It just occurred to me it makes no sense that Max owns his own house when he doesn't have an actual job, and his only stream of income is grifting on YouTube and Patreon scamming. $20k a month is a healthy chunk of change on its own but when you add constant general life expenses and reccuring bills on top of car and mortgage payments, that can dry up fast especially when you've decided to arbitrarily just take on the responsibility of housing some fat ass with historically bad financial responsibility as well. Then there's all of his cameras, mics, editing equipment and software, and whatever paid for assets he uses for his editing etc. He's likely desperate for shout outs because this his coffers are getting empty.
Combine this with it also dawning on me that because convinced his audience his now out there in the open lies of pedo hunting were legitimate, it's not above reasonable suspicion his family may think he actually does investigate this stuff and is genuinely some sort of film maker. I learned from years down the Onision rabbit hole to not underestimate how out of the loop some people can be with the actual activities of their own kids or siblings. He seems to be on good terms with them and I have a hard time with that being the case if they were fully aware Max is essentially a pathological liar.