, Slate’s new podcast about companies in the news and how they got there. There’s a large fan base of people who love to watch Hallmark movies, maybe a little ironically, or maybe with sincerity, or maybe sometimes a little bit of both. Tressie McMillan Cottom is one of them. She’s a sociologist who mostly studies serious stuff, but when it comes to Hallmark movies, she has a weak spot. Advertisement “Nobody ever asks me about something like Hallmark. I do this all day. All they ever want me to come and talk about is the end of the world. I’m like, ‘I would really much rather talk about Hallmark,’ ” Cottom says. “One of the things that Hallmark does give me is I get to turn my brain off.”