worst trade in NBA history
👯♀ Whatever Nike was doing this past year
🛑 How to not make a product
🚘 This is the year all gamers have waited for
📺 MJ on NBC flopped
Dulture weekly mix
This was the mix we were supposed to play on New Years but instead we got tied up playing Mario Golf for a lot longer than I care to admit.
That said, it doesn’t have to be NYE for this mix to slap you upside your head and wake you up outta your holidaze.
As we kick off the first edition of Dulture in 2026, it’s only right you have this on in the background as you read my rambling.
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Ah yes, a new year and a new yearly recap issue.
I’m not a fan of year in reviews.
Which is absolutely the most ironic thing I’ve said so far this year.
Every year around this time, I used to wait feverishly for Sportscentre’s year in review. The combination of the sports stories of the year alongside the plays of the year was like heaven to any sports fiend.
But now that we constantly get top 10 lists for anything sports related (let alone anything in general), it’s all just lost its charm.
Year in reviews don’t hit the same as they used to because the internet is now littered with the same stupid videos that continuously resurface because of people’s addiction to dopamine hits from views/likes/comments.
But let’s not start the year off on a dismal, everything on the internet is slop, note.
Instead, we’re going to start off with a look back on the top stories from Dulture this past year.
Essentially what I did was go through every single issue from 2025, pull what I thought was actually worth mentioning as a reminder, throwing it into my Dulture notepad file (which has got to be the biggest notepad file known to man at this point) and then widdled all the stories down to just 10.
And I’ll just say with the second story in this issue, I was giving serious thought on whether I was going to run that one or six seven being the word of the year. Suffice to say, 6-7 didn’t make the cut.
May we never have to talk about that stupid number ever again.
February - Luka to the Lakers
Has there ever been a trade surrounded with more conspiracy theories than when Luka Dončić was traded to the Lakers, seemingly out of nowhere?
Even Shams had no idea this was coming and had to double check this wasn’t a joke.
After essentially dragging the Mavs to the finals in 2024, Luka confirmed what everyone was already thinking, he was the Mavs’ next Dirk Nowitzki, aka their franchise player.
And he was only 24! Like, what?!
I spend no time on the internet in spaces where Mavs fans live and the algorithm still gave me a bunch of pissed off people lol.
Alls I know is if I were a Mavs fan, I would’ve been livid. The closest thing for us in Toronto was when Vince Carter left, but that situation had been brewing - this Luka trade was a royal shocker.
Right, Rich Paul?
From then Mavs GM Nico Harrison eventually getting fired (finally), the weird draft lottery situation that gave the Mavs the first round pick when they had a 1.8% chance of getting it and all the theories around this trade about the NBA wanting Luka in a major market - this trade was one for the NBA history books.
And almost a year later, I feel like this trade is still somewhat unfolding.
Between AD’s laundry list (no fr, it’s a LIST) of injuries and Luka looking like a star WITHOUT Lebron, I think the Lakers will come out the winner of this trade when Lebron retires…whenever tf that is.
February - Kim K & Nike
So yeah, it was this or SiX sEvEn lol.
If you really pay attention to the big sportswear brands then you’d know Nike hasn’t exactly been a clear winner over the past few years.
They still release things that people like me go apeshit over but I can only take so many colour ways of Air Max 1’s.
When Elliot Hill took over as CEO in 2024, one of his main objectives was to put the athlete front and center in everything Nike does.
Which is why in February of 2025, Nike partnered with Kim Kardashian’s Skims brand.
Jokes aside, this move by Skims was text book business 101. I gotta think they used their NBA underwear partnership as a stepping stone for Nike to say they were serious about athletes.
Article was paywalled but there’s really only 1 main reason why
OR this could easily be a way for Nike to justify selling $200+ leggings and $100 running shorts, because as I scroll through the Nike x Skims site, there isn’t one lick of clothing Nike couldn’t make themselves here.
When you search Skims on the Nike App, nothing shows up for Skims but you get a bunch of Nike garments that could easily pass for Skims products but at a much cheaper price point.
Nike Skims dropped their second collection in November so things are rolling there. But I’m just wondering what Kim is doing with all those Yeezy’s she owns.
February - AI updates
Februrary was a busy month man - sheesh, everyone trying to do the most in the shortest month of the year.
If I wanted, I’m sure I’d have no problem including an AI story every month for this yearly recap. But then I’d be like 95% of newsletters out there and you’d unsubscribe and my dreams of being — ok sorry, I’m totally letting the AI take over here (HAHA get it?)
And goodbye.
Horrible jokes aside, a horrible AI joke of a product came to an official end in February when Humane announced their AI pin was being discontinued and the company was being sold to HP.
Man, I’m not even gonna go into detail - you can read the story here but let’s just say this was such a dumb idea.
Also in February:
That time the internet became obsessed with turning everything into a Ghibli inspired image
May - We Still Didn’t Get GTA 6
Yup, we’re jumping from February to May.
The internet effectively went haywire when the long awaited 2nd GTA 6 trailer came out.
Theories, rumours, predictions - you name it, GTA 6 was a source for all of that and more.
The trailer itself had vibes from a few different games from the past. I was a big Vice City fan so it was fun to see the Vice City references through out the trailer.
And then a few months later, once again Rockstar announced the game was going to be delayed to November 19, 2026.
While rumours have circled the internet that the game would be delayed into 2027, so far it looks like we’ll finally be getting GTA 6 this year.
May - MJ Back “On” NBC
When NBC won the broadcast rights for the NBA (amongst a flurry of other broadcasters), I was pretty excited. Back in the day the NBA on NBC was IT.
Then they announced they had signed Michael Jordan to part of the broadcast in some shape or form.
I think I speak for the internet when I say we were all stoked.
And so we find out Jordan will have a segment on Tuesday nights and the first Tuesday night comes and it’s a sit down interview with Mike Tirico and we’re all like, YES, this is cool - we haven’t heard from MJ since The Last Dance.
And then the following week it’s…an interview again. And all of the sudden it feels like they filmed an interview for the season and now they’re just cutting it up into 2 minute segments.
Don’t get me wrong, MJ is not very public guy to begin with so anytime you hear from him, you pay attention.
BUT GAAAADAMN, NBC hyped this up like MJ was going to provide analysis on games, give his opinion on the league today, and heck, maybe he was going to be a part of a broadcast?
Instead we got an extension of The Last Dance.