what's going on everybody welcome back to stacking slabs this is your hobby content alternative i am brett flagship episode time coming at you hopefully you are all off to a good start this week having fun collecting your cards digging in engaging in the community planning where you're going to be this summer which card shows you're gonna hit all the activities all of the fun things that keep us engaged in this hobby and you're spending some time listening to some hobby content here on stacking slabs and that is what we're going to be talking about today yes this might feel a little bit like content inception but sometimes there are topics that are deep in my heart and mind and i want to get them out and a lot of the times i've shared this in the past these episodes come from collectors that i'm engaged with i talked about last week the episode i put out on the mystery around what we collect and the value and the mystery of value around some of the cards we collect and how that was inspired from the card ladder confidential episode where chris was talking about it and i said that's a really good idea that's a good thought that is a thread i wanna pull on a little bit deeper and so i put out a whole episode on my thoughts and opinions on that hopefully got a chance to check it out today is one of those topics that i am constantly thinking about from a content perspective especially when i'm engaged with brands in this space potential partners explaining collaboration explaining the value of long form content and i am not sure the topic of long form content in this space has been given its due and i feel compelled as an individual who spends all of my time researching having conversations synthesizing notes formatting episodes putting everything together and delivering them here on the stacking slabs network to share my two cents so today i want to talk about long form content because it sits underneath almost everything we do in this hobby but doesn't get discussed in real depth before i do that gotta shout out my good friends at inferno red technology the sponsor of the flagship episodes of stacking slab they are the engineering team behind some of the biggest names in sports and collectibles like dc sports eighty seven commsi collectors upper deck and ebay from ai powered solutions for startups to full stack platforms for industry leaders their team can tackle your toughest technology challenge they build awesome software for the hobby for leagues and fans and everyone in between see what they can build for you at inferno red dot com so the question is simple can long form educational content compete with short form attention culture over the long term and the reason i care about this is obvious i've spent a huge part of my career building content and brand for companies then building content independently in the sports card industry and i built stacking slabs on the back of long form audio driven conversations so yes i have a bias but i also think the bias is earned i think i've spent enough time close to the audience which is you and inside the audience as a collector to know that we are putting wildly different kinds of content into the same bucket and acting like it all does the same job it doesn't it never did and if we keep talking about hobby content like every format is interchangeable we're going to misunderstand what actually sustains the hobby and what merely stimulates it i want to make thing one thing really clear from the top i am not against short form content i am not here to wage war against tiktok reels clips or highlights i participate in those lanes it is not the prime primary format for stacking slabs i engage in that content i consume in that content i think in digging in and researching this episode i've learned that the research does not support that kind of absolutism in any way short form can be incredibly effective for tightly scoped education quick discovery and getting people oriented around one idea quickly it also shows that short form feed optimized for constant novelty is not the same thing as deliberate microlearning and that distinction matters because if we confuse short form education with attention maximizing feed behavior we end up defending a content environment that may be very good at making people react but not always very good at making people understand so the thesis that i want to present today is that long form educational content can absolutely compete long term but it should not compete on the terms of short form attention culture that is a silly battle the right battle is to be excellent at the thing short form is structurally worse at context depth interpretation trust routine identity companionship sustained learning short form can spark interest long form can shape behavior short form can get someone to stop scrolling long form can give them a reason to stay in the hobby and in a category like sports cards that difference matters quite a bit part of why this question feels so urgent is because the attention economy is brutally competitive now deloitte found that media and entertainment companies are competing for about six hours of daily media and entertainment time per person and that bucket is not really getting bigger social platforms are becoming dominant because they offer endless free content extremely strong recommendation systems and advanced ad tech built to keep users engaged and advertisers happy that is the world every creator in every hobby business is operating inside so if you're making long form educational content you can't afford to be naive about the forces working against you you are not competing with another podcast episode you are competing with an entire architecture of frictionless distraction but here's a very very important note the same landscape does not prove long form is dead in fact much of the evidence points the other way podcast consumption hit record highs in twenty twenty five among adults from thirty five to fifty four more than six in ten consumed a podcast in the last month and more than half actually listened in audio youtube the very platform often associated with shorts said tv had surpassed mobile as its primary device by watch time in the united states and later reported more than seven hundred million hours of podcast viewing on living room devices in a single month that means the cultural story is not everyone only wants shorter and shorter content the story is that people are using different formats for different moments and long form still has a massive demand when it is deliver delivering constant value if you miss that you'll end up drawing the wrong conclusion about the market you will think long form lost because short clips got more reach but reach is not the full scoreboard if your business depends on trust retention understanding brand lift or category leadership the scoreboard is different minutes matter habits matter repeat engagement matters recommendation quality matters whether people make you a part of the routine matters whether they come back when the market cools off matters that is where long form earns its keep and these are the types of things that i am constantly thinking about as i continue down this path of long form content in the hobby i am very specific with the types of collectors and the types of owners and operators that i'm communicating to on a daily basis with this platform i understand many of you are busy professionals you fall into that age bracket you are on the go you are taking your kids to daycare listening to stacking slabs you're mowing the lawn listening to stacking slabs maybe you're listening to stacking slabs when you're working out you might not have time to doom scroll on tiktok and you might have time for content when you are on the go and so i'm trying to optimize for that i think one of the biggest mistakes that people make is treating hobby content like it's just another niche in the broader content economy it's not hobbies are different because they are deeply bound by leisure identity meaning community when people talk about the hobby like it's only a marketplace they are already missing part of the picture people are not just collecting objects are organizing emotion memory aspiration status belonging and relief and if you zoom in further the serious leisure framework becomes useful serious leisure is a systematic pursuit of amateur hobbyist or volunteer activity that is substantial enough to require skills knowledge and experience over time it has a kind of career inside the activity that is a perfect way to think about a meaningful portion of sports card collectors not every collector obviously some are casual some are opportunistic some are just here for the entertainment but a lot of collectors are on a real progression path they learn about eras players sets printing rarity scarcity market structures grading standards auction behavior and their own taste they build vocabulary they build convictions they build social identity and that kind of progression needs content that can actually carry weight this is also why i think all hobby content is the same is such a bad assumption in a serious hobby content is not just promotion it is part of the knowledge system research on collectors found that collecting communities have specialized information needs and that information flows act as critical resource for sustaining both individual and communal activity that means if the information layer gets replaced by nothing but hot takes price pumps and visual sugar the community eventually pays the price the hobby becomes easier to enter emotionally and harder to navigate intelligently you get more stimulation and less sense making more heat and less light there's one recent study that i came across a few months ago and the reference point escapes me but it was talking about sports card collecting be at being identified around seven motivations it called out education identification with athletes financial investment addiction social connection entertainment and escape from mundane or stressful life events that is massively important this that is massively important finding because it kills the dumbest hobby stereotype that there is only one thing we're in this for and that's about making money or chasing dopamine no that isn't part of it for sure but the hobby is also educational it's social it's identity driven it is often escape valve it is a way of staying connected to sports history memory in the version of yourself that still lights you up over a piece of cardboard now think about those motivations for a second if people are in the hobby partly for education then content that explains contextualize and teaches gonna take that again now think about those motivations for a second if people are in the hobby partly for education then content that explains contextualizes and teaches is not optimal if people are in the hobby partly for social connection then content that builds familiarity and shared language matters if people are in the hobby partly for escape from ordinary stress then content that accompanies them through their daily life matters if people are in the hobby partly for identity then content that reflects seriousness craft and value matters once you accept that you stop asking whether long form educational hobby content is too slow and start asking whether the hobby can stay healthy without it and this is where i want to be really careful i'm not saying long form content is automatically noble there is plenty of bad long form content out there rambling repetitive self indulgent pointless long usefulness is the virtue meaning is the virtue clarity is the virtue respect for the audience's time is the virtue the argument is not make it longer the argument is use the format that can actually do justice to the complexity of the hobby this is a very complex thing there are many different flavors many different slices many different sets many different players many different ebbs and flows in the markets there are so many nuances and you cannot fully explain or fully give context to nuances in thirty seconds but you can if you create a quality piece of content that is long and shares deep research theories stats information sometimes this can be five ten minutes sometimes it can be ninety but if your format never allows for depth don't be shocked when your audience becomes shallower as the category deserves i built stacking slabs on long form audio because i understood the audience that i wanted to reach i wanted the person who cares deeply but lives a full adult life the person in their thirties forties or fifties the person with a job responsibilities maybe spouse kids maybe a thousand things pulling on their attention the person who doesn't always have time to sit and watch but does have time to listen while driving lifting cutting grass folding laundry doing all of those chores that consume our lives and the psychology of that matters that i think most of us realize tobin and gwadango found that people often listen to podcasts while doing mundane tasks and they've it also reported that they feel productive and that they've learned something new shire and cohen found that mobility can strengthen parasocial relationships with podcast hosts through narrative transportation with multitasking intensifying that effect that is fascinating result because it suggests that portable audio is not merely background it can be come some kind of companion medium the host comes to you and the host comes with you through your life the show is not asking for your total visual focus but it can still earn your emotional and cognitive investment that is one of the most underappreciated superpowers in media i talk a lot about i don't just create a lot of long form content i consume it i need it i want it when i get done recording this episode i'm gonna go on a walk and i'm going to hopefully find a brand new sports card podcast in my feed that i can listen to for the thirty or forty minutes when i'm out so when i hear people act like long form audio is somehow less competitive because it's not visually aggressive i think they are misunderstanding the product audio does not need to steal your eyes to win your loyalty it integrates into parts of your life that other formats can't fully access that's not a weakness that is distribution into dead time that is intimacy without demanding a screen that is how the hobby show can stay in someone's orbit even when their life is crowded and if you are serving serious collectors who want the hobby to fit into an adult life rather than replace an adult life that matters a lot and that's what i think about now let me give short form its due because i want to make sure that you all understand that i consume short form and i think short form is super powerful short form is elite at entry points it's elite at hooks it is elite at visual reveals quick reactions punchy teaching trend capture top of the funnel awareness short form is valuable for introducing one idea one card story one collecting principle one market lesson one cautionary point one emotional spark it can do work the problem is not the shortness the problem is when the platform environment pushes everything towards endless scrolling without context a twenty twenty five study found short form video use was associated with more surface learning and lower rational thinking and a twenty twenty four eeg study linked heavier short form video addiction tendency to weaker executive control signals and lower self control again i'm not saying a thirty second clip makes someone dumb i'm saying if the dominant logic of a content ecosystem is speed novelty and stimulation you should expect more impulsive consumption and less durable understanding than an ecosystem that also contains meaningful depth that is not moral panic that is pretty close to common sense and the research points in that direction so the right stance i think is short form bad long form good the right stance is short form is the spark not the fire it is the doorway not the house it is the trailer not the movie it is the appetizer not the meal if you ask short form to do the entire job of building an informed resilient socially connected hobby you are asking a tool to become a system and it can't that is where long form has to exist this is maybe the part where i think the hobby content conversation gets most wrong people look at the hobby content and put it all in one bucket break clips rip reactions market updates podcasts deep interviews newsletters collector essay show recaps educational threads auction analysis all of it one bucket then they compare metrics as if every piece is competing for the same outcome that is a category error these are conversations i get into with brands all the time when we're talking about numbers when we're talking about value different formats solve different problems and once you see that the ecosystem makes a lot more sense short form solves discovery interruption emotion and initial curiosity long form solves explanation trust memory and meaning community formats solve belonging and dialogue written formats solve reference and searchability live commerce or break breaks solve excitement and transaction none of those are the same thing and a hobby that wants to grow sustainably needs them all but it especially needs the formats that deepen people after they arrive a a category cannot live on trailers forever and at some point it needs actual programming i think that gives us a much better way to talk about stacking slabs too this show does not need to apologize for not looking like the fastest growing clip account in the hobby that would be stupid its job is different its job is to become the place people go when they want to understand the hobby and how they are thinking about collecting not just to react to it its job is to become a part of the collector's routine its job is to make the hobby feel richer more thoughtful more human if the show can do that consistently it is competing in the right arena one of the strongest pieces of evidence for long form is the quality of attachment it can create edison and wandery found that eighty three percent of monthly podcast consumers qualify as fans that fans spend nine hours and twenty four minutes listening each week compared to five hours and thirty three minutes for the casual listener and that fifty four percent of fans say podcasts are part of their daily routine think about how powerful that is daily routine is not a throwaway metric it means you're not just in someone's feed you're in their rhythm you're not a random impression you're a reoccurring presence that is the difference between reach and relationship that same work also found that podcast fans engage with shows across other forms of media and that brands benefit from trust rich environment more than half of podcast fans say they are more likely to consider products if the host recommends them most say they pay attention to brands that support their favorite shows and a large share feel grateful to them that is not because podcasts are magical it is because the host listener bound bond is stronger when people spend real time together and when the content feels like part of someone's life rather than than an interruption when they're scrolling that is exactly why i think long form content has such a strong long term case the longer the category relationship has to last the more trust starts to matter in a hot market almost anything gets attention in a colder market only content with real utility and real attachment survives and if you are building a show for the collector playing the long game you should want the format that best supports the long game psychologically here is the biggest claim i wanna make today good hobby content is a sustainability asset for the category i've been preaching this for years if you want better collectors better conversations better businesses and a healthier long term hobby you need more than just hype you need content that teaches people how to orient themselves you need content that helps people understand eras aesthetics risks motivations trade offs you need content that reduces confusion and gives people language for what they care about that's what makes people stick not just because they know more but because they feel grounded in that grounding matters because the hobby contains some unstable psychological ingredients you know i was thinking about the article pac shared in the last football card podcast from the athletic talking about just the addiction side of this and i think research on sports card collecting explicitly includes addiction among collector motivation there is no reason to be cute about it the hobby can be joyful meaningful and connective and it can also become impulsive compulse compulsive and status drunk content can push either direction if the dominant content diet is almost all chase flip reveal instant reaction don't be surprised when the category feels more fragile and transactional but if the ecosystem contains real educational and reflective content it gives people ways to slow down and locate themselves inside the hobby with more intention that doesn't eliminate irrational behavior but it creates a counterweight that is why i keep coming back to the idea that content is category infrastructure infrastructure is not always the flashiest thing in the room it is the thing that makes the room function educational long form content is infrastructure because it supports the information layer the relationship layer the meaning layer of the hobby if you remove it the hobby may still have action but it will have less depth less trust less memory and over time that is expensive if you run a business in the hobby this should change how you think about partnerships do not only ask who gets the most views ask who has the right audience in the right mindset with the right relationship iab's research says brands increasingly treat creators as a core channel and that core creator reputation and education alignment are amongst the top factors in selecting partners that should be your filter too if your product requires trust explanation or consideration a partner with loyal and thoughtful audience is usually more valuable than a partner with a bigger but shallower attention and if you sponsor long form educational content understand what you are actually buying you are not just buying a pre roll or an ad read you are buying adjacency to credibility you are buying presence inside a routine you are buying association with a host who has spent real time earning trust back to edderson and wondery's data on podcast they have data on podcast fandom that make the point brutally clear fans pay attention to sponsored brands they feel grateful towards them they are more they are more open to considering products a trusted host recommends that is not guaranteed performance and it should not give anyone permission to sell garbage but it absolutely means that context is stronger than many operators realize there is a bigger strategic point for all businesses do not make creators do one job think in layers use short form partnerships for discovery use long form for trust and education use community touch points for retention use live and event oriented formats for activation the data even shows that video podcast viewers use more platforms and are more likely to discover podcasts through youtube and social channels which is another reminder that a winning strategy is not format purity it is format orchestration the best ecosystem is connected for me the real opportunity here is not just to defend long form content it is to make stacking slabs one of the clearest voices in the hobby about content what content is actually for i want this show and this network to stand for intentional collecting intentional learning intentional media consumption i want this show to be a place that respects the collector's time enough to go deep where when depth is needed and respects the category enough not to turn everything into sugar that does not mean being humorless it does mean being antiviral it does not mean being antiviral it means being clear about the mission and honestly i think this is where leadership lives right now not pretending the hobby is one content format away from utopia not in acting like every clip is brain rot or every hour long show is wise leadership is about leadership is being able to name the ecosystem describe each format honestly explain what each one contributes and advocates for the parts that produce durable value that is a smarter more generous and more authoritative stance than simply saying i prefer podcasts it it also positions the show as a category thinker instead of a just a content participant so yes i'm advocating for long form i'm advocating for it hard but i'm not doing it because i think length is virtuous or because i want my own format to win some tribal war i'm doing it because i think serious hobbies like sports cards need serious content somewhere in the system they need places where the tempo slows down enough for thought to happen they need hosts and creators willing to help people not just react and they need businesses wise enough to support the creators who make the category more trustworthy more informed and more sustainable so let me land this simply can long form educational hobby content compete with short form attention culture long term yes absolutely yes but only if it stops trying to be measured like short form and only if the people building it understand the job they are being hired by the audience to do the job is not to win the scroll the job is to matter after the scroll the job is to build trust sharpen taste transfer knowledge create companionship and give people a better way to live inside the hobby short form will always matter it will always have a place it is fast visual emotional and incredibly efficient at discovery use it respect it learn from it but don't confuse the spark with the fire don't confuse the trailer with the film don't confuse attention with understanding and definitely don't confuse a temporary surge in impressions with the kind of content that helps the hobby stay healthy over decades if you're a collector i think you should push if you are a collector i think this should push you to think about your own content diet are you only consuming what excites you or are you consuming what equips you if you are a creator i think you should push to ask what role your content is playing in the ecosystem are you creating a spark are you building substance ideally it's both and if you are a brand or operator i think the question is even more direct are you putting dollars only where attention is cheap or are you supporting the creators who make the category more trustworthy and more durable that's where i stand i believe the hobby needs all types of content i believe short form has earned its place and i believe long form educational hobby content is not some nostalgic holdout from the internet i think it is one of the most important long term assets a serious hobby can have that is the bet i have placed on stacking slabs and after looking at all the research after doing however many episodes we've done here after leaving my career in technology to go all in on the hobby i think it is a very defensible bet i appreciate all of you i appreciate you sitting here for the thirty plus minutes listening to me talk about my thoughts and views on content i don't do this often i don't often step inside and and evaluate and talk about the content ecosystem but something struck me and i felt compelled to put this out hopefully this illuminates kind of how you think about your content diet appreciate all of you making stacking slabs a part of your content diet tell a damn friend we'll be back take care talk to you soon