100,000 Subscribers: Where Avoiding Babylon Goes From Here (Live Q&A)

100,000 subscribers is supposed to feel like a finish line. For us, it feels like turning on the camera, realizing the lighting is still bad, and choosing to fix it live anyway. This milestone stream is a behind-the-scenes look at how our Catholic podcast and livestream actually runs: the studio build, the sound and echo battles, why backlight matters, and how a “nice background” can still make you disappear on camera if you don’t shape the scene.

We also get real about the creator economy. Subscriber counts don’t mean what they used to, the YouTube algorithm can reward clips while long-form shows stay steady, and the X algorithm can hijack your feed if you pause on the wrong video for eight seconds. That pressure fuels the negativity cycle, especially in Catholic media, and we’re tired of it. We talk about why keeping day jobs gives us freedom to experiment, joke around, and focus on content that actually lasts.

So where do we go next? We want to keep at least one weekly deep-dive anchored in Catholic history: papal encyclicals, older councils like Trent, and even “faith in film” style episodes that start with real events like the French Revolution and the War in the Vendée. We share sponsor updates, a listener success story, and why we care more about real community than raw views.

If you like candid creator talk mixed with Catholic commentary and history, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find the show.

Transcript

100K Milestone And Guest Hunt

SPEAKER_06 0:11

And this is our one hundred thousand subscriber special. We need to get a good guest.

SPEAKER_04 0:16

Don't worry, Rob. I've got this covered. Sorry, Rob. My first choice is actually pretty busy. He's not gonna be able to make it. Did you have any luck trying to book your guy?

SPEAKER_05 0:40

Working on it now. Dear Nick, my name is Groyper Rob. Would you please, please, please come on my super cool Tradcath podcast? It would mean a lot to me.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

Fuck you. Fuck you. You suck. You are fat. You are a joke. You are stupid. You are not funny. You are not as smart as you think you are.

SPEAKER_05 1:16

Maybe Taffy will get his dream guest to agree.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

You got mail.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Hello, Jewish lawyers. Yes, I'm going to need another restraining order. Yes, same guy.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

Oh my goodness. Dude, last night I came up. We we have to work on a few things tonight because Rob wanted nothing to do with this stream tonight. And I'm like, listen.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

I was literally sleeping when you called me.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

I texted him, he didn't respond, so I called him and woke him up. And I'm like, Yeah, like how this whole relationship began four years ago.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

That's actually literally

Lighting Studio Tour And Set Design

SPEAKER_01 2:10

true.

SPEAKER_03 2:12

Wait, first off, I have to turn my air conditioner on because it is so hot down here. Give me one sec.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

There are days where I loathe that man more than others. This is one of those days.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

Um all right. So last night I came on and the lighting was so bad. They were calling me uh they were calling me Rocky last night. Like so I figured we would just do this live on air because uh poor Hitchbourne. Hitchbourne came on last night, and um I was up the night before until like midnight putting the finishing.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Oh boo hoo, I was up until midnight.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

I was in a car for 34 hours. Yeah, I do feel bad about that. Me and my wife drank two bottles of wine while we like my wife was finishing painting everything in here, and I was putting more things on the wall to try and get rid of the echo and things like that. But by the by the time I got home from work yesterday, I was totally fried. Hitchborne came on, and I just my brain was not firing on all cylinders. Then I'm watching the chat, and it was one comment after another of people just ragging on me, looking like I look like I got hit by a car, like my face is so bad. So I want to figure out the lighting on this thing. I don't I figured you would mean while Aunt a slave driver, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

And then Poplio just apologize for that.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

So wait, I have several lights in here, okay? I don't know what to do though. I don't like I'm not I don't know. I don't know how to handle this. Like I have one overhead I could turn on. I don't know if I should do that. But that's green. Wait, I could change that color.

SPEAKER_02 3:58

I don't know what I should do with the lighting. More than anything, you need more backlight to differentiate yourself from your background. So what like on the wall itself, you're saying? Yeah, like maybe I'll put a LED strip under that under that shelf. Well, I have an LED strip on the top, yeah. That helps, but it's the bottom that you look like you blend.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Or one with your background. So what do you think? Like for on the floor, I should put it. I don't know, or you can even like because I have a strip on the shelf too, right? And I tried putting it under the shelf, but you see the I'd have to get like a diffuser. You know what I mean? Like if because if you put the LEDs just under the shelf, it's um like you see the lights, they don't look good. Like LEDs only look good when they're kind of behind something and backlighting something. So I don't know, maybe I should just put them on the floor or on a level lower than where I'm sitting, maybe. Yeah, it's a really nice wall. Jim Jim Pine goes, uh, oh cool. Now you look like every other generic YouTuber in the world with those wood panels.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

Well, those aren't wood, those are foam, aren't they?

SPEAKER_03 5:14

They're they're acoustic wood panels with foam behind them. Okay, um, they're pretty freaking expensive, man. They're like yeah, I know they are. All right, so I'm missing. Um is Molly being sarcastic? A black light? Like, should I really get a black light? Um yeah, I don't know. I so I I don't, I mean, I want to take you guys on a tour of this place, it looks really nice. My wife did the bookshelf of it. My main thing was no pompous bookshelf behind me, right? Because every Catholic YouTuber has to have their stupid bookshelf. Well, yours isn't you people say you have the best um Catholic podcast studio. Like, I need to I gotta I I gotta rearrange it and clean it up a little bit, but yeah. Now, especially that I opt my game, you really have to wait. I want avoiding Babylon.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Like I'm no longer a fan of the big gun safe in the background, but that thing literally weighs a thousand pounds at the moment, so it's not moving.

SPEAKER_03 6:10

I don't I kind of don't like I want avoiding Babylon in the upper right corner, like and I want to see more of the oh man, I'm gonna have to move this whole desk I think. I'm sorry, guys.

SPEAKER_02 6:20

This is most this is what you guys this is our hundred thousand subscribers. This is our hundred thousand subscriber stream.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

No, I don't like it the way it is, though. Wait, it's gotta be like you know what I mean, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

Like, I want I want avoiding I fixed Anthony's mistake with ocean. He is he is free.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

I yeah, sure it was a mistake. It's totally a mistake. Ocean, no ocean. I love you, bud, but boy, do you drive a bit into the ground, man? Holy cow, is he a bit much? Now, I really didn't mean to ban him last night, but like I wasn't so mad about doing it because he was really he was getting on my nerves last night. I think Molly tuned out last night. Look, the other thing is um we're gonna do like a short YouTube thing tonight, and then we're gonna go to local because I have a ton of people I want to talk trash about. But um, it felt weird doing the stream with Hitchborne yesterday because we hit a hundred thousand and like you should have been there, bud. I was in a car. I know how was that? That was a brutal drive, right? It's lighting, it's really bad. I'm an old man.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Oh man, you look older than you did four years ago, man to math. Um, this cigar was a cigar, you missed the notice because this was cooked up in the last 45 minutes.

Work Road Trip And Wake Stories

SPEAKER_03 7:53

So I alright, so my night tonight was I went, I I worked until six o'clock. I was in the city working. I had I smelled like diesel fuel and asphalt, and I had to go to a wake right from work. So I went to the wake, my wife brought me clothes. I changed my clothes, I doused myself in cologne. So I basically went to a wake smelling like diesel fuel asphalt covered in cologne.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

So you went to a wake smelling like an Italian, smelling you're funny when you're mean.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

Maybe we should get you on sleepy more often. Um, yeah, basically. So I go to this wake and um uh I had to uh you know, like hug people and kiss them. Like, yeah. I mean, I tried to use like those hand wipes and stuff to try to clean myself up, but it was terrible. And um, I was on my way home. I got out of there a little earlier than I thought. My wife is still there, it's her best friend. And uh I texted Rob, I was like, let's just do a surprise show tonight, because tomorrow I have to work a double tomorrow. I'm working, I have to go in an hour early in the morning, and then I get like a four or five hour break in between shifts, and then I have to go back and have to be on the job at 1 a.m. So there would have been no way for us to do a show tomorrow. And Rob, while you were gone, I destroyed the locals show somehow. I know the Father Amato episode didn't work out. Uh I know. And then last night, I don't know, you said I didn't set up an RMTP or something. I don't even know what that means. And then um, yeah, that like people that wonder what Rob's role is here, watch an episode when he's not here.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

The uh I don't know, the audio podcast isn't working great either right now. I don't know what what what happened while I was gone, but it's okay, but you you'll you'll fix it.

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Yeah, because there are people who subscribe to the um like you can you can get the locals show audio only on on podcasts, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Yeah, um yeah, on yeah, especially it's easiest on Apple, but if you don't use Apple Podcasts, there's there's always a link down in the description where you can uh where you can subscribe.

SPEAKER_03 10:19

So yeah, so for you people who are like too cheap to throw the five bucks a month to locals, you can throw three, and there's some people who won't subscribe to locals because they don't want to give their money to uh uh a Jewish um yeah so I found out Dave Rubin hasn't owned locals for like a year or two.

SPEAKER_02 10:38

Oh, that's awesome. The guy who owns Rumble bought locals. Oh, that's great. So we can promote that. I mean kind of it's still right.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

We do have people working working behind the scenes to try and you know come up with a new platform. Um, so we'll see how that works out. Um, man on the street. I have a feeling we'll get a bunch of those when I go to Italy. I think I think that's what I'm going to do while I'm in Italy. I'm gonna have people there to encourage me and film and uh we let him back in. Why do we let the riffrap back in? Uh thank you, Joe. Joe has been working with me now for a couple of weeks. He's doing really good. You know what?

SPEAKER_02 11:25

He's got a you know what I should just go, I should just leave, go to sleep, and Joe can come on and do an old school off the rails episode.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

We could do an off-the-rails episode. Joe would love to probably come back on. Um but I definitely I definitely have some some crap I want to get into. Something like this. Well, that that we have to talk about because I just saw um Cavazzo's tweeted something out. Yeah. We that we definitely should touch on that. But there's a bunch of stuff I kind of wanted to get into. But also, oh, we have a we have a knickknack success story, Rob.

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Someone mentioned someone messaged me to they help keep me awake for 64 hours driving.

SPEAKER_03 12:08

They got me through this studio, I'll say that, man. But uh I asked today if uh guys should be able to marry a woman who's taller, and the guy reached out to me and he said, I used Knick Knack, scored a taller chick, and saved my genetic line because he was doomed to have short children for the next successive generations. Knick knack gave him the courage to step up to a taller chick. We have another Knick Knack success story.

Sponsor Reads And Success Stories

SPEAKER_03 12:37

If you guys have a Knick Knack success story, send them to me. I will highlight your success story on air. Go to knick knack.com, use code ab25% for your first purchase for 25% off. All subsequent purchases use ab 10 for additional 10% off every purchase after. So uh knick knack.com. We love knick knack and black monk rosary. Uh I prayed one of those today for the for the wake I went to. And um I have to we should all be praying for Ocean as well that he learns to bite his tongue a little bit in the chat. Uh, maybe say a black monk rosary, clearly against his genetics. Yeah. We got it. So, oh, I keep hitting the button. I'm sorry. So go to Black Monk Rosary. Uh, use code avoidingBabylona checkout, get 10% off. Black Monk Rosaries are awesome. Uh, they're great gifts for communion, confirmation. If you have a priest friend, uh if you have a recent convert in your life, great way to initiate them into the rosary. So go to uh blackmonkrosaries.com. So um yeah, I uh Adrian and I were texting today, actually.

Content Space Algorithms And Day Jobs

SPEAKER_03 13:46

That's not good. Uh just kind of watching over what kind of what's going on in the content space. Like the content space is just I don't know, man. I'm I'm just very happy that you and I have day jobs.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

Agreed. It made me want to tell you to screw off tonight.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

No, man. Like I I see I see what's happening out there, and I'm just very grateful that we have day jobs and that we don't because the 100,000 subscriber thing, like our views haven't gone up that much. Like, we have these clips that do really well, and that's where the subscribers are coming from. But our main live shows, they're not getting, you know, it's not 100,000 subscribers today, is not what it was a few years ago, right? It's just not right. Like a few years ago, if you had a hundred thousand subs, you were getting 50, 70,000 views. If not, more views than subs, more views than subs, right? And then people will come on and be like, oh, half our audience is not subscribed because they were getting higher views than subs. It's just not the case anymore. I don't know what's going on with the algorithms. Same thing on X, like X, the X algorithm is really weird now, man. If you it like I paused on a Dave Ramsey video for a little too long today, and every other video is Dave Ramsey. Like the algorithm is so sensitive on X that if you watch something for more than eight seconds, it's just gonna flood your feed with that kind of content. It's really annoying. Um, rebrand the show uh Buttonhole Babylon and get on Father James Martin.

Building A Healthier Channel Future

SPEAKER_03 15:24

What do you think we are going to do with the future of the channel, Rob? Because I I I really do enjoy the Papal Encyclical series, and I would like to keep at least one episode a week focused on something like that, even after we finish, you know, getting up to the council. Like I'd like to jump back in time and go back and you know do the council of Trent and maybe study some older popes and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

I I think it would be fun to um yeah, to have one episode a week when possible, anyways, um kind of focus on on something to do with Catholic history, whether we're studying a you know the what the background of a pope or a document, or um like uh I saw that the um that French movie about the war in the Vindee um finally released here in the US uh just in the last week or so, and like it would be cool to kind of uh maybe do like a faith in film episode with that, but have the first half of that episode you know be a deep dive into the history of the the French Revolution and the War in the Vindee.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

I would love to do the French Revolution, man. It's look, we've always tried to experiment on this channel, right? Like, we didn't do the faith in film series, we're always trying to throw things at the wall and see what's working. And Von Day, whatever you want to call, I'm not French. Screw you, Paul. Um, even last night with uh Hitchbourne, I I felt bad because I was not in a good headspace for it. But even what what he came on to talk about, because Michael reached out to me, he wanted to talk about the report he just released, but we'd been kind of dive like diverging from that kind of content on our channel. And I and I almost like I I don't I don't know. I got I I I'll never say no to Michael just because I love Michael so much. So it was like, yeah, of course. So like we're gonna help Michael promote anything, uh, anything that he's doing. But I do think the negativity cycle in Catholic media is just I don't I don't know. I'm tired of it, you know. I I think it's fun to do something topical, but um like I just don't care what's happening in Rome at all.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

Uh yeah, I agree. Like uh, you know, I I've seen some good things and bad things from the encyclical, the new encyclical. Uh I haven't read it yet. I haven't had time to read what is it, a hundred-page book, basically. Um, it's one thing I like about the older encyclicals.

SPEAKER_03 17:58

It's lazy, you get you get through them so quick, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:01

Like you could read an older encyclical in a half an hour, but like does it does it surprise anyone that Pope Leos is um just war doctrine is out of date? I mean, come on, guys. Like, how can that be surprising at this point?

SPEAKER_03 18:19

I just uh yeah, I just I just think it's it's a very different. Um oh, this is awesome. You guys are you guys are very awesome for doing this. Uh, congrats on 100k. I'm that guy with the knickknack success story. My fiance and I both love the show. Keep it up, Waghes. Yeah, he messaged me today. He goes, How's this first uh knickknack success story? I'll tell you right now, if I don't follow you on X and you want to follow back, just make a show reference. Like he made that show reference on X today, and I followed him right back. Because I know I know the difference in my Twitter audience versus the show audience, right? Like I don't my my Twitter audience is all me just like um trolling Protestants and stuff, but over here there's inside show references. So if you if you make an inside show reference, I'll follow you right back. I'm not stingy like Rob with the follows.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

But uh I I do I do follow people who do the show reference. Other than that, I uh if anything, I've been unfollowing people lately.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

Um could always wait, could always go the Lofton route and change the channel name to Crossfire News or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

I don't even know what that man has changed his channel name more often.

SPEAKER_03 19:37

Yeah, I don't need friends. I don't even know what most of these guys are up to anymore, and that's what Adrian was messaging me about today was one of the other creators in this space. And uh, we'll do it on the other side, but just uh like when you make your livelihood totally dependent on this, it's a dangerous thing. Like we can pop on tonight and just goof around and talk about anything. And I know the people that like the show are enjoying this, like it's just us goofing around talking about nonsense, and you guys are enjoying it. But when you're dependent upon views and you're dependent upon this as your livelihood, you don't have the freedom to just get on and and do whatever. Like, I don't even care when we get 3,000 views on a video anymore because the people that want like those 3,000 people that watch are following us over to locals, like our locals is doing better than it's ever done. So that means that means what we're doing is of uh of value and people are enjoying it enough to come and watch the after show, right? So I don't care what the YouTube views are anymore, I just care about are these people trans translating into like real real people like real people?

SPEAKER_02 20:56

I hate saying fans. It's so how is it I have better internet in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota, than you do on Long Island?

SPEAKER_03 21:03

Is it my internet? Yes, because you keep slowing down. I mean, is my is the audio coming through clear at least? No, not for well, okay. Hold on.

SPEAKER_02 21:13

Everyone, whose internet is screwing up? Anthony? Is it mine or Rob's?

SPEAKER_03 21:28

Um what uh that makes me really not like the setup now. What setup? Damn, it's mine. Yeah, you keep you keep like getting choppy to me.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

Well, hold on. Some are saying Boltifine, some are saying you, some are saying me. I don't know, man. It's just stream yard.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

It's just stream yard, I guess. All right, sorry about that. Um uh yeah, the it it is translating into people wanting to like watch the answer. Like what we're doing tonight is essentially what we would do on locals, except we we say names on locals. Locals, right? Like over here, we're like we're guarded about who we're talking about, where over there we're just like we don't care. We're gonna say Tim Gordon's name. I knew it. I'm just I knew it. I'm just kidding, trying to make a joke. Settle down. Hey, if this starts something, it's your fault. I don't really care at this point, to be honest. Don't really care anymore. I don't care what anybody's doing. Everybody just go and do their thing. Someone said my background looks like I'm copying Gordon. Why? What is Gordon's background? You're gonna make me look that up now.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Hey, there's one thing that's very different, and that's background audio. Anthony doesn't have it. Never mind. Never mind. Wait, no, we'll look at Tim Studio.

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Rules for retrograde, Tim Gordon. I want you to nope. We will not have a neon sign, but he has a wall behind them and stuff. Come on, stop it. We will not be taking shots at Milo.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Uh we're not suicidal.

SPEAKER_03 23:11

No, I'm not. I'm not going to war with Milo. I'm not going to war with Gordon either. I'm just teasing. I'm trying to make a joke. Um yeah, it's like uh, you know, it's just a it's a rough game, what's going on out here. But let's see. Uh Gordon's Gordon's live right now. He's got 97 watching. How many do we have watching? 175 on YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

172.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

On YouTube, yeah. 174 on YouTube. Then you got 168 on my X and 50 on your X. So 393 total watching. Uh but Tim's also like tonight he's covering Old Versus Young Earth for Christians, which is a topic we did for a year. Two years ago. Yeah, three years ago. Yeah. Um, this internet is kicking. Yeah, like you're freezing up to me. You look very blurry. You're freezing up to me.

SPEAKER_02 24:21

I don't know what's going on here.

SPEAKER_03 24:24

Um, streamy artist sleepy. All right. So what we'll do, Rob is freezing. Yeah. All right.

Start Times Locals Shift And Thanks

SPEAKER_03 24:29

Are we going to have a consistent start time and be punctual? Absolutely not. So, all right, so here's the thing with start time. We would like to move the show to 7 p.m. regularly. The problem is sometimes I get home a little late, and I like it may get pushed to eight, but we're going to aim for seven. Uh, and we're going to try and stick to the Tuesday-Thursday schedule. But this week, you wouldn't have gotten a second show this week if we didn't jump on tonight. So we jumped on tonight, um, you know, because we thought you guys would miss out on one tomorrow. So um, nah, y'all ruining my routine. Uh, all right. So, what we're gonna do is we're gonna go over to locals so that we can actually talk about the people that we want to talk about and uh not start any drama. So we we're gonna talk about uh we're gonna talk about Nick Cavazos's tweet about Pelican. And um, yeah, there is a there is a thing going on in the content space that I would like to talk about. And not even in a way to start any drama, just like I'm just curious what people are doing, man. It's it's very uh it's very very odd the behavior that I'm watching.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

So yeah, I do have a very funny outro/intro to locals. But for anyone who is watching this, especially if you're one of the new 20,000 subs we got this last month, go over to avoidingbabylon.locals.com. Hey, by wait, no, we did sponsors. Go over to avoidingbabylon.locals.com.

SPEAKER_03 25:59

Um well, first off, thank you to everybody who does watch this show. Like, um uh all joking aside, like this show. Uh what Rob and I do here, it has enabled us to uh have like a little side gig that helps our families out. I now am able to like it. I I Rob and I had like a little savings, and I was able to take money out of that savings to to build the studio and stuff. And it's been uh it's been really, really exciting doing this show over the past few years. And there's times where you just want to jump on and say something and you know have have have people to hear you out. And it is really nice having you guys as our uh as our viewers, and we appreciate every single one of you. Uh we're gonna head over to the other side. Uh Taffy's got a good uh outro video, so if you're not a locals member, you can watch the outro video, and then all the cool people will see you on the other side.

SPEAKER_02 26:54

To be fair, everyone's gonna be able to watch the outro video, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:07

What the ping joke would be one regard.