you'll learn to love it

it's genuinely beautiful how traumatized max is from chad throwing shit at his head

i've been thinking about my post where i said max is a whore for the camera and i think i need to revise it slightly - while that was 100% true historically, it's obvious over the past few years he hasn't felt quite the same desire to put himself out there that he used to, considering his departure from social media and his other youtube channels. so in one sense he might've gotten slightly more mature, or more lazy. maybe it's just not fun for him anymore with the state of the internet/youtube these days. whatever the case i think he's still keenly aware of the need to put on a good show by his own standards while he IS on camera to maintain their audience, but he needs the pressure of cold ones as an enterprise that requires output to actually gather the motivation to be there in the first place. with all that if there's one thing about him that HAS intensified with time it's obviously his destructive impulses and i'm wondering how much of that is just his pent up resentment and aggression towards this entire situation coming out when his inhibitions are lowered with alcohol

the way max genuinely seemed to be seeking revenge for chad blowing out his ear with the wine balloon years ago was a little shocking to me like i get he was extremely drunk but he seemed clearheaded in his desire to hurt chad in a potentially permanent way. it made me wonder how resentful of chad he really is. when he and darcy ran down the list of ways chad has fucked max up during videos i was like okay it's warranted but it puts a fascinating spin on their dynamic when seemingly the only thing bringing them together is their shared lack of self-preservation when it comes to creating entertainment, their weakness to peer pressure, but this alone created a stronger bond than actual affection would have anyway

it's crazy that when the two of them get rowdy, even though chad is generally the more openly belligerent of the two, darcy doesn't even TRY to control max. like chad will get shouted down until he complies and darcy is willing to get physical with him but when max kept threatening to pull the wreckage of the sleeping pod down on chad while he was moaning in pain on the floor, darcy didn't make any attempt to stop it, the only thing he could do was try to move chad to safety because he knows max is an unstoppable force. reminds of the time chad asked darcy who he was more afraid of out of the two of them and darcy said he was equally scared of them both even though he clearly was more scared of max and just didn't say so because he didn't want to provoke chad

the thing is that max is just a straightforward whore for the camera. like a no limits slut for the imagined audience and for the attention that he craves. he needs validation constantly but he also seems to maintain high standards for himself and for their channel's output, or at least has an understanding (and maybe a persistent anxiety) that the audience could get bored so he needs to keep reaching new heights of violence, further boundaries transgressed to maintain the high. he's getting more extreme with time but this is a pattern of behavior going all the way back to him chugging food colored milk to force himself to vomit over and over again in his backyard, straight through to him now tearing apart the studio while bordering on blacking out drunk every video, he's the same kid that needs everyone's eyes on him and for everyone to be so impressed at his own capacity for self-harm and his lack of boundaries. he's a whore and he always will be

yknow for a while there when max had a bad haircut and it seemed like he wasn't bringing as much energy on camera anymore i really thought that might've been it for my interest in cold ones but this last string of videos has really got me thinking about things