March 24, 2023 at 12:05AM

It’s the Max Fun Drive, so I wanted to share a few words about one of my go-to podcasts on the Maximum Fun network, Jordan, Jesse, Go!

As Jordan and Jesse regularly remind their listeners, this is an absurd and pointless show. But the most recent episode with Elliott Kalan featured a lovely and sincere defense of the pointless goofiness of this and other shows. Not everything needs to have meaning. It’s okay and healthy to have fun, empty calories in your media diet.

But there’s something that’s particularly special to me about JJGo. In that conversation, Elliott Kalan says the show has an “innocent vulgarity” to it—which I think is what’s so alienating about the show to some people and so compelling about it to others.

It is a vulgar show. But it’s not “locker room talk” in the way some men excuse the offensive misogyny and homophobia they think they can get away with when it’s just the boys. Even when JJGo is offensive, it’s inclusively vulgar.

And I find that so extraordinary, so unique, and so important. Two straight cis dudes and a guest make a show with genital jokes and naughty words that somehow is still a welcoming space to women and LGBTQ+ listeners who would never be welcomed into the performative vulgarity of male-coded spaces. In some strange way, this pointless show with no premise is a radical assertion that this kind media belongs to everyone.

I’ve been a JJGo listener for years, but it’s been incredibly important to me more recently. The last year has been one of the hardest years I’ve had—which is kind of surprising to say, given what 2020 and 2021 were like. And as I’ve struggled with (waves hands around) and tried to find a new understanding of who I am and who I want to be, JJGo has been such an important place for me.