Podbit · Smosh Reads Reddit Stories
The pigeon post originally read as helpless — 'a bird is flying, what do I do?' But once the OP revealed they have muscular dystrophy and can't open windows alone, the whole story shifts. Damien argues this is a lesson in clear communication: context changes the advice entirely.
Where this was said
At 52:30 · chapter starts 46:39
The final story comes from r/needadvice in 2020: a person found an injured pigeon, housed it until it healed, and then posted in confusion when it started flying around their home. The hosts' initial reaction — 'just open a window and let it go' — gets undercut by a second edit revealing the OP has muscular dystrophy and physically cannot open windows or retrieve fallen screens alone [1] — Shayne Topp "Someone nursed an injured pigeon back to health — and then panicked when it started flying around their house. The hosts can't stop laughin…" 48:17 . Damien acknowledges he hadn't considered this and uses it as a lesson in clear communication: context completely changes advice. The group also riffs on the real hazards of housing wild animals, with Damien sharing his personal bird mite infestation story that required full fumigation at 150°F. Ian notes that pigeons were originally domesticated by humans, which is why urban pigeons seem aimless. Shayne praises the OP for not having photos — it makes the story feel more authentic than staged wildlife rescue videos. The episode closes with Shayne issuing his power-scaling question as homework for viewers, Ian asking the internet to weigh in on how much a kindergartner weighs, and the hosts signing off with a warm 'see you next Saturday, enjoy your pancakes.'
A Reddit user stung by a bee near the abdomen developed a persistent erection that lasted over 18 hours before finally resolving on its own.
Someone nursed an injured pigeon back to health — and then panicked when it started flying around their house. The hosts can't stop laughing that the person had no Step 2. The update reveals the OP has muscular dystrophy and couldn't open windows alone, which reframes everything.
Damien noted that pigeons were originally domesticated by humans, which is why they linger on city streets seemingly aimless — they were never truly wild birds.
Damien speaks from hard experience: a bird nest outside his window led to a full bird mite infestation that required fumigating his home at 150°F. Good intentions toward wildlife come with real consequences, and the advice is unanimous — do not bring wild animals inside.
Damien shared from personal experience that a bird mite infestation in his home required full fumigation at 150°F, forcing him out of his living space entirely.
Most people confuse things they value instrumentally (because they get them other things) with things they value intrinsically (for their own sake). Greenberg's friend stayed in a miserable relationship for years because she was living by her parents' values, not her own — the values map made the mismatch instantly visible.
Jungian analyst James Hollis distills a good life to four things: shut up (have gratitude, stop whining), suit up (prepare yourself to fulfill a role), show up (do the actual work in service of others), and daily get out of stimulus-response to ask what your deeper wish actually is. The whole landscape of self-help slots into just these four bins.
Toward the end of their 20s, many men discover that all the strategies that earned them recognition and success have stopped working. It's a second adolescence — more important than the first — where the question shifts from 'how do I play the game?' to 'who do I actually want to become?' Most people going through it look fragile from the outside. They're actually building a foundation.
Boys are told from childhood not to cry, not to feel, not to be weak — but anger gets a pass. The result: a generation of men who reroute every emotion, including sadness and fear, through the only acceptable channel. Emotional avoidance isn't toughness, it's misdirected sensitivity.
Men need a 'bank account' of masculine status — muscle, money, success — before society grants them permission to express vulnerability. Chris Bumstead can cry at the Olympia and get celebrated. A struggling nobody doing the same thing gets contempt. This creates a tragic paradox where the men who most need emotional support get the least of it.
Emotional sensitivity isn't a defect — it's a high-resolution scanner for human experience. Highly sensitive people pick up body language, tone, and unspoken tension that others miss entirely. In the right environment, that's not a liability. It's a superpower.
Her supervisor told her she was too emotional for the pediatric ICU. So she asked herself: 'What area of medicine can I cry in?' That question led her to psychiatry. Finding the environment that holds your emotional sensitivity isn't retreat — it's strategy.
For someone with RSD, ghosting isn't ambiguity — it's a self-verdict. Their brain doesn't read 'this relationship ended,' it reads 'I am the reason this failed.' No closure means the brain fills the gap with evidence of personal insufficiency, and it keeps filling indefinitely.
More freedom doesn't produce more happiness — it produces more anxiety. Kierkegaard identified this 180 years ago: the more options you have, the more you feel the 'dizziness of freedom,' a paralytic unease at having to choose any single one. The freest generation in history is, by his prediction, exactly the most anxious.
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