Podcast Summary: You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes

Episode: We Made It Weird #209
Date: March 7, 2025
Host: Pete Holmes
Guest/Co-host: Valerie

Overview

This episode of We Made It Weird delivers what longtime fans have come to love: an effortless blend of silly, offbeat banter and unexpectedly profound reflections. Pete and Valerie open the conversational floodgates, diving into everything from video game nostalgia and poker to generational trauma and family dynamics. While Pete riffs and rambles in classic form, Valerie’s insight and warmth anchor the conversation, with both fostering a space that’s comedic, relatable, and—at times—disarmingly deep.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The We Made It Weird Format

• The episode begins with Pete and Valerie poking fun at podcast conventions, their own episode structure, and the “never quite getting to the topic” style they’ve perfected.
  • “Talking about real silly frivolouses and then frivolities instantly jumping into the deep end. With trauma.” (Valerie, 01:36)
  • “Classic We Made It Weird format, I would say.” (Valerie, 01:31)

2. Emotional Check-ins & Relationship Dynamics

• Pete and Valerie reflect on the importance of emotional honesty in their relationship and how talking openly about feelings wasn’t always second nature.
  • Valerie credits Pete with teaching her to be more in touch with herself: “I didn’t live that way until I met you…like, Pisces style, like, shaped to your—like, watery. Shaped to your container.” (09:43, 09:54)
• They joke about the routine of checking in emotionally every day as being their “Netflix.”

3. YouTube, Algorithms, and Cozy Nostalgia (12:18 – 28:25)

• In a recurring segment, Pete describes his YouTube algorithm:
  • Video game retrospectives and speedrunning documentaries (Summoning Salt)
    • “It’s my friend. It’s my digital friend. That’s like, here’s how someone broke Mario Kart. And I’m like, thanks. I just don’t want to be alone right now.” (Pete, 20:26)
  • The catharsis and art of watching outcast gamers find appreciation online.
    • “When someone who is discarded is revealed to be precious…I can’t get enough of it.” (Pete, 28:25)
  • Valerie draws a parallel between video gaming and primal human needs for tasks and accomplishments.
    • “That’s the part of the brain it’s scratching.” (Valerie, 26:48)

4. Medieval Times, The Dark Ages, and Italian Cookies (29:12 – 34:15)

• Pete and Valerie speculate (hilariously inaccurately) about the Dark Ages, the burning of knowledge, and the evolution to the Enlightenment—detouring through Italian cookies and pasta.
  • “Italian cookies were so bad and are to this day so bad…they haven’t—The only recipe they haven’t updated.” (Pete, 32:53)
• This segment satirizes faux-expertise and the confidence of the uninformed, a recurring Pete Holmes motif.

5. Information Access & Modern Anxiety (34:15 – 38:07)

• The pair consider whether universal information access is always a net good.
  • “Seems kind of right.” (Valerie, 34:01)
  • “We have access to everything—but we’re the same. A lot of us are the same. All of us are still kind of like animal…mammal things…” (Pete, 34:45)

6. Pete’s YouTube Algorithm Part II: Poker & Comedy Videos (48:44 – 62:50)

• Valerie attempts to describe Pete’s full “algo”: video game content, poker, and Pitch Meeting (film parody series).
• Pete’s unexpected obsession with professional poker becomes a platform for reflecting on sensitivity, emotional intelligence, and reading others:
  • “If you grew up in a family where no one was saying how they actually feel…poker is not your game…because the whole skill is you’re acting weird, right?” (54:32)
  • “That’s the game of the highly sensitive.” (Pete, 57:39)

7. Poker as Emotional Theatre

• Poker is reframed as a live-action study of human affect and intuition, particularly appealing to “sensitive” people who had to read feelings in their own families.
  • “Nothing makes me happier…when someone has a sixth sense…” (Pete, 56:48)
  • “You have to be mean—a little mean—to play it.” (Pete, 57:51)
  • The intimacy and intensity of the game is compared to family dynamics and childhood survival strategies.

8. Therapy Breakthrough: Family, Trauma, and Healing (62:50 – 73:42)

Pete’s Therapy Insights (62:50 – 68:47)

• Pete shares a recent breakthrough from an internal family systems therapy session:
  • His earlier understanding: His family were “four orbs,” isolated from each other.
  • New realization: In childhood, he experienced the family as a single membrane—if something was wrong in the system, he internalized it as being “twisted,” “dirty,” or broken himself.
    • “It was the opposite…It was me. The whole thing was me.” (65:11)
    • “Everything that happened was a reflection on me. And that’s why to this day…I feel completely identified, entangled with that setup…” (66:08)
• Pete describes the ongoing process of separating adult self from those childhood imprints and the power of openly naming and sharing these feelings.
  • “Let’s talk about it. Let’s not be ashamed. A little kid was confused and thought: I am this. And then you have to be like, you are not that.” (68:47)

Valerie’s Perspective on Complex Trauma (69:03 – 72:34)

• Valerie contextualizes Pete’s breakthrough within wider trauma psychology:
  • “I’ve heard it explained this way where it’s better to assume that you are flawed as a child than to assume the people who are in charge of your survival are flawed.” (70:41)
• She offers hope based on her own journey with trauma therapy:
  • “Over the last six years of really steady trauma therapy…my relationship with my child self has changed…she believes my adult self more.” (71:42)

9. Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Watery shape to my container.” (Valerie, 09:54)
• “Night is dirty. Day is clean.” (Pete, 13:31)
• “No shame in breaking a hide because the seek was starting to peak.” (Pete, 49:50)
• “That’s the game of the highly sensitive.” (Pete, 57:39)
• “When someone who is discarded is revealed to be precious…I can’t get enough of it.” (Pete, 28:25)
• “I want to shout it from the roofs because all I’m trying to do is like, summoning salt, smelling salt myself into reality and go: That wasn’t true then and that isn’t true now.” (Pete, 68:47)
• “The child will make their parents right at all costs—and the cost is usually making them the wrong one.” (Valerie, 70:47)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Emotional check-ins, relationship talk: 08:18–11:17
• YouTube nostalgia, video games/speedrunning: 12:18–28:25
• Medieval and historical digression: 29:12–34:15
• Info access & internet woes: 34:15–38:07
• Comedy & coziness in algorithms: 48:44–62:50
• Poker as metaphor: 52:46–59:17
• Therapy and family trauma breakthrough: 62:50–73:42

Tone & Takeaway

In their signature style, Pete and Valerie make the profound palatable. They alternate between riffing and revelation, always circling back to the central weirdness—and humanity—of emotional life. Listeners will find comfort, laughter, nostalgia, and a kind of gentle invitation to investigate their own stories and healing.

Final Words

Pete, in closing, expresses gratitude for the episode and the continued practice of vulnerability both in therapy and through sharing on the show:
“I want to shout it from the roofs because all I’m trying to do is…summoning salt myself into reality and go: that wasn’t true then and that isn’t true now.” (68:47)

Valerie sums up the therapeutic process with encouragement:
"And it wasn’t true then, and it’s not true now…just keep showing up to your child self and saying, like, that’s not where we are anymore." (71:38)

Keep it crispy!