Greg Wyszinski, if you start with three points, those being sports fandom, fictional storywriting

and the internet, we might be able to triangulate and start to figure out where today's story

is kind of taking us.

If you look a little closer, it specifically involves a Seattle Kraken and TikTok, with

that sort of vague, but necessary backdrop, Greg, take us to the beginning of this story.

Well, it begins with the Seattle Kraken, who entered the NHL as an expansion team in 2021.

Last season, they finally made the playoffs, a big two-year wait for their fans, eliminating

the Raining Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche.

And from McKinney, head to the board by Tanner, submarine pass block off, the Kraken,

wing game summit. They knock off the defending Stanley Cup champs.

Now, winning is one way to capture new fans, but the Kraken also attracted attention for having

a distinct social media voice, which includes TikTok. So you ask me where the story begins,

when the Seattle Kraken were discovered by Booktok.

Okay, Greg, I admittedly have not the most experienced TikTok user,

but I'm also not familiar with Booktok. So let me stop you there and have you explain that.

Yeah, it's a colloquial community term. Now, different than when you're on hockey Twitter,

for example, Booktok is commonly used as a TikTok hashtag by content creators who want to discuss

a review or promote books. I talked to hockey romance author Emily Rath for this piece,

and she summed up Booktok like this. Booktok is a hashtag that has been used over 163 billion times

on TikTok. Booktok is a hashtag that anyone anywhere that enjoys books can use to signal to other

people. I enjoy books, whether it's audiobooks, ebooks, paperback, collecting books, spray painting

the edges of books. If you like books, you can hashtag Booktok. All right, Greg, we've got a lot

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