Jordan, Jesse, GO! - MaxFunDrive 2025 - Niche Subreddits Day EIGHT: r/ItsAlwaysPleiades

Episode Date: March 27, 2025

Jesse and Jordan read you comforting subreddits chosen by you! Every day during MaxFunDrive 2025 9:30am PST, March 17th - March 28th (except weekends). Jeremy Bent of Eurovangelists and Mission to Zyxx joins us!It's MaxFunDrive 2025, become a new or upgrading member today! Live Jordan, Jesse, Go! in Chicago at Sleeping Village on April 11th!MaxFunDrive ends on March 28, 2025! Support our show now and get access to bonus content by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join. MaxFunDrive ends on March 28, 2025! Support our show now and get access to bonus content by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Give a little time for the child within you, don't be afraid to be young and free. Undo the locks and throw away the keys and take off your shoes and socks and run you. It's Jordan Jessi Goh, I'm Jesse Thorn, America's Radio Sweetheart. Jordan Morris, boy, detective. Jordan, it's such a joy to be here on whatever day morning it is as we record another episode of our program that is called The Subdoms. That's right. Now, is this a program about ball torture? No. We will mention ball torture. You know what? It could be. It's not exclusively about that.

Okay. I signed up for something very different, I think. Oh, sorry, Jeremy. Yeah, if you want to bounce. No, that's fine. If you feel misled or... Yeah, yeah, I know you love... I can get into it. You love this little CBT.

Our guest here, by the way, is Jeremy Bent from Eurovangelists and Mission to Zyx, who are making a triumphant return to the world of podcasting Jeremy it's great to see you here. It's great to be here. Yeah mission is X been gone too long So we're coming back with our prequel series the young old derf Chronicles later this year We love we love a prequel Love it. Love it. We love a prequel. What would you say your favorite prequel is, Jeremy? You have a favorite prequel?

Best prequel, good question, good question. Doesn't have to be Star Wars, but let's face it, everybody's favorite prequels are Star Wars prequels, am I right? I mean, they're great. I do enjoy the 12 minutes at the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where you get young Indiana Jones, River Phoenix.

And you're like, oh, this is why he's afraid of snakes. But it's real fun. It's a good time. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you. We have you here today because, you know, as Jesse mentioned, this is our new hit program, the Subdom. We talk about subreddits and we dominate them by talking about them. What better way to dominate something than by discussing it with your friends?

I mean, you truly have ownership of something once you've done that. We're discussing it. We're doing this this week, of course, because it is the Max Fund Drive. I have just received news. I have just been passed a slip of paper by Stephen Ray Morris that says, Jordan Jesse Goh now passed 900 new and upgrading members. That means we are obligated to add a third Alex Inc episode to our podcast, podcast movie, movie podcast, and sometimes we watch shows that is exclusive to members. So that means we will now be watching a total of four

episodes of Alex Inc, which is a terrible program that we don't want to watch. I will say Stephen Ray Morris has just informed me what Alex Inc. is and I truly feel sorry for you. It sounds very bad. The thing you have to be careful about as you watch Alex Inc. This is just a tip for you, Jeremy, since you're definitely coming on podcast movie, movie podcast to talk about it with us, is it's important not to sit in the first four rows. That's the Alex Braff's sweat splash zone. That's just coming off in the waves.

Yeah, the man's mugging hard. So if you are sitting in those rows, bring a tarp. Bring a tarp with you. Pretend like you're going to see Gallagher because you will be douched in the face by the flop sweat Zach Braff emits while he's mugging trying to get the jokeless script to appear like something on camera. And you know what else? I'm going to add this to what you said, Jordan. Even if you're not in the front four rows of Alex Inc. performance, I'm gonna tell you this. Why not bring a tarp with you? Not just to Alex Inc performances, but just around wherever.

You'll never know when you might need shelter or a barrier that keeps your rear dry from the ground. Why not put that in your trunk along with one of those silver blankets Yeah, keep it keep a tarp in the trunk people. We've been saying it for years Mm-hmm tarp in the trunk. That's what we always say on our podcast the tarp trunkers Sure, we have a lot of podcasts Jeremy are you are you doing anything fun bonus content wise on your shows Like, are you watching anything terrible that you don't want to watch? We have pledged that if we reach 450, that we will sing in its native Swedish, the Swedish Eurovision entry, Barabarabastu, which is a paean to the power of an extremely hot sauna.

So we will we will sing it in Swedish, should we reach that goal, which we have not yet. But I am pleased to say we've we've met a number already, including Jordan. We will be releasing last year's Boko episode featuring you, our guest, where we talked about Eurovision 2020, the Eurovision that wasn't. So people will get that in our regular podcast feed next month or in May actually. Oh my gosh. That was a very fun discussion. Indeed. I cannot wait for folks to hear that. What a time we had talking about the world's most insane music video. Yes, indeed. There were a lot of wild ones in 2020. Yeah, we're happy to share that with everybody because it's a good

episode. People deserve to hear it. How do you yourself feel about a sauna? I like a sauna, but I will say in the song, Badr Badabastu by the band Kai, they suggest that you turn the heat up to 100 degrees and they mean 100 degrees Celsius. I don't think that you know why wouldn't say that's something you should do. That's too much for me I think but they are despite representing Sweden they are in fact Finnish so they have perhaps a higher tolerance for the sauna than most. Okay. How is the Finnish? Jesse I wish I could explain it to you but I can't. I cannot. It makes no sense. You have a podcast about it. You're the expert.

Explain to us why the Finns are susceptible to high heat levels. I can explain a lot of things about Eurovision, but why a Finnish band singing in Swedish for Sweden about Sonos at an element of Finnish culture and sort of an element of Swedish culture became the winner over a previous Eurovision winner who came in second place. I cannot explain to you other than the song is very fun. I mean, I was surprised when the United States entry into the Eurovision Song Contest was Mina singing a song about fried cheese curds. But you know, it just works out that way sometimes.

Sometimes some Mexican dudes have a great song about a Wisconsin delicacy. The two come together and the champion is born. You never know. You never know. Jesse, how do you feel about a sauna? Do you like to say it? I love, first of all, I can't emphasize enough how much I love to say sauna. I will say that is how they say it in the song. They're very forceful with their pronunciation of sauna. Yeah, it's very fun to say all of the vowels. That said, going into the sauna, it's too hot for me and it gives me a headache. Ah, yeah, sure, sure. I like to add a few extra vowels, too sauna-y. Sure. One time my dad took me into like a Native American healing tent with hot rocks and stuff.

Okay. My dad was working on like American Indian- Like a sweat lodge sort of situation. It's a sweat lodge situation. Yeah. Like a real sweat lodge. Um, it wasn't like, you know, it was, it wasn't like Robert Bly was in charge of this sweat lodge. It was some native Americans in New Mexico, who my dad was helping organize to fight some sort of, uh, development in a sacred mountain. If I remember

correctly, I was very young. But I went in there for I'm gonna call it 15 seconds. Okay. And I was like, Oh, fuck this, I gotta go. Thanks for including me in your ritual gotta go go too hot bye bye gonna go play Ninja Turtles but also at the same temperature you what they call hot Ninja Turtles sure hot yoga hot turtles these things are both great for purging toxins I guess I don't clear out those pores I have a cock and ball torture question for you that leads into the real subject of this show which is unusual subreddits. I just opened a private window in my browser. If I go to reddit.com slash r slash cbt. Do you think that sub Reddit is dedicated to cock and ball torture or cognitive

behavioral therapy? I'm going to bet cognitive behavioral therapy, but I'm ready to be wrong. Amazing question, Jesse. Amazing question. I do not. I think God, because Reddit is probably obsessed with both those things. They, they're perfect things for Reddit. Both popular, yeah. Evidence driven mental health care and distinctively brutal SBDSM that is consensual on the part of all parties. Both of those are big Reddit things. Right.

I think I'll go the other way. I will say that I think it is CBT because I think, uh, uh, uh, uh, cock and ball, excuse me. I think it's cock and ball because, um, I think that the cognitive behavioral therapy chat is probably folded into another broader, uh, therapy subreddit. Yeah, that could happen. OK, I am going to go with, you guys are zigging. I'm going to zag.

I know this isn't one of the options that I offered, but I feel like I should pick something different than the two of you. And I gave you the first two choices. Fair. I'm going to say this is going to be a discussion of baseball's competitive balance tax, the so-called luxury tax paid by teams that have

high payrolls to lower payroll tax. I hope it is. It could be that. Let's find out. I'm pressing enter. I typed this in already, but I haven't pressed enter. He's got the private browser is open. Private window.

A little detective guy is watching over the history to make sure cognitive behavioral therapy wow yes 28,000 may not bad CBT okay does CBT work for those without internal dialogue it's a great question that's a fine question yeah very good question. How could you address your own thoughts without having any internal dialogue? Tricky to imagine, but I have an internal monologue that could potentially imagine that scenario. So I don't know. Yeah Jeremy, we we asked you to bring us a subreddit to discuss today. Just before we jump in, are you a heavy Reddit user? Where do you like to go when you're on there?

I would say above average. I definitely go to r slash guitar pedals a lot, despite being a very average guitar player. I love guitar pedals. I think they're really fascinating, and you can make lots of fun sounds with them. Even if you just get some cheap ones, you can really mess around and have a good time. But people love to post things like, oh, I got this at the Goodwill.

And it's like a very expensive pedal for like $10. And you're like, well, you can't do that here in Los Angeles. Everyone knows music gear. And so no one will do that. You need to be from the middle of nowhere where a grandmother's like, I guess I'll bring this to the Goodwill and you can get like a, you know, original like TS-10 or something for like eight bucks. And it's like, can I be great? God, I'd love to pay eight bucks. I paid 15 bucks for my last original TS-10. That's, you're not doing so bad. And I definitely am, I'm on

video game subreddits. I got very into the video game Bellatro and then deleted it off my computer and then got back into it and people on that subreddit turned me on to a lot of like wild strategies where I was like, this can't work. They did work. They worked. What's Bellatro? Oh boy, Jesse, I don't know how much time we have here. If you want, I'll explain out of the park baseball to you, but go ahead and explain Bellatro to me. Bellatro is a, is like a poker game where you are trying to make hands and the hands have various values and you're trying to reach certain blinds.

But throughout after each round of the game, you get ways to modify your deck or modify the value of certain hands or you get jokers. Bellatro, which apparently should be pronounced Ballatro, I think is from Latin and just means like joker or Jester. And so there's 150 different jokers in the game that modify how you, how your sort of game works. Like you can make straights with a gap in them, like 10, nine, seven, six, five. Can I ask a follow-up question here? Please. What are the different kinds of guns in the game? Zero, zero.

Are any of them opi? Nope, but there are some jokers that are opi, but there are some There is some wild jokers in the game, you know what I think we're three opi jokers Wow devs is that our podcast Jeremy and Jordan Jeremy, and Jordan. They're OP. Three OP jokers. Jeremy, what subreddit did you slash, it's always the Pleiades, where people will post pictures, usually from other space subreddits, like r slash space, or usually r slash stargazing,

or conspiracy theory subreddits, where they're like, what's this cloud, there's, I'm seeing a lot of drones, or like, what's this formation in the sky? And the answer is, it's always the Pleiades, which is also known as the Seven Sisters. It's a big group of many many stars many many light years away but it's quite bright in the night sky and it looks like a giant clump of lights and so people get suspicious but it has been there for literally millions of

years. I don't know I've only seen it for the last 30 or 40. Oh, OK. All right. Well, then maybe it's new. Maybe I don't know. So does the is the chat, how would you characterize it? Is it is it pleasant? Is it soothing? Does it ever get spicy? What's the discourse like?

It's mostly because it's mostly space nerds who know began sort of goofing on people who don't know. Uh, the spiciest it gets is when people are, um, dunking on conspiracy theorists who like saw this drone cloud and it's inarguably the Pleiades and they're like, what, like, what do you think they're doing? And, but also there is a lot of sense of humor about it. Um, where people will post their own photos of, uh, the Pleiades, which is also known as the seven sisters, or I think the scientific name is M 45 because there are actually 45 individual

stars within the Pleiades. And they were discovered by a guy named Mike. And yes, Mike 45. And people will post like, oh, a high res photo of M45. And people will comment like, nice, you should do the Pleiades next. And like, you know, it's that we're having fun over there. We're having a goof. It's very good natured, I think. What else is going on in the world of space subreddits?

R. Well, r slash space is Are there space subreddits? Well, our slash space is like the big space subreddit and that's a lot of like discoveries, a lot of, uh, like actual space news and a lot of there was a man, there was a trend during the pandemic of guys just taking increasingly high res photos of the moon. the pandemic of guys just taking increasingly high res photos of the moon.

There was almost an arms race because I think two guys sort of got really into it and just kept taking more and more pictures of the moon and assembling these higher and higher resolution, like, you know, like, uh, like 75 megapixel photos of the moon. So you could open them up and zoom in to an incredibly high degree of detail on the surface of the moon. And that's cool, but I'm also like,

there comes a point where it is more cumbersome to scroll, to like zoom in on the part of the moon you wanna see than to like appreciate a picture of the moon, you know? Jeremy, give me an example of a part of the moon you wanna see. You know, see a? Jeremy, give me an example of a part of the moon you want to see. You know, see a tranquility, check out those craters. I really appreciate it. Pretty good sea. Pretty good sea.

Maybe if you really wanted to get fancy, you could like try and find the lunar lander on there. See, now there's something, there's something I want to see in a picture of the moon. Because I don't, I obviously don't believe it's there. I'll check it out. The moon, I mean. The moon, yeah. Yeah, it's, you know, there's very little evidence sometimes of the month.

Yeah, how do you, I guess I've never heard this theory of yours. What, when we look up in the sky and see the thing that everybody says is the moon, what is that? That's a moray. Oh, right, right, right, right, right. It did hit my eye once like a big pizza pie, so I I think you're probably right. Wow, I had no idea. No moon, huh? Yeah, well, I mean, obviously, Joe Biden doesn't want you to know what it actually is. Wait, hold. So why am I turning into a werewolf once a month?

These are fair questions to ask. Jordan, that's just your menstrual cycle. Oh, yeah. Sure. It's very beautiful. Very natural. It affects different people differently. Right. Sure. It's very beautiful. Very natural. It affects different people differently. Right. OK.

Your your men's troll cycle, where you go from being a troll and then back to a man. Yeah. Yeah. Sure. Change from men to troll. Yeah. It's a podcast. You can say whatever. Are you troll or men's? We don't know. We don't. What time of the month is it? Let us know in the comments. Are you men's or troll? Are you men's or troll? The chat's blowing up.

Most people say troll. Jeremy, do you have, do you have any specific posts to share with us or just a general recommendation to check out these? No, I did. I did bring a few. Um, I brought some examples of the classic of like, what is this? You know, like, what, uh, what, this is drones. Um, and sort of goofing on those. Um, here we go. Yeah. Oh, great. This is, this one's great because this is from a conspiracy theory subreddit And so it includes the original text of the person's post

Can we zoom in on that text? It's like so I'm at work, right? I went outside to smoke and I look up a shit ton of drone No, they're not stars stars don't change colors and clusters around like that They went from New York and New Jersey to Green Bay, Wisconsin in like face palm emoji Government is hiding something and clusters around like that. They went from New York and New Jersey to Green Bay, Wisconsin, facepalm emoji. Government is hiding something. Eyebrow raise huff. I think emoji, think emoji, and then an emoji that's a dotted square that says obj. Yeah, missing obj. What's that emoji?

I don't know what that is. Oh man. But that very clearly is a photo of the pleiades. Yeah Something I like about this is that the writing has voice the writing has Specific style this person wants to write like they talk. That's very amiable. So I'm at work, right? It's like okay, I know this guy. Yeah, so I believe this person 100% because like that's an authentic detail that you cannot fake They're at work. Okay, this checks out I know people by the way, is this anything? Is this anything i'm seeing it actually says shit tone of drone. Yeah

Do you think tony t, droney could be anything? It could be. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. It's possible. RIP Dwayne Wiggins. But I think, I think a drone could do the job. I also like guitar, Jeremy. Ask on your, ask on your pedal subreddit. Yeah, Jeremy. Ask on your pedal subreddit. Yeah, I'll check out the pedal subreddit. I'm sure somebody's working on a drone that plays guitar. That would be great.

What else have we got? So this thing, I was just going to ask real quick. So this thing that this person on a smoke break thought was conspiracy drones, it is in fact the Pleiades. Yes, which is a, we could actually, Stephen, you could bring up the high res photo of the Pleiades to, so that we might appreciate the majesty of what they're supposed to look like. Were we able to travel into space?

Well, this is another like, what is this cluster of stars? And despite it being one of the more identifiable things in the sky, people are constantly like, what is that? And it's like, I think if you literally googled cluster of stars, one of the first results would be the Pleiades. So these people did not work very hard for this information. Okay, here we go. So this is M 45. It is sometimes known through a high grade telescope here.

Beautiful, right? Look at all these stars. Now I'm looking at this here. This is clearly like a boardwalk artists painting with airbrushes. Yeah. The lens flare on this is very excessive. It's a lot of lens flare, but they're very bright stars is what I'll tell you. Alright. Have you ever been tempted to reply to one of these posts where someone is confused? Bitch Pleiades. No, man, I hope that catches on in that subreddit. That would be fantastic. I think you could be the new fucking hero of this subreddit if you introduce that.

Oh, here's just a notion that I had, and Jeremy, let me know if I'm right or wrong. Sure, sure. This is obviously very fun. We were learning a lot about the solar system. Do you get the sense that the people who post in our slash Pleiades would be insufferable to talk to interpersonally? I think most people in the subreddit have a pretty good sense of humor about it, as it is frequently. OK.

And I think it's more a celebration of the Pleiades. I think they would be OK. There's other space subreddits where I don't know if that would be true, but, like what I'll say is have a discussion with somebody sometime about like telescope quality and variety, and you will, you will maybe say, this is too much for me. This is, we've gone past my limit. That's where you're getting your um, actually is okay. Yeah. Now this is a fun, this is a fun Pleiades post, I think. People like to do this sometimes on the subreddit,

which is to post things that sort of look like the Pleiades and ask, is this the Pleiades as sort of a goof? And so, Steven, do we have that one? Yeah, here we go. And so people ask, is this the Pleiades where it is just a sort of scrape on their knee that bears a minor relation to the shape of the Pleiades? Now I have a follow-up question to something Jesse asked earlier. Does someone ever post a photo and ask you like,

what is this? And then the response is pleiades nuts. Again, you guys gotta get over on that subreddit. I feel like you would both be very popular over there. You know what I mean? Come on, Come on. Come on. This is the-

Pleiades nuts. Am I right? Thank you. You know, they're a lighthearted sub. I think they would really enjoy this stuff. You got to get over there. All right. OK.

One fun Pleiades fact is that the Japanese had their own name for the Pleiades, which is, and it is the logo for this company, they call it Subaru. Oh, that's fun. So if you ever see the logo for the Subaru car, it's a bunch of stars and it is literally supposed to be the Pleiades. I love that. Yeah. That's great. Subaru's a reliable car, I hear.

I have a Crosstrek, yeah. They're good. I'm very happy with my Subaru Sambar. Oh, wow. I had no idea we were... You guys are such Subaru heads. All right. Jeremy, I don't know if you have more Pleiades content, but if we were kind of wrapping up, I had maybe a post that I wanted to share. I have one last really good Subaru post.

Oh, please. Yes. No, I want to... And this one's pretty nerdy, but I think it's worth it. Yes. So, the author J. R. R. Tolkien did a lot of the original, like the original printing of The Hobbit was like, he did the art for it. And so this is actually art from the Silmarillion. And like, somebody is like, hey, did he draw the Pleiades in this art of in the Silmarillion? And it kind of looks like he did?

I don't know. That guy doesn't seem nerdy enough to do that. Yeah, it's not really what we associate with J.R.R. Tolkien, that jock macho guy. I'm shocked that we've been doing this this long and this is our first mention of the Silmarillion. We've been doing this for what, almost two weeks now? This is the first time someone's mentioned the Silmarillion? Come on. Get with it. Stop Reddit. You guys are trapping the ball here. Good job. You know what? That's your job. How are you gonna learn your velar? Here's something crazy. I went to r slash Silmarillion on Reddit. It's all about cock and ball torture.

Oh, that's interesting. Oh, that's where it went. That's where it went. It's like how r slash trees is about weed. Exactly. Jordan, you want to share your special sharing? Yeah, yeah. This is just a little bit of an example of kind of like the alpha A little bit of an example of kind of like the alpha post for this concept of just like niche subreddit of enthusiasts. I thought r slash milkshakes would be fruitful. Turns out it's not very, there's not a lot of there there. Just a lot of people posting photos of milkshakes

and then occasionally someone will ask what the recipe for the milkshake is. But there was just one that I thought just exemplified the kind of fun that you can have on a niche subreddit. Steven, I put this in the private chat. Can you throw this up? I'm excited to see this. I'm a real milkshake nut.

Oh, me too. I would say it's one of my favorite desserts. Love a milkshake. I have an entire book of milkshake recipes called Modern Milkshakes by Adam Reed from America's Test Kitchen. Okay. I love it. I'm going to make Earl Grey milkshakes. Oh, that sounds very good.

This is just a photo of a milkshake from a fast food place with the text, it's been so hot lately. Perfect opportunity to cool down with a milkshake from a fast food place with the text it's been so hot lately perfect opportunity to cool down with a milkshake seven up votes yeah seven up votes is I would say maybe more than this post deserves I like to see I like to see a post like this where they were careful enough to add flair it says a strawberry in the flair there, the post flair. Yeah. I think that's really important.

I do appreciate that. Because if you're in the subreddit and you're like, I am here to see chocolate milkshakes and nothing else, you can filter out those flares if you need to. And I do like how democratic r slash milkshakes is, kind of like r slash root beer. I think we've talked about r slash root beer before and you might assume it would be all craft brew guys talking about their stills or whatever they used to make root beer.

And there's a lot of that. And r slash milkshakes does have a lot of gourmet stuff and a lot of people posting those kind of made for Instagram giant shakes But this guy this guy's just had a fucking Carl's jr. Or something enjoying his milkshake As it's and they're not above it on our slash milkshakes. They know still good something kind of beautiful about that. Yeah, sure I mean Carl's jr. Makes a good shake Especially because it's been so hot recently Yeah, tell me about it. It's been really hot lately.

Perfect opportunity to cool down with a milkshake. Exactly. Well, Jeremy, it's been so great to have you on the Subdoms. Thank you for bringing your knowledge of what the Japanese call Subaru to our program. Sauna. Sauna, Jeremy. Sauna! Sauna! Sauna-baru! Yes! It is almost the very end of the Max Fund Drive and we are now standing before you asking you not to put it off any longer but rather to go to maximumfund.org slash join and become a member of Maximum Fund. Every time we've been doing this

there's been people in the comments saying I finally did did it, I got up off my butt, I, you know, so on and so forth. If you're listening on the podcast, same story, now's the time to do it. I think that every single person listening to our voices should become a member of Maximum Fund.org slash join. Jordan, I'm a little biased, but that's what I think. In my opinion, that's what I think. Everybody should go to maximumfund.org slash join. I know you don't speak for me, but let me say, let me speak for myself and I'll say, I also think that. Now Jeremy, you speak for both yourself and the trees. What did they have to say about

this? Now, this is- You're gonna think- You're're thinking of the Lorax, Jesse. You're thinking of the Lorax. You're going to think this is crazy, Jesse, but I also agree with you too, that I think anyone who is currently listening to this should also become a Max Fund member. Yeah. Yeah, this is nuts. Well, it's a good thing it's so easy.

You can just go to maximumfund.org slash join. In all sincerity, please do so. Yeah. It's the reason we can do this show. And we really do need your help and support. So go to MaximumFun.org slash join and help us ensure a long and fruitful future for Jordan, Jesse go for your evangelists for mission to Zix and for Maximum Fun in general. It's MaximumFun.org slash join. We of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.