Hellllooooooooooo friends!
It’s the last official day of MaxFunDrive and we are, as some might say, ACTUALLY QUITE FAR INDEED from our goal of 16,000. This is true. And it’s not NOT scary.
But LOOK, goal aside, you can still make a difference. A big one. And those of you who are members already have! Next week we’re going to figure out what all these numbers mean, and we’re going to send our partner shows their checks, and both of those things will be hugely different if you and others reading this decide to join now.
There’s a reason you listen to shows on MaxFun. They’re your kind of weird. They’re fun and funny and heartfelt and they aren’t crammed with gambling ads and manosphere-adjacent nonsense (which is the way many podcasts make money in 2026). Most MaxFun shows make juuuust enough money to keep going, because only a small fraction of the folks who rely on a show actually pay for it, and those memberships make up almost all of a show’s income. Your joining that fraction, uh, making the small numerator bigger, makes a significant difference to the shows and the people who love them.
–>>Join now<<–
The money you give goes directly to support the shows you choose. A portion of that money goes to the network, so we can support those shows, too. We are 25 real people who work actually quite hard to do what we can for these hosts because we love them, too. And luckily, they seem to like being on the network:
John Moe, whose Depresh Mode helps countless people manage the difficult task of having a mind (it me), posted a message this week about why he chooses to be on the network. It’s worth reading the whole thing, but here’s his TL;DR: “MaxFun operates in a hugely more human way than other media organizations. That’s why the stuff you hear is so heartfelt and interesting. I’m delighted to work with them as a producing partner because more than anywhere else, I can fret about quality and not instead of bosses.”
Jordan Morris, of Free with Ads and Jordan, Jesse, Go! calls us “the network that makes this show possible” and claims we have never paid “hundreds of millions of dollars in order to put Joe Rogan on the air” (fact check: TRUE). We’ve also “never used his voice to train AI,” which is a bonkers thing to have to brag about but here we are.
In last week’s episode, the Tribeca-award winning Mission to Zyxx crew called Maximum Fun, “this beacon of good in a world and on an internet that both seem like they are hell-bent on getting worse.” We’re trying!
Speaking of hell, it’s 2026 here in the United States of America. Which is, in some (but not all!) ways, hell*. So, it is INCREDIBLY heartening that thousands of you have come together as a group to support the media you love (in this economy?). We are so grateful to everyone who has supported us ever, and to folks who have heeded the call during the last two weeks. When you become a member, you’re in community with a bunch of good people saying, “I care about this and want more of it to exist.”
Sign up to receive a gift membership!
And if you do care about these shows, but can’t support them financially right now, be sure to sign up for the chance to be paired with a gift membership: maximumfun.org/waitlist. We’ve 137 and counting! And please, recommend the shows to your friends!
–>>Add yourself to the waitlist<<–
OK THAT’S ALL. We’ll send a little reminder about tonight’s finale livestreams as they start, so you can come chat with other MaxFunsters and maybe have your case heard by Judge John Hodgman.
Thank you, truly,
– Your friends at Maximum Fun
* By the way, if Depresh Mode hits their goals, they will make “Your Best Life in Hell,” a show I need BIGTIME and maybe you do, too.
P.S. You should follow us on Bluesky. 1. Because we haven’t used Twitter in a long time for obvious reasons, and 2. because yesterday our Senior Producer and our CEO got stuck in an elevator and we had fun (bc thankfully it was not for terribly long so no one had to establish a pee corner).
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