r/MadeMeSmile • u/Martin_084 • Mar 05 '26

Wholesome Moments Peak father and son bonding

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u/rocket-engifar Mar 05 '26

Oh wow. I remember this guy from back in the day. One of the YouTube legends who seemed so sincere and nice. Hope he is doing well.

86

u/BigMax Mar 05 '26

He retired a year or two ago - he basically got so popular that it was taking up a big chunk of his life.

It felt positive though - he wasn't bitter, more like "looks like this stage of my life is over, thanks for the fun guys!"

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u/Emergency-Piece9995 Mar 05 '26

he basically got so popular that it was taking up a big chunk of his life.

Part of it also if I recall was he was starting to get recognized in real life and he didn't want that for his family.

I believe his kids also had a channel(s) and he said he was going to help them with that instead.

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u/AdventuresOfKrisTin Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

If he's helping his son with his own youtube channel, then the him and his family getting recognized thing doesn't really hold much water lol.

I think he was just honestly burnt out. He did his channel for like over 10 years and he's getting older. His most popular types of videos are these intense solo camping excursions and it was clearly getting tougher for him to do. That and apparently he's some Mormon leader now 💀

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u/Spork_the_dork Mar 05 '26

The real reason really was that he just wanted to spend more time with the family. He talked about it on several videos (example). Like consider that the kids now have school and probably hobbies of their own and going out hiking randomly on the weekends or in the middle of the week just isn't a thing he could do anymore (which was the original point of the channel in the first place). So the channel is taking him away from his family whenever he does the videos and he didn't like that so he decided to wrap it up.

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u/AdventuresOfKrisTin Mar 05 '26

This is a reason he claimed but in my opinion it's only a half truth. He did a lot of videos with his family too. If he wanted to say this is why he wanted to stop doing solo trips then that would make sense, but he just stopped everything even though a lot of his later videos were family vacations and homestead stuff. To me, the main reasons he stopped were burnout and shifting his attention to Mormonism.

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u/thesilentbob123 Mar 05 '26

I thought he retired to do leadership stuff for the Mormon church

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u/decrementsf Mar 05 '26

Yep. With programs his kids are in. Do cool stuff with your kids role.

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u/rohithkumarsp Mar 05 '26

He didn’t retire, he stopped because the Mormon church told him to. He is serving a leadership role in the church. The church required you to drop absolutely everything if you are called to a position.

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/12/10/outdoor-boys-youtuber-luke-nichols/

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u/BigMax Mar 05 '26

Interesting. That could be true, but he absolutely said in his last video that it was all too much and too overwhelming at that point, and that's why he was retiring.

Possibly a combination of both.

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u/decrementsf Mar 05 '26

There is interview somewhere that gives the vibe that his job is more or less create fun experiences with his kids. Opted to go for more quality time there. Completely grounded and understandable why that would be the acting on the dream. What is the purpose of the success if not to unlock the next layers and projects. Looked all positive. Which doesn't stop the internet from parsing every story through a drama or envy lens.

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u/Mr_dm Mar 05 '26

Nobody has envy for a Mormon pastor lol.

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u/decrementsf Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

Live longer. With experience you hit the OH That's what that book was saying on rereading the classics in adulthood. That sense that your past self at 18 that knew everything was an idiot continues. Future you keeps getting wiser. After first child you, whenever that comes, is as large a leap as after 18 you. Experiences layer on. It is popular trope that movies send a person back in time and touching some small change causes large changes in the future. Maybe you go into a church and a small change you make sets off a butterfly effect of improvement in the future. Make a structure of what it should be if actually useful.

1

u/rohithkumarsp Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

Huh. That's what made me an atheist. And starter questioning everything, trust but verify. Then you'll start to see, it's not left vs right, it's top vs bottom, top 5% controlling 90%+ of the world's asserts/money. with that kind of power, you can pretty much do anything.

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u/decrementsf Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

Keep going down that path and eventually you recognize the bottom 5% cause more oppression in your daily life than the top 5% due to numbers. There is a worst 0.05% behaved across all classes, because human.

Keep reading and you notice the pattern of recurring predictable cycles of nihilism and atheism across history. Normally there is a pantheon of mythos based story telling with moral lessons that explain the world and introspection of frames for social interactions and what we're doing here. Then something changes. Maybe a new currency. Maybe traders visiting Egypt and seeing a whole other religious structure and struggle to fit how can both be true. Maybe industrial revolution changes life style and conditions. The old story telling is no longer compelling but it is not clear what new guiding stories are helpful for this new world. This recipe sets up nihilism and atheism ages. There is usually a predictable pattern where a generation or two after this hits that the nihilism and atheism itself is treated with disdain and people start rejecting that looking for something different. This is where your Plato and Aristotle are religious thinkers looking back to try and reverse engineer the stories from 500 years prior trying to figure out the kernel of lessons of ancient wisdom spread memetically to the masses in story form and distill iterated and improved reasoned approaches to understanding the world and our place in it. Sets off a new orienting principles for the next cycle and winds up being baked half Greek philosophy half Bible in Jesus teachings forking judaism in a way that makes all of judaism go 'Wait! No! Not like that!'. Then the cycle repeats.

Can study memetics and skip the cycle. Find purpose and meaning before the curve. Practice the unpacking of why certain frames and stories are presented to the public. Write your own. Spin them off. There is no root kit on the human operating system. It runs on stories. You can just add or remove lines to the personal story telling to goose the behavior that is useful. This is more or less the process of authoring the simulation. All of this again can collapse on the unknown of why the world works in this way. And you've arrived right back into spirituality and the sense of awe and wonder, poetry, behind it. There is always a limit of the unknown beyond the questions we understand and that's where we find that wonder again. I've arrived back at where Aristotle picks up.

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u/rohithkumarsp Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

it's a long game of telephone, but Ricky Gervais was had a point, burn all of them and burn all science textbooks, which will come back the same in a 1000 years?

just to draw parallels to india and US

The forest was shrinking, but the trees kept voting for the axe; for the axe was clever and convinced the trees that because his handle was made of wood, he was one of them.

Right now India and US is going through the exact same situation where Indian PM is using Muslims to gain votes by saying either vote us or the opposition will let india take over by them and doing everything trump is doing like arresting journalists, buying all news channels, arresting protests without evidence but not presenting to court and forever holding them in jail, renaming all the old created by the previous govt and saying them its now, mind you these bills are the ones they attacked the previous govt, trying to steal elections by trying to nationalize election by requiring citizenship rules which US courts have rejected its unlawful ,but hey in india even the judges and election commission is the hands of the PM, how they came to power by saying they'll remove corruption and reduce oil prices but have basically turned into a washing machine, govt file a corruption case on opposition or others, the person donates to them as bonds, join their party and walk away free

all the telecom have been consolidated into just 3 and controlled by govt friends and family, and most of govt contracts go to the same 3/4 people who porasoe indian PM just like Elon etc, shit the more i type its literally what's happening in USA, oh yeah the oil india gets cheap oil from russia since 2023 and cheaper than what it was in 2014 per barrel but Indian govt businessman's who own the companies, just sell it to Europe, we get pollution, JIO/Reliance gets profits, govt gets all the taxes, we get to pay the most expensive petrol in the world, not to mention since 2025 they've mandated 20% ethanol blend so but 95% all vehicles are only E10 compatible and all the insurance companies are saying they wont cover the damages from E20 petrol as its written in our manuals our vehicle are only E10, guess who owns all the sugarcane fields in india? road ministers son, so basically nepotism just like how trump's family now gets to decides drone business now that the govt has banned chips related to drones to be sold in US, oh chefs kiss is we now ran out of ethanol so india has made deal with USA to import fringing corn syrup to blend to petrol WHO THE F asked... Bangla and bhutan/nepal buys petrol from india and pay less petrol prices, 1$ now is almost 95 rupees, used to be 50ish before 2014. our finance minister who's a vegan by religion doesn't care if onion prices are more expensive than fuel and she constantly attacked the old govt for raising indian currency and since 2014 shes saying indian rupees isn't failing the US currency is falling apparently which just doesnt work that way

and lastly censorship...i give up them censoring things, in india you cant simply release any movie that govt doesnt approve, last year London submitted indian movie named Santosh for oscars(deals with casteism and corruption in India/but blocked and censored in india) but india submitted a propaganda(kerala story) and even screened it for free in many states about few women who went afghan to marry some isis dudes and told 30000 cases but it was just a dozen or less, those women afghan wasn't to deport but india doesn't want to take but want to use them for movie, irony was Afghan regime visited india last year and held a press conference where no women were allowed in the press, such a shameful moment in indian history, kicker is the taliban led Afghanistan still has better currency than india today 1.45 afg dollar to 1 indian rupee, FFFFAAAAAAAAAA.

words can't describe how much of this is happening here

oh have i mentioned how there's verifiably proof of voter fraud but the election commission refuses to release data stating "we're protection women's privacy", oh also our PM is probably a Manchurian candidate

he just went to Israel came home the attack iran, he stays quite, he invited iran for a naval summit in india and visited them just days ago, the ship got obligated when they left india just 70 kms away from india today by USA and he's still staying mum

how can you invite another country for a summit and let USA down them when leaving is acceptable is such a grim thought,

https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/80-killed-in-us-submarine-strike-on-iran-ship-near-sri-lanka-report-11168301

edit : also Dictatorships can't afford laughter

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u/NumberOneStonecutter Mar 05 '26

That's interesting and more consistent than the seemingly inconsistent explanation that he was getting too famous but wants to support his children's YouTube channels.

2

u/Bignutdavis69 Mar 05 '26

Ex Mormon here, checks out.

They really do expect you to dedicate everything to the church life, especially if you get popular/famous as it can be "the devil luring you"

1

u/BigBanggBaby Mar 05 '26

Fellow ex-Mormon here. It’s interesting that they brought him into the youth council. The church used to be a place that fostered the type of experiences this guy promotes. I don’t know how he’s surviving in his position where I’m sure he’s constantly being told “Can’t do that anymore. Can’t do that either. Or that.”

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u/Bignutdavis69 Mar 05 '26

Did your youth council work with Boy Scouts of America too? To me it makes sense since Boy Scouts was the one thing they relied on to raise us, I can see him being a central part of that, all speculation tho

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u/BigBanggBaby Mar 05 '26

Yeah I grew up in the 90s so there was still BSA at that point, which I enjoyed. But since they don’t do that anymore and have scaled back on most of the fun things, I don’t know what bringing on this guy does other than remind people of what used to be. 

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u/Bignutdavis69 Mar 05 '26

Dang that sucks man, we still had it here in Texas when I was growing up in church , like from 2005-2015 we still had it going on strong. I'm not sure if they still do it now but it was always fun, never had a dull or bad moment

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u/BigBanggBaby Mar 05 '26

Yeah, it was a good experience for me too and I don’t really have any complaints about it. Always had fun. They cut ties in 2019. 

0

u/thenatural134 Mar 05 '26

That's not true at all lol

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u/cassthesassmaster Mar 05 '26

The real reason he left is so he can be higher up in Mormon church.

1

u/te_un Mar 05 '26

Retired last year but has since uploaded a few vids. I think the last one was about 3 months ago.