The improbable revival of Joe Rogan, America’s bro whisperer
Rogan's become a spokesman of sorts for the Fear Factor/UFC demo—white guys who don’t identify as either conservative or progressive.
Image: Graphic: Natalie Peeples Aux Features Joe Rogan
When Joe Rogan speaks, people listen. It’s the damndest thing. What he says on his popular Spotify podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, isn’t that insightful, enlightened, or unique, and occasionally, it’s a public health hazard. On April 23, Rogan—who’s a comedian and not a doctor or even a comedian doctor like Patch Adams—suggested that young, healthy people shouldn’t bother getting vaccinated against COVID-19: “I’ve said, yeah, I think for the most part it’s safe to get vaccinated. I do. I do. But if you’re like 21 years old, and you say to me, should I get vaccinated? I’ll go no.”
A few days later, Today host Savannah Guthrie asked Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has a medical degree, to respond to Rogan’s comments. Fauci politely reminded everyone how vaccines work. This wasn’t a scene from Idiocracy but our current dumbass reality, where the president’s chief medical adviser must enter the rhetorical ring with the former host of Fear Factor.
America has a fully functioning First Amendment, much to Prince Harry’s astonishment, so Rogan is perfectly free to stay stupid stuff for profit. The problem is that his 200 million listeners take him seriously, and politicians of all stripes are eager to capitalize on his platform. Rogan started out as a typical frat boy stand-up comic in the late 1980s before acting in the mid-to-late 1990s on sitcoms like Hardball and NewsRadio. He was also a color commentator for the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Rogan’s breakthrough came 20 years ago as the host of NBC’s gross-out game show Fear Factor, where adults ate worms on camera for the chance to win cash prizes. This cemented his macho credentials. It’s also how Rogan learned that if you’re allergic to shellfish you’re also allergic to roaches.
Putting his roach consumption days behind him, Rogan launched his podcast in 2009. Not only was it incredibly successful, but Rogan soon became a spokesman of sorts for the Fear Factor/UFC demo—white guys who don’t identify as either conservative or progressive. They don’t hold strong ideological positions, but they usually demonstrate libertarian leanings (though, as the old saying goes, a libertarian is a Republican who likes to smoke weed). During the 2020 election, they were seen as potentially “gettable” voters for Democrats, and Rogan was the bridge to bro-land. After all, 2016 had proven that connecting with The Daily Show audience wasn’t going to help you win the Rust Belt.
Rogan had welcomed Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard on the podcast, but he turned down requests to host Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden. He said he’d prefer to “talk to his friends,” which presumably didn’t include the first openly gay presidential candidate, a woman whose policies were similar to Sanders’, and even an old white guy who was the first Black president’s loyal wingman. “I like Tulsi and I like Bernie, that’s it,” he said. “Everybody else can eat shit.”
That was probably a bummer for Democratic candidate Andrew Yang, who Rogan hosted in 2019. A study from the Cambridge University Press revealed that Yang’s appearance on the podcast had catapulted his candidacy and his universal basic income platform into the mainstream. The Yang interview is informative and Rogan’s a good listener who keeps the conversation moving. It’s overall more probative than an appearance on any other talk show, even The Daily Show, where humor is still the primary objective. Equal-time rules don’t apply to Rogan, so candidates such as Kamala Harris or Kirsten Gillibrand were never offered an opportunity to make their case to the very audience with whom they struggled the most. Gabbard spent a good deal of her time on the podcast actively bashing Harris and setting a narrative Harris could never challenge on Rogan’s show.
When Rogan said he planned to vote for Sanders in the primary, this wasn’t treated like your typical celebrity endorsement but as a potential sea change. The New York Times ran an article about how “a Joe Rogan endorsement could help (or backfire on) Bernie Sanders.” As the eventual nominee once said, this was a “big fucking deal.” Rogan’s rationale was revealing. He said, “Look, you could dig up dirt on every single human being that’s ever existed if you catch them in their worst moment and you magnify those moments and you cut out everything else and you only display those moments. That said, you can’t find very many with Bernie. He’s been insanely consistent his entire life. He’s basically been saying the same thing his whole life. And that in and of itself is a very powerful structure to operate from.”
Sanders trumpeted Rogan’s endorsement, generating backlash from the marginalized groups that Rogan had unapologetically mocked over the years. This led to a debate about whether Rogan’s transphobia and casual racism was something Democrats should tolerate in exchange for winning over the “non-woke” electorate, those elusive voters who resented #MeToo and “identity politics” but were open to UBI and Medicare For All. It’s the inverse of the supposed “economically conservative/socially liberal” voters, many of whom did end up backing Biden.
When Biden won the nomination, Rogan considered voting for Donald Trump, who had little in common with Sanders, policy-wise. Rogan’s reasoning wasn’t “insanely consistent,” either. He claimed Biden was too old for the job, although Sanders is a year older than the current president. Rogan told guest Eric Weinstein: “I don’t think [Biden] can handle anything. You’re relying entirely on his cabinet. If you want to talk about an individual leader who can communicate, he can’t do that. And we don’t know what the fuck he’ll be like after a year in office. The pressure of being president of the United States is something that no one has ever prepared for. The only one who seems to be fine with it is Trump, oddly enough.”
Yes, it is odd to suggest that Donald Trump can handle pressure, despite everything we witnessed during his presidency and were told outright by people who worked in the White House. However, Trump is “insanely consistent” or at least consistently irrational. He’s certainly not someone who acknowledges his mistakes, even when they resulted in a pandemic spreading mostly unchecked through the nation.
Muhammad Ali observed in a 1975 Playboy interview that “the man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.” If Rogan finds consistency, no matter how foolish, appealing, it’s a compelling contrast to talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, whose career had similar origins to Rogan’s but took a vastly different sociopolitical trajectory. Kimmel, who co-hosted Comedy Central’s The Man Show with Trump defender Adam Carolla, said in 2017 that “I look back at every show I’ve ever done and cringe.” This is maturity. Most people cringe at high school yearbook photos or videos of their drama club performances before eventually finding the ideal balance where we can appreciate how far we’ve grown without rejecting who we once were. Rogan, like many who denounce so-called “cancel culture,” can’t find that balance. They cling to the past despite the harm it might’ve caused others. Rogan is very popular with men who resent that the world has changed and they might have to change with it. He lamented recently that you “can never be woke enough” and predicted a nightmare scenario where white men are oppressed because the general population respects people’s differences: “It keeps going further and further down the line and if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it’ll eventually get to straight white men are not allowed to talk, because it’s your privilege to express yourself when other people of color have been silenced throughout history.”
Slippery slope arguments are at their root conservative appeals, despite Rogan’s efforts to hide behind free-wheeling libertarianism. His absurd concerns wouldn’t stand out in a National Review editorial during the Civil Rights or Women’s Movements. The obvious Strawman Strawmington argument is a Ben Shapiro classic. But Rogan’s not just a guy in a bar complaining about his ex. He’s tapped into the same “anti-empathy” as fellow reality TV star Donald Trump. Rogan’s net worth is around $100 million, but his listeners consider him a fellow victim of an overly “woke” society.
Rogan told guest Judd Apatow that he found comedic inspiration as a teen when his family took him to see Richard Pryor’s Live On The Sunset Strip. This is interesting because that concert film is the one where Pryor confronted his own toxic masculinity head on. He rejected his once-liberal use of the n-word and confessed to struggling in relationships because of his own personal failings. This was what we’d now call a “newly woke” Pryor, and one comics like Rogan often forget existed. Rogan dismisses political humor as a mundane source of comedy. He agreed with his guest Anthony Jeselnik, who said that political comedy just pisses off half the audience and too easily pleases the other. This criticism is both reductive and covertly conservative. Pryor’s work was overtly political and he’s rightly considered one of the greatest comics of all time. Rogan likely remembers Pryor simply as someone unafraid to challenge the power structure, which is true—but Rogan believes the current power structure is whoever demands that we don’t call trans people “transvestites” or make gross rape jokes. It’s the same power structure that believes people should take the damn COVID-19 vaccine.
Rogan’s vaccine remarks were misinformed, but also not that different from what actual elected Republicans have said. When he clarified his position on the April 29 episode of his podcast, he insisted that he “wasn’t an anti-vax person.” Heck, his parents were vaccinated! He just didn’t think that “if you’re a young healthy person, you need it.” But we live in a society and not Ayn Rand’s Fuck You Funhouse. We should willingly sacrifice a half-hour of our time to get a life-saving vaccine even if we don’t exclusively benefit from it. Dr. Fauci corrected Rogan’s statements, but he’s also had to tangle with equally dumb rhetoric from Senator Rand Paul.
This is why it’s a mistake to dismiss Rogan as just some comedian with a podcast. When politicians appear on Jimmy Kimmel’s, Stephen Colbert’s, and Jimmy Fallon’s talk shows, their objective is to come across as relatable, like average people you’d want to join for a beer. Their efforts are often stiff and cringe-worthy, because they aren’t professional TV personalities and, in Senator Ted Cruz’s case, they barely have personalities. Voters believed Trump was a successful businessman because he played one relatively convincingly for more than a decade on NBC’s The Apprentice. Rogan’s politically incorrect machismo feels authentic on his podcast, and that’s what matters most to his audience. It’s also what seems to matter most in modern politics. Republicans, including Cruz and Senator Josh Hawley, spend more time these days complaining about the “woke mob” and “cancel culture” than they do discussing substantive policy. Cruz especially trolls on Twitter like a frustrated stand-up, claiming the U.S. military has become “emasculated” because it dares promote diversity. These rants are all well within Rogan’s core competencies, but Cruz and Hawley lack Rogan’s genuine rapport with his predominately white male audience. Rogan could probably beat both senators silly in a GOP primary. If that seems ridiculous, just remember who previously resided in the White House.
493 Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy
…can’t wait for my brain to turn to shit because all the adults in my life thought it was aces to play football through college. I’m 36, and already need a shoulder replacement. Check’s in the mail for brain issues. Thanks for the reminder tho.
The best description I ever heard of Joe Rogan is that he’s like a time-traveling 18th century European emperor. He’s incredibly demanding of his guests and asks a bazillion entitled questions, but he’s also massively gullible and immediately believes literally anything they tell him. (I don’t remember if someone in the AVC comments said this or if I read it elsewhere, but I wanted to give proper credit).
No idea where you found that description but it is incredibly apt.
What is an “entitled question?”
I’d say the best description is that he’s Gwenyth Paltrow/Goop for men.It’s the same type of person attracted to this kind of thing.
“It’s the same type of person attracted to this kind of thing.”
Sure it is.
This is 1000% accurate.
Nope.
Rogan’s got the stupid but not the huckster. Alex Jones is closer to being Men’s Goop IMO.
Rogan has controlling interest in the company ONNIT, which is a lifestyle/fitness company that sells supplements. Rogan sort of bridges the huckster elements of Paltrow and Jones.
You know, I really shouldn’t be surprised.
I think those that can be surprised by Joe Rogan’s fuckery are blessed with the best type of ignorance. Sorry for taking that from you! 😛
but he’s far from a salesman, he could never be one and has never really acted as one. He’s just an idiot w/ a podcast and a job poorly describing people beating the shit out of each other for the UFC.
Seriously. That’s all he’s got. I’m white and live in Proud Boys territory, and no one thinks of him in any way that matters to them. There’s no Rogan rallying cry nor rousing speeches. He’s a nobody.
When I say this bashing on Rogan is wasted effort, that’s what I mean. Find a more USEFUL target (Tucker Calrson is a waste as well. as annoying as he is, no one who listens to him is going to change their mind,) that will actually make a fucking lick of sense attacking. I’m with you if you’ll do so, otherwise I expect you’ll see momentum fade behind you.
OH, SORRY! I didn’t realize some random person on the internet has a personal experience they feel means something significant! Guess I’m wrong. /s Really though, Rogan is a moron and deservedly is called out for things he did above, and it doesn’t make two licks of sense to blast Tucker Carlson in the comment section on an article about Joe Rogan. Also, I can just do both?Also, why are you still rallying behind Rogan on this article, a month later?
I didn’t mean in the sells pseudoscience, more that there’s a certain type of person from either gender that thinks they’re a “free thinker” that absolutely adores thinking exactly what some person barely outside the mainstream tells them, and these people all act exactly alike and are immediately identifiable before they open their mouths.The women congregate to Goop. The men, to Rogan. Really, they have a lot in common with Juggalos, as well, except Juggalos really are outside the mainstream instead of just fancying themselves as such.
I would just love to see a Rogan/Paltrow debate where each of them rails into the other side for all of their flaws. The fallout of the fandoms interacting would be almost as entertaining.
Except…the amount of Juggalos or Goop people pales in comparison to Rogan’s audience. It’s almost as if the author and most commentators don’t have a firm grasp of the subject they so confidently decry (but hey, the internet).
I’m pretty sure I read an article a while back that said some of the (ineffectual, unproven) shit Alex Jones sells to men is LITERALLY the same shit that Goop sells to women, like they are the same products manufactured with the same ingredients with different labels/marketing.
Yep.
I don’t want to smell his candles either.
Broprah Winfrey.
Naaah. That’s alex jones. Joe rogan is the guy that would interview and give creedence through ignorance to a male GOOP. kinda like Dr. Oz., but not pretentious enough to call himself “doctor” while selling snake oil.
“asks a bazillion entitled questions” What the fuck does this even mean?“immediately believes literally anything they tell him”Someone hasn’t watched Joe Rogan before! Joe pushes back quite a bit on guests and challenges them on their bullshit often enough and it can get a bit awkward at times.Does he fall for some other shit? Sure. He’s not a goddamn, accomplished polymath.
I think you are talking about the greentext that was shared on Reddit?
That is marvellous.
but he’s also massively gullible and immediately believes literally anything they tell him.
Yep. It’s why people love going back on his show. He doesn’t push back in the slightest. You could roll in talking about how COVID was sent by aliens from the future to help bring about the second coming Christ and he’d just nod and be like “Cool cool that could be yeah.”
Would love to know how he is incredibly demanding of his guests and what “entitled questions” are. I assume you don’t even listen to him or know 3/4 of the people he has on.
OK, that beats my description, which was that he was that meathead jock who signed up for a Philosophy class or Social Studies or something “cause, bro, it’ll be funny, bro” and halfway through the semester thought he was now a massive genius.
How would it be better for the never changing host to constantly insert his personl views like a Bill Mahr or a Jimmy Kimmel or any other state approved comedian. Personaly I want Kanye and Elon to ramble on for hours stoned and drunk and uninterupted it’s funny. You sound kind of consevative
Are you referring to this from 4Chan?
On the one hand, Rogan’s output is goofy bro shit. It’s the “reasoned debate” equivalent of watching a bunch of 50-y-os with degenerative arthritis take over an NBA game and try to play four quarters.OTOH, it falls into the “South Park” category for me, in that if something so superficial could even *dent* the foundation of our society, then our society was built on a pretty shitty foundation.
So well said, thank you.
Back in the day, I went from Maron to Rogan exclusively because I wanted to hear from this or that celebrity. Rogan was more meatheaded but wilder. It got old. I don’t listen to Maron anymore either. That podcast format got boring. Rogan often gave the impression of stumbling his way through the interviews, only superficially knowing what he was talking about.
I’ve never really dug “interview” podcasts anyway, and I don’t need to listen to an uneducated bro opine about sociopolitical issues when I could find that literally anywhere on the Internet.The ire around Rogan, though? I always find that funny. When people talk about how destructive Rogan, South Park, etc., are, all I hear is “We’re a shitty, stupid society and I’m MAD about it.”The problem ain’t Rogan. The problem is that Rogan can spout some shit, and enough dumb motherfuckers will take it as gospel, despite their being able to easily debunk it using the same damned device that they’re using to listen to the podcast.Toxic individualism and toxic confidence were already a pretty uniquely American problem by the time Rogan was cutting his teeth on the frat circuit. He’s just a particularly popular conduit for it.And, in that vein…at least he ain’t Limbaugh?
Yeah, Limbaugh is propaganda, full stop. There’s a massive difference. Rogan’s dumb and he has questionable ideas but his agenda isn’t to distort reality.
Early on, Limbaugh had a certain mean-spirited supervillain glee rooted in a knee-jerk contrarianism that could be funny at times. He quickly drank a bit too much of his own Kool Aid and became drearily repetitive and rote. New York “conservative” Bob Grant was a pioneer of right-wing talk shtick but it was pretty obvious he was play-acting. When he got one of those inevitable calls agreeing with everything he said, he was just as likely to rip the caller to pieces for being a toady.
I have this crazy idea of listening to a guest so I can evaluate for myself rather than having the host do it for me.
That makes him the perfect candidate for becoming a “useful idiot” though.
The problem ain’t Rogan. The problem is that Rogan can spout some shit, and enough dumb motherfuckers will take it as gospel…This is an old problem, sadly enough. 200 years ago some greedy crackpot in New York told his friends and neighbors that the ghost of a Native American-Israelite gave him the location of a golden book and now there are over 16 million Mormons. I don’t know of a good method for preventing hucksters and jackasses from gaining influence.
I don’t know of a good method for preventing hucksters and jackasses from gaining influence. There isn’t a “good” one, but there is a long-term one that works even if people think it doesn’t: you overwhelm the noise with fact, and move on. Like what happened with the latest Rogan vaccine shit.And painting him as some kind of iconoclast (when he’s really just a meathead with a vaguely comedy-adjacent podcast) kind of muddies that effort. He’s not a “dangerous” political figure or a “controversial” oligarch power player, he’s a meathead with a podcast, who occasionally says some incredibly dumb things. Overwhelming the noise with fact? That’s how you bring down chucklefucks like Giraldo Rivera.Painting the noise as dangerous speech proffered by an equally dangerous man? That’s how we get chucklefucks like Limbaugh. That EXACT trajectory.
“if something so superficial could even *dent* the foundation of our society, then our society was built on a pretty shitty foundation.”Is there doubt about the shittiness of our nations foundation?
Nope. I just wish we could collectively stretch our arms past the low hanging fruit.
No one is basing their worldview from South Park episodes. People who watch South Park at least understand that it’s satire. Rogan tells people COVID lies and a very long list of dangerous bullshit and a lot of fuckboys do base their worldview from his idiocy because they think in the same ways (the crowd who thinks watching a YouTube video from a random source makes them informed on an issue). Very different from a cartoon tv show.
I’m going to let you in on a secret: American culture was built on a shitty foundation.
::sigh:: FFS, can kinja fucking get fixed so I can reply to gray comments WORTH replying to?
Rogan had welcomed Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard on the podcast, but he turned down requests
to host Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden. He said he’d
prefer to “talk to his friends,” which presumably didn’t include the
first openly gay presidential candidate, a woman whose policies were
similar to Sanders’, and even an old white guy who was the first Black
president’s loyal wingman. “I like Tulsi and I like Bernie, that’s it,”
he said. “Everybody else can eat shit.”Yeah, I cannot possibly fathom why Rogan would rather interview three politicians notable for their colourful personalities and distinct outspoken political views over three cookie-cutter corporate/establishment stooges clearly just looking to shill their platform ahead of an upcoming election.
🙂
Elizabeth Warren isn’t someone I would describe as an ‘establishment stooge’. Someone who changed their beliefs because they did research and crunched numbers has more of my attention than someone who has stayed consistent throughout the decades.
But what if the person who stayed consistent was consistent because their beliefs were good in the first place and the person who changed did so because they used to pretend to be Native and had a bunch of horrible reactionary beliefs?
Yes, what if the thing you made up was true!
She pretended to be a Native American for decades
Bernie/Tulsi people think anyone that isn’t Bernie/Tulsi are “establishment stooges.”They used to think that about Warren, but then she ran for President in the same primary as Sanders and we can’t have a woman doing that now, right?
“Establishment stooge” is just code for “progressive who isn’t St. Bernie.”
Not sure I’d call Tulsi Gabbard someone with a colorful personality… honestly I never really understood what her “thing” was. Her brand seemed to be “the Democrat for paranoid conspiracy theorists / dictator apologists” which is kind of an odd Venn diagram.
I mean, sure, that’s about the most uncharitable way to describe what her “thing” is.
I mean say what you will about either Tulsi or Rogan, but “the Democrat for paranoid conspiracy theorists / dictator apologists” is exactly the kind of wacky shit you would expect on JRE. Unless you subscribe to the theory that Buttigieg is secretly a CIA plant, which is a whole other can of worms altogether, his sexuality is just about the most interesting thing about the man.
I never remotely understood why some progressives liked her. Reading about her opinion of Bashir Assad was enough to make me loath her. Saying Oliver Stone is a great hero, complaining about PC culture and voting against trans rights was just more evidence.
An unfortunate number of progressives are just edgy and contrarian in the name of being “anti-establishment”
She got big for breaking away from her DNC position in 2016 which framed her as anti-establishment which people wanted when they felt how hard done Bernie got in 2016. Then it turned out her social politics were highly regressive and had strong connections with anti-muslims hindu nationalists. I think her popularity has waned hard since then but like how the right collects votes from single issue voters, you have the same type of hold outs for Tulsi for kinda supporting medicare for all
honestly I never really understood what her “thing” was
She was a conventionally attractive woman who endorsed Sanders in 2016.
Tulsi was aiming for the coveted “Democrat who doesn’t think we meddle with ENOUGH countries” slice of the electorate
“Yeah, I cannot possibly fathom why Rogan would rather interview three politicians notable for their colourful personalities and distinct outspoken political views over three cookie-cutter corporate/establishment stooges clearly just looking to shill their platform ahead of an upcoming election.”
That’s how you interpreted “Everybody else can eat shit”?
God, you need to be skull-fucked by something.
Truly his greatest crime of all was not interviewing Pete Buttigieg
That’s a fair point, but I would kind of like to hear Buttigieg, Warren and Biden have to answer questions about aliens and whether or not they’ve ever tried DMT.
Colorful is that what you call anti-gay trash like Gabbard?
FFS, IT’S an INDEPENDENTLY PRODUCED PODCAST!!!!IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, DON’T LISTEN TO IT.
Listen, I’m not a fan and I haven’t heard much from the guy in a long, long time, but I would never consider him a paragon of virtue, nor a font of advice.
He’s just a stoner w/a podcast that happens to be very, very popular.How many “social influencers” on various outlets can you say are as ignorant as he is? 50%? 75%? 90%?
People have been listening to “shock jocks” on radio almost as long as there’s been wireless audio transmission, that doesn’t mean the listeners sympathaize with them, it just means that people’s lives are BORING, and they often want to hear about crazy, random BS, and crazy, random BS perspectives on the same topics.When network and cable TV still mattered, the stupid-ass talk-shows of the 80’s and 90’s morphed into the stupid BS reality TV obsession that fomented the creation of the “influencer” world we’re all a part of now. But they gave birth to Oprah. And Oprah is a financial juggernaut that is rarely ever questioned, even if there’s a lot to question there. (No Q-Anon stuff implied, it’s mostly Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and Tyler Perry I’m talking about.)
You want to de-platform Joe Rogan?MAKE SMARTER DECISIONS ABOUT WHAT YOU PAY ATTENTION TO YOURSELF.If you’re giving screen time to your own guilty “reality” TV and bullsh*t influencer worship pleasures, YOU’RE FEEDING THIS MACHINE.Hit pieces on ex-Gawker, corporate-overlord run sites aren’t going to change anything.If anything, these articles are giving him MORE publicity!
These people think they are better and smarter than most folks and look down on others who like things Joe Rogan. Imagine taking time to write a long article about something you could just ignore. I listen to his show frequently. Some guest are better than others. But this writer has not listened to any shows.
Rogan is a moron and completely full of shit. He operates under the guise of being some kind of libertarian but he embraces the worst of the worst that the far right has to offer, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, Alex fucking Jones. Anyone who attempts to defend his stupidity can get bent
so don’t listen and stop being butthurt about someone who doesn’t affect you. I don’t listen or complain about Owens, Shapiro or any of them, because I don’t care. Why be all emotional about something you don’t have to spend money on or participate in? The fact you even mention him having people on the far right on the show, proves you don’t get it. I just skipped those shows and listen to when he has someone on that I find interesting. I hate horror movies, and don’t get them. But I don’t say people who enjoy them are secret serials killers or love violence.
He nods in agreement while Alex Jones spreads his filthy lies about the Sandy Hook Massacre but yeah….just ignore it and it will all go away. Go to hell man
No, he chastised Jones for the Sandy Hook conspiracy. You’re almost as bad as the author in not knowing what you’re talking about.
Ok, you said what I was thinking, but could not articulate because I am so over the bs response : Just change the channel. Ppl have the right to care and a lot of us can not will ourselves not to care. Why critique anything? Why study history, or read biographies or watch documentaries? If it does not apply to you or impact your life directly, why give a moment of your time? Critical thinking is so essential to humanity. I don’t think we should go on these brainless crusades to “cancel” ppl, but genuine critique is valid and necessary. I have mixed feelings for Joe, because I think he is limited in his abilities as an interviewer and was a subpar comedian. On the other hand, he has interviewed some incredible minds and when he is in the presence of a person of high value, he shuts his mouth and allows his guest to do most of the talking. He can show humility and respect for intelligence. I think one of the reasons he can get so many amazing (and not so amazing) guests is because he shows deference and gives them a forum to speak and not be attacked. Where I draw the line and you do too, is Joe being complicit when a guest spreads harmful lies and conspiracies. This is an area that is the hardest and most delicate. Guests like Alex Jones and Shapiro are combative and treat every unfavorable question as an attack on their character. They are always ready for war. Why do these types of ppl make others who question them look stupid? Because they are always in battle mode. They want to annihilate their opponent. No meaningful dialog, just crush their opponent. It is an incredibly talented interviewer who can ask difficult questions without the convo going into the war zone. Honestly, no current interviewer that I can think of, can do this balancing act of asking critical questions without bringing out the war zone mentality in their guest. Can you think of anyone? Please share.
It does affect me though. If Joe Rogan convinces enough 21 year olds not to get the vaccine, it means that the place where I live won’t hit 70% vaccinated, meaning that we won’t be able to return to normal. That’s one example, but if Rogan advocates for or against a policy, a point of view, a political candidate and so on, it spreads those ideas and people to others. And while you don’t listen to the far right, that doesn’t mean others don’t. It’s also extremely telling that he only wants to talk to his friends and Candace Fucking Owens is on there. The far right is an incredibly damaging force, and giving it a platform is dangerous. You can go “well then don’t listen!” as much as you want, but plenty of people do, and their decisions affect the rest of us.Life doesn’t exist in a vacuum, stop pretending it does.
I think such basic logic is entirely lost on his biggest fans.
“who doesn’t affect you.”Every man is an island, etc.
How does people not taking a vaccine not effect everyone?
There are people who don’t or wouldn’t take the vaccine regardless of it Joe Rogan says take it or not. Anybody agreeing with him to not take a vaccine, probably wasn’t going to anyway.
Oh fuck off, asshole. You are here commenting and promoting Rogan. Fuck off with your childish bullshit.
I care when somebody very popular is actively making people around me dumber and basically taking my a steamy dump on the collective unconscious. This isn’t hard to understand, I don’t think. I can ignore him all I want, but he’s still making the world shitter all around me, whether I ignore him or not.
He brings on anyone that will get people to listen to his show. Left or Right, Black or White, Pacifists or Warmongers, Scientific leaders or Conspiracy Theorists,Then responds to them like any stoner ex-frat boy would. He’s not the problem.The culture that fosters this kind of discourse is the problem, but good luck fixing it, as it’s been a staple of our modern lives for half a century.
He brings on anyone that will get people to listen to his show. Left or
Right, Black or White, Pacifists or Warmongers, Scientific leaders or
Conspiracy Theorists,
And that’s a problem. It gives conspiracy theorists the same legitimacy as scientific leaders.
You are stupid as fuck. Or you are a troll. Which is it, kid?
Nice cherry picking, and did you listen to any of those episodes? Alex is normally about 75-90% correct on his statements (you can hate him, but facts are facts) Owens is an idiot, but idiots have a 1st Amendment right too. You don’t have to listen, but you have to listen to comment or pass judgement…otherwise you’re just full of shit and a hater. I guess I defended Joe and didn’t get “bent”….I did get a little high though!
I think the most laughable thing about Rogan is that he pretended to be a Bernie Sanders fan but “if he didn’t win the nomination, I’m voting for Trump”.You couldn’t have more polar opposites in the political spectrum in this country. He’s a freaking liar or a moron, not sure which is worse.
Bernie and Trump are both populists with simple messages and a general air of saying what they want regardless of what “the establishment” thinks. For a certain breed of “I don’t care about politics” dope who couldn’t tell you the first thing about policy outside of their positions on cannabis legalization, that made the two of them roughly equally appealing, with Bernie taking an edge due to the vague notion that he was “the good one” and both of them being preferable to Hillary because “didn’t she kill a guy in Benghazi or something?”
Trump lies continuously, so I’m not sure how anybody could say he delivers a “simple message”. He also flip flops on issues all the time.No, it is quite clear that Rogan was pretending to like Bernie and has always really been a Trump fan. Either that or he’s a completely uninformed moron.
Trump lies continuously, so I’m not sure how anybody could say he delivers a “simple message”.
“We build wall. Fuck China. America great!” The fact that he lies and changes his story all the time doesn’t change the fact that if you ask him something, he’ll give you an answer with zero nuance and absolute confidence. His message doesn’t have to be true or consistent to be simple.
Either that or he’s a completely uninformed moron.
I mean, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. He’s a big dum-dum who votes for whoever has the most big-dick swagger. You might as well ask a child why they like Ghidorah and Mothra even though the two of them take polar opposite stances on the structural integrity of Tokyo.
“ His message doesn’t have to be true or consistent to be simple.”Sure it does. Otherwise there is no simple message if you are switching it up all the time, and not even attempting to be truthful about it.Per your “Fuck China” example—-he alternated between that and “I love President Xi” every other week prior to dumping everything on his failed re-election run on China screwing with his Presidency.The only simple message here is: “You can never trust a word I am saying”, and even that doesn’t work when his followers still believe every word he says.“I mean, yeah, that’s what I’m saying. He’s a big dum-dum who votes for whoever has the most big-dick swagger.”The last thing I would ever think about Bernie is “big dick swagger”.Also, if we haven’t learned anything else the past 4 years its that people who have no idea what they are talking about can be extremely dangerous when they have millions of followers.
there is no simple message if you are switching it up all the time, and not even attempting to be truthful about it.Per
your “Fuck China” example—-he alternated between that and “I love
President Xi” every other week prior to dumping everything on his failed
re-election run on China screwing with his Presidency.The only simple message here is: “You can never trust a word I am saying”This is all absolutely true if you’re paying attention and aren’t just selectively hearing the parts you like. I think we have four solid years of evidence showing that’s not how it played out for vast swaths of this country.Trump said thing X, loudly and with 100% certainty. Then he said thing Y which contradicts thing X, loudly and with 100% certainty, never addressing any possible nuance or complication introduced by said contradiction, because thing Y is what he’s saying now. Simple.
The last thing I would ever think about Bernie is “big dick swagger”.
Like I said, he has a genuine “fuck the establishment” tone that resonated with a lot of people, and can command a podium like few others. He’s obviously not strutting around like Lil Nas X but compared to the rest of the presidential lineups of 2016 and 2020 he had a self-assuredness and feistiness nobody else matched.
“Trump said thing X, loudly and with 100% certainty. Then he said thing Y which contradicts thing X, loudly and with 100% certainty, never addressing any possible nuance or complication introduced by said contradiction, because thing Y is what he’s saying now. Simple.”I actually disagree with that—because ‘Y’ thing has to be explained away, usually by some kind of labyrinthian plot. As much as I love to say that people run on 24 hour news cycles, even Trumpers aren’t that simple—they have to have a ready made manufactured talking point to justify why X became Y, where the latter directly and obviously contradicts the former.
The only simple message here is: “You can never trust a word I am saying”, and even that doesn’t work when his followers still believe every word he says. Nah, the simple message is “Literally everything I say is correct, and if it isn’t correct, I never said it.”When you’re leading a cult, everything is a simple message, because it blends into the overall message of “I am your messiah, do my bidding.”
Nah, the simple message is “Literally everything I say is correct, and if it isn’t correct, I never said it.”I kind of see what you are saying, I’m still not sure I would consider that a simple message though, since it requires the follower actively rationalize whatever flip-flopped or lie position they *were* following changing to something completely different.Especially when it seems that the Trump “organization” feels that they have to spin some kind of convoluted conspiracy theory to get the masses to fall in step.
Especially when it seems that the Trump “organization” feels that they have to spin some kind of convoluted conspiracy theory to get the masses to fall in step. I’d posit that they didn’t *have* to come up with that theory, they just pushed the buttons that the base gave them.But anyway, I’d argue that the message is less important than the people. It’s not what you or I would call a “simple message,” in that it doesn’t make sense, but the “base” is rife with simple PEOPLE. They ALREADY abdicated their critical thinking skills as a badge of honor. ANY message that hews even slightly toward their toxic mentality is a simple message, in that it reinforces their simplistic views and makes them feel good.But yeah, it’s a fucking mess.
Nobody likes Mothra. He’s a moth.
If I could downvote this, I would.
If you have a better explanation for why Rogan would jump from Bernie to Trump then I’d love to hear it because it sure as shit can’t be policy-oriented.
But he didn’t vote for Trump…he voted for Jo Jorgensen.
You’re missing the point here. Telling people what they can and can’t consume because you don’t like it isn’t an effective strategy. It’s much more likely to piss them off and drive them to consume it more.Wouldn’t it be a more effective use of time and energy to help these people understand how to think critically about what they’re being told and who’s telling them this – their education/expertise or lackthereof on certain matters and their personal agendas?
Tapado
What do you consider far-right? Truly. Is there any room left?
You are a closed minded doofus who thinks you know all. Listening to viewpoints from people that you don’t agree with is not a bad thing. Love how you pick 3 far right crazies but ignore the people on the far left Rogan has on his show. You also ignore all the respected intellectuals, scholars and scientists that he has on his show. I guess you wouldn’t know about them since you are a mindless dope.
Imagine going to a pop culture website and getting angry that someone wrote something negative about a show.
I listen to his show frequently.
Why? I’m genuinely asking, no snark intended.
“Imagine taking time to write a long article about something you could just ignore.”You could say that about thousands of articles over the last hundred years. Got any criticism that’s a little more useful?
What a leap that is. Guess it help you feel better.Sorry someone was marginally critical of ya boi.
You can’t ignore someone who has a large influence over a voting base and thus affects our daily lives. You really don’t get that? This isn’t about me not liking lets say…the tv show The Great Pottery Throw Down. That has zero effect on anything, I just don’t watch it. I wish HBO Max would stop recommending it to me but that’s it. A piece of pottery isn’t suddenly coming to life and tell millions of viewers not to get vaccinated because they are young.
So are you influenced that much by your favorite celebrity, musician or actor? Because for a lot of people, they eat the meat and spit out the bones.
Evidence for “Because for a lot of people, they eat the meat and spit out the bones”? Because most studies prove that conservatives are are not capable of doing that at all. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/23/eabf1234
If you listen to his show frequently, you’re probably the kind of misinformed idiot that we’re all concerned about. The “just asking questions” crowd.
Sorry, but this is a bad take. You dont just ignore problems and hope they go away. Thats what children do.
I used to listen to Rogan a lot. Over time, I realized he was platforming people who were not spouting opinions, but preaching conservative orthodoxy. That increased until I could no longer listen to the show due to the actual offense it caused. Other comedian’s podcasts (Your Mom’s House, This Past Weekend, etc.) have also pushed conservative orthodoxy in a variety of ways, but what struck me most was the seemingly deliberate erosion of empathy for those who are unfortunate. I got around to thinking that, maybe, these podcasts were connected in more ways than the “comedian friends” who produce them admit, and that their increasingly fascist political perspectives were coordinated by hidden money in some way. …then I decided all I had to do was turn them off. And I did. And now I’m fine. But I’ve read a lot, worked in diverse places, and have been to college. I can pick through the nonsense. A lot of those in Rogan’s targeted demographic (angry, young, cisgender white males) do not have the skills or perspicacity to sift Rogan’s content, and they’re the ones who distill the angry content into angry actions. So, I have listened to a lot of the shows. I agree with your assessment. Also, I agree with Stephen’s points and believe the article is accurate.
There’s no place for criticism in your world?
Damn fucking right I think I’m smarter than people who listen to Joe Rogan.
I don’t know where I stand on the article itself, but you can ignore literally everything that exists, so by that metric, no one should ever write an article about any topic.
I’ve listened to Joe’s standup enough to be HORRIFIED that anybody would take his opinion seriously about anything.
Fuck anyone who likes joe rogan or thinks his takes on shit are at all intelligent. He’s got a tenuous grasp, at best, on anything he talks about. His anti-vax bullshit was so completely ignorant and not based on even the simplest fucking science.
“…something you could just ignore.” Do you know what privilege is?
Well, we are smart enough to figure out he’s a greedy, dangerous ignoramus who will say anything to keep his large audience of douchebros entertained.
FFS, IT’S an POP CULTURE CRITICISM WEBSITE!!!!
Nah… it’s largely Woke-ideologically driven now. There is a common narrative that is pushed constantly with regular targets that the AVC staff are lockstep in line with.Any notion of this being just a, “POP CULTURE CRITICISM WEBSITE!!!!” died years ago.
That’s it? that’s your only retort?
You really need it explained to you why a pop culture commentary site… would write a piece on a popular piece of pop culture?You revealed this…. on purpose??
It’s concise and gets the point across. Well, maybe not to you.
Correct, but it’s really a political advocacy piece in the guise of a Joe Rogan take-down. I may agree with most of it but it’s as biased as a FOX News talk show preaching to the converted. It’s also condescending and doesn’t really offer much insight. It’s basically trolling Joe Rogan supporters for clicks.
someone else gets it…
lol considering the amount of elder millenial hot takes I’d leave it at CULTURE CRITICISM WEBSITE!!!!I’m not seeing any embracement of the pop side of pop culture here…
So “pop” means “WHAT I LIKE,” does it?Good luck with that.
they can critique someone who is actively pushing a shitty rhetoric. what Rogan is sharing is purposely disingenuous and he’s leaning into it more and more because he’s going to get more money with more listeners. It’s a two way street, we’re allowed to be pissed off that this guy was swaying people to prolong this pandemic.
You’re more than “allowed” to be pissed off at whatever you want, you’re ENTITLED to be so, (at least as long as you’re a US citizen,)But he’s a shock-jock, which is an an American institution. What I really don’t get is why people who hate him so much give so many hits to articles about him, good OR bad, thereby raising his exposure and search-engine optimization.
I’m Canadian and this fuck was constantly quoted as a reason to not get vaccinated over here too. He’s representative of a certain type of male culture and it’s totally ok for websites to push back against the shitty views he shares. Ignoring the kind of messages he presents don’t make them go away.
Niether does focusing on them and ranting about them, because it only gives more publicity to a stupid opinion…But if you seriously think Joe Fucking Rogan’s podcast is to blame for a lack of vaccinations in Canada, you’ve got your head screwed on crooked.
omg no I obviously don’t think he’s the reason lol, but he represents a very toxic masculine culture and it’s important to explore where his opinions are based out of and why straight white men seem to be outraged so much lately instead of actually listening to people. his opinion is a lot of people’s opinion, and it hurts people.
The point of his podcast, and his whole schtick, really, since he first came into the public eye, is that he has no strong opinion… about ANYTHING. So anyone that says “I’m an idiot because Joe Rogan is an idiot,” is just an idiot to begin with, IMO.
“is that he has no strong opinion… about ANYTHING.”
Yes he fucking does. Jesus, how can you be so god damn fucking stupid?
The last thing I think you’ll find in a Joe Rogan Podcast is outrage from the host… I may very well be wrong about that since I haven’t listen to a word of his for quite a few years, but my main impression of him is basically that he doesn’t give a sh*it. About anything.
No, he uses the correct preferred pronouns, champions women’s rights, gay rights, trans rights (just not for strength sports and not for hormones in children) and constantly decries racism. Take it from someone who listens to the show and not headline generators.
“But if you seriously think Joe Fucking Rogan’s podcast is to blame for a lack of vaccinations in Canada, you’ve got your head screwed on crooked.”
Get a LITTLE BIT INFORMED please, or just get fucked.
If you’re so fucking stupid that you can’t see the negative effects of what he says and what he allows people to say then you’re a lost cause.
Jesus, you are a crybaby simp for Joe.
I’m from Canada too and who was using Joe Rogan quotes as reason to not get vaxxed? Genuinely curious, because if I respected their opinions before, I won’t any longer.
The “news” sites quoting Rogan about not getting vaccinated are the problem. 99% of Rogan listeners are not following every bit of advice he says, if you believe they are then you must have taken too many hockey pucks to the head.
“What I really don’t get is why people who hate him so much give so many hits to articles about him”
Morons don’t get a lot of things. That’s what makes you a moron.
You are quite dense.
“American institution” god help me
“In God We Trust,”No?
You came back a month later for this?Also, what?
god fucking knows nobody would ever criticize an “american institution”although, ffs, shock jocks are a sacrosanct american staple? president xi, you may fire when ready
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, buy “American institution” covers a LOT of things, past and present, that should be nuked from orbit. Slavery, Citizens United, JRE…it’s a lengthy list.
You are lying though if that is your take, it’s okay you don’t like the guy’s podcast, but why pretend you know he “prolonged the pandemic”. You’re an asshole with that accusation.
One man ignoring him lying and misrepresenting doesn’t magically stop 200 million people from taking it as gospel and listening to the advice or misrepresentations of some whiny dimwit.Due to free speech, Rogan can keep saying impossibly dumb things. People such as yourself are allowed to think you’re smart for believing it. AVClub can keep calling Rogan dangerously irresponsible. You can keep whining about how that hurts your feelings. And we can all keep pointing out how hysterical you are for being so easily offended.
I…. …. really don’t understand this comment at all.
Well, you’ve spent an entire morning here desperately defending Joe Rogan from anyone saying he’s an idiot, so, frankly, I wouldn’t expect you to understand the comment, at all.For what it’s worth.
Hey, now… I wasn’t defending Joe Rogan nor saying he ISN’T an idiot, I’m saying that we, as a culture, are generally idiots that common embrace this kind of behavior, and have been for half a century, at least.You seem to have laid a lot of your feelings about the man and what he’s said onto me, rather than reading the things I’ve actually written.
You seem to have laid a lot of your feelings about the man and what he’s said onto me, rather than reading the things I’ve actually written. Not attacking the poster, but the fact is that it’s easier to spew vitriol toward Rogan and his fans than it is to wrangle with the existential problem that gives Rogan and his ilk power. That’s it.I don’t listen to Joe Rogan. I may have caught a couple clips if he had a wrestler on, or something. Anyone who thinks the problem goes away with him is insane (which is why I don’t think that many actually believe that), and those who’d merely transcribe that hatred onto the next such figure should just admit to themselves that they’ve all but given up on solving the actual problem.And the problem, to put a fine point on it, is an allergy to actual, real “critical thinking.”
I think people are aware that Rogan is representative of a much bigger issue, but the issue is when we give people like him a platform we are giving that very toxic masculine culture a platform. Exploring and criticizing his viewpoints is critical thinking because he represents a lot of the same thoughts and outrage that a lot of white supremacists/patriarchy protectors have who disguise it under rights to free speech.
I think people are aware that Rogan is representative of a much bigger issue, but the issue is when we give people like him a platform we are giving that very toxic masculine culture a platform. Here’s the problem: “we” didn’t give him a platform. You and I aren’t regular listeners, or Patreon supporters or whatever. His audience did, and he drew that audience by (based on what I’ve heard/read from ardent listeners) talking on their level, and giving them a figurehead who (like them) doesn’t have much of anything figured out.That speaks to a whole fuckload of people. Hell, I’m not even a fan of the dude, and that generalized malaise resonates with me, and I’m far outside the target demographic of his show. Exploring and criticizing his viewpoints is critical thinking because he represents a lot of the same thoughts and outrage that a lot of white supremacists/patriarchy protectors have. That’s fine, and good.But someone who is just teeing off on people who listen to it, and blaming it (even in part) for the downfall of society REALLY ought to expand their thinking. That or admit that they know full well how grim things are, and opt to direct that frustration toward whatever punching bag suits.Want to take the starch out of Rogan? You have to give people something that speaks to them on a primal level, but that encourages them to stretch past that.Saying “Joe Rogan is stupid and you’re too dumb to figure out why,” or similar? Great! Hope the endorphin rush was worth it, because you (general “you”) just sent a handful of people over to his YT page to see just what diabolical scheme this iconoclast is cooking up next. And when they find out that it’s just a meathead making stupidly broad statements and hawking cannabis, they go “Wait…THIS is the dude that’s so dangerous?” Or they go “Fuck YEAH! He doesn’t give a SHIT about what those librul pussies wanna say!” and subscribe.
No we didn’t give him the platform, but just ignoring him and not questioning the shit he says is also dangerous. He obviously is effected by articles like this because he gets outraged that the stuff he is sharing is being questioned. And that just ties into the outrage his listeners also feel. I know it builds up this kind of toxic energy between the left and the right, but idk, just staying silent on it also makes me feel sad as a targeted individual that nobody is speaking up for me. Staying silent on the very insidious racist/homophobic/sexist nature of people like Rogan just makes more people think they can also be libertines.
Here’s the thing: you can do that without attacking the audience, and thus driving them further into his orbit.When he says something stupid about, like, vaccines? “Okay, he’s not an epidemiologist or virologist. He’s an entertainer. He’s wrong. Stop taking your life cues from entertainers.”You counter the stupidity and move on. You (and hopefully many others) debunk it, expose it to direct sunlight, and move on. The audience is going to be the audience, and the only way you get past those superficial ideas is by leveraging the right kind of marginalization.Saying “Joe Rogan is stupid and only stupids listen to it” is a phrase I could turn on many (if not all) of the speaker’s own “guilty pleasures.”Indicating, en masse, that “Nah, Joe Rogan should not be seen as an authority on most of what he jaws about (NOTE: by his own admission, no less), and most of the reasonable people in the world know this?” That’s the sort of thing that one can build upon.But, further, that requires more analysis than the usual “Did You HEAR What Joe Rogan Just SAID!?” shit that pops up around his name.Basically, don’t slag people for listening Joe Rogan. Instead, tell them why they really shouldn’t take their sociopolitical cues from a guy who blatantly TELLS them that he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s talking about. Ditto his guests, some of which Rogan is REALLY unfit to interview (due to him not being able to actually hammer them on their points).
It seems the thing to do. But I think I’m mostly just tired of having to be polite and tolerant of people that are incognito hostile and intolerant of others, however much they try to be covert about it. It doesn’t get me anywhere, I’m angry and maybe I’m not calling these people dumb but I am going to keep calling them on their bullshit. I’m not here to sway these people over and hope they accept me or any other targeted people. I hope it’s uncomfortable for them to spew shitty stuff and I hope people keep calling Rogan out.
Hey man, just want to be clear here: people giving you shit, or attacking your people? They get what they get. Never going to tell people to not fight for their space at the table, seeing as they *shouldn’t* have to fight so hard to begin with.Me? I do not want another Limbaugh, and believe that they’re actively trying to make one. Limbaugh was able to cultivate his “movement conservatism” shit by hitching his cart to an angry, middle-age-adjacent audience that metastasized into the current, nightmarish GOP rabble.I look across the media landscape at the likely suspects for elevation: Crowder (too overtly offensive, too Canadian), Shapiro (a charisma vacuum), Gaetz (a chucklefuck dealing with a looming legal judgment), etc., and then there’s Rogan.Big with the youth demo? Check.
Large audience in general? Check.
A genial, “Aw, shucks” demeanor that could be easily used to DIRECTLY target messaging toward an impressionable fanbase? Check.IMO, we CANNOT make Joe fucking Rogan into a capital-I Iconoclast. And we’re almost certainly going to.
Yes, and my frustrations are not directed at you. But he has a lot of momentum and is becoming a conservative influencer wrapped up in a “free speech” bow of lies. Limbaugh and his likes had lasting damaging effects on North American culture, and I don’t want to sit at the table with either him or Rogan, we sitting and screaming at the table next to them. I think the 90s till now there’s been a big push for assimilation, and it’s ended up with the culture of Rogan and that this culture really isn’t here to make room for others. He is just as conservative in many regards, can spew all the neo-liberal garbage he wants because he as an individual can exist easily.
IMO, we CANNOT make Joe fucking Rogan into a capital-I Iconoclast. And we’re almost certainly going to.Yep. Because of articles like this attacking listeners instead of asking simple questions to promote political thinking like: “why would you take your vaccine advice from a comedian with a podcast?”
I think Ugh. is being intentionally obtuse or they’re just terribly stupid, but I have my doubts on that. It feels very Dolores Umbridge to me, like ohh what could you possibly be talking about I see no problems here.
“you can do that without attacking the audience,”You can. But as I’ve mentioned before, this is old shit, we’re tired, and acting in good faith gets you branded as a cuck in the first place anyway.
Joe Rogan’s audience can die in a fire.
I mean, we’re pretty fucking close to fully cutting the brake line on the country, so I can’t say I don’t get it.In general, I feel like we’ve only started waking up to how stupid we fundamentally are in, like, the last five years. LOT of fucking scar tissue to cut through, and our scalpels are dull as fuck.
Joe Rogan’s audience can die in a fire.I’m glad your platform is tiny.
I really do not trust the person you’re replying to and this “reasonable” attitude they’re projecting. It feels very the status quo is good enough and everything’s fine nonsense.
gotta say here, anyone afraid of the term “cuck” probably is one, and that’s more likely to be you than anyone who hasn’t used that term, lmfao.
The fact that you think anyone is ‘afraid’ of being labeled a cuck says way more about you than anyone else.
damn, dude… you must be a quiet and worthwhile client if I notice basically no interruption while you live, rent-free, inside my head, lol
Thanks for your input on this one, “friend,” I’m just too exhausted to deal with this nonsense any more, and you seem to have the facts well in hand. If you need me to do the same later for you, just let me know.
Good to know there’s sanity out there, thanks for being you.
Give me a break. Rogan is no white supremacist, nor is he an example of toxic masculinity. He’s a mirror to our current common culture.
“our current common culture”honey if you don’t think our current culture is one built on toxic patriarchal values and white supremacy, you really need to turn the Rogan podcasts off and do some deep unlearning.
Christ… you really don’t get it, do you…I understand all that… I also understand that reversing that isn’t as easy as shouting about the voices we don’t like while propping up their ratings and sales because of that noise.
I also understand that reversing that isn’t as easy as shouting about the voices we don’t like A few things to consider:1. Your average Joe on the street, who has no power and a minimal platform, will nearly ALWAYS default to that. Me included. It’s how we participate in the larger conversation, and how we vent shit that ain’t gonna be vented any other way. It’s annoying (occasionally) when people don’t recognize that within themselves, but that’s generally the deal.2. Even the most vitriolic of those expressions can help to move the needle. If you’re someone who is holding off on the vaccine because of Rogan’s opinion on it, particularly now, you’re going to (and should) be crushed with opposing views from actual experts. And it can have an erosive effect, as that moves from the macroscale into the microscale.Some rando telling that fan to kill himself for listening to Rogan? That entrenches. But a friend or family member saying “Why the fuck are you taking your health cues from a self-admitted meathead stoner?” Can have more of an effect. Though there will always be those who entrench further, because they simply cannot wrangle with the angst that comes with cognitive dissonance.3. Social change is rarely a process of detonation, and those changes tend not to pass the test of time. More often, it’s a process of erosion. More people pushing toward unified goals, until eventually the goal is reached (or at least in view).
meh people are really prescribing to his ideas though. it isn’t just some cute little podcast, he reenforces a lot of shitty beliefs and I’m fine with people saying they aren’t cool with it while also exploring. I feel everyone has been polite too long and it’s just let it all get so much more insidious, call these assholes out.
Our current common culture…..what’s that ? Enabling idiots who live with their parents, can’t get dates and eat hungry man frozen dinners twice a day ?
I have bad news for you about our current common culture, bud.
Yeah, let’s find out who it was that was like ‘hey Joe Rogan – here’s a platform where you can spew ignorant shit to 200m+ people.’That person is the real problem here.
yep. have a star.
“Anyone who thinks the problem goes away with him is insane”
Yep. Now find a single instance in the history of time in which anyone has ever said that, dickhead.
I’ll wait.
Ugh: “I don’t listen to Joe Rogan.”
(Proceeds to write over a thousand words on the ideas, opinions statements and thoughts of Joe Rogan.)
“I’m saying that we, as a culture, are generally idiots that common
embrace this kind of behavior, and have been for half a century, at
least.”Even assuming this is true, are we not allowed to, say, write a longfrom article exploring how we might go about being less idiotic?
Even assuming this is true, are we not allowed to, say, write a longfrom article exploring how we might go about being less idiotic? Totally. My concern is that this is how we got Limbaugh. “Listen to the man that the RADICAL LEFT doesn’t want you to hear!”Basically I think we have to keep Rogan in perspective. He ain’t a kingmaker. Of his notable guests (not an exhaustive list): Yang tanked. Bernie didn’t rank. Gabbard went full Gabbard. Peterson’s personal and professional life went down the tubes after his “big break” on Rogan’s show.I’d rather he not be turned INTO a kingmaker by the GOP (even though the attempt would likely fail). I can’t force people to think more critically, as I’m not in the business of drowning horses. But the most toxic, loudest section of his audience? They’re stoner shitlords, basically. Their entire lives revolve around wandering from online space to online space, finding ways to be aggro and shitty to people, unaware that they’re living in their own personal hell. They have little power and less motivation to use it.I feel like the trajectories of the “dangerous” guests he’s hosted seem to indicate that he’s not much more than a stoner goofball who gently spars with people far above his intellectual weight class, and whose affinity or dislike doesn’t really move the needle in any measurable way.But going with the vaxx shit? I’d argue that’s the perfect way to handle it. Rogan says some stupid shit, most of the rest of society hits him with a big “NO, IDIOT,” and the “battle lines” shake out more or less the way they were going to anyway.
Of course you are, but prefacing it on a lightning rod might not be the best idea in a headline, and this was CLEARLY an anti-Joe Rogan article, not a longform article on what he actually means about the condition of society and how to move away from what his popularity means generally.Don’t spew a bunch of BS you know isn’t true just because you hate the guy too. I made it clear in my first post that I’m no fan of the guy. At least I’M being honest.
“and this was CLEARLY an anti-Joe Rogan article, not a longform article”…what?
Are you being honest, though? Your actions aren’t lining up with that claim
You are defending Joe like a simp. Get real, moron.
Doug B. : “Listen, I’m not a fan…”
(Proceeds to fire off a dozen-plus increasingly agitated, increasingly capped posts in screeching defense of this guy he is “not a fan” of.)
One man ignoring him lying and misrepresenting doesn’t magically stop 200 million people from taking it as gospel and listening to the advice or misrepresentations of some whiny dimwit. It’s almost like that’s the bigger problem, and what we should be focusing on.Too late?
This is either naive or being incredibly intentionally obtuse. He spreads misinformation and should be blamed for it, they’re his actions and he fucking sucks for them.
I see I’m the target of your latest weird tantrum.I’ve been discussing this, reasonably, with a number of people. But hey, go off. Kinda your (occasional) thing.
IF YOU DON’T LIKE IT, DON’T LISTEN TO IT.
Ignoring a problem has certainly gotten rid of Fox News…
I came in here to say a much abbreviated version… SO:TLDR: Bored?
lol, not yet… doing some community outreach.
If you don’t like the article, don’t comment on it!(see how fucking stupid you sound?)
You obviously haven’t read the article.
Ha, so weak. No, I very much did, but thanks for inadvertently answering my question.
The thin-skinned hypersensitive SHOUTY CAPS cries of “LET ME LIKE MY STUPID DAMAGING BULLSHIT” of Rogan’s fans are pretty revealing in themselves.
I mean… I don’t disagree with you 100 percent but I also agree with the other posters about the stupidity of Rogan so…
I used to be like you then I realized Joe Rogen is a dangerous idiot and now I not only don’t listen, but tell everyone I know I think he’s a dumb fuck and I think anyone who listens to him isa dumb fuck. I know I don’t HAVE to do any of these things, but I LIKE to, and it feels like the right thing to do.
I mean this just misses the entire point doesn’t it? The idea is that there ARE people who listen to his stupid opinions and treat them as fact.
The idea is that there ARE people who listen to his stupid opinions and treat them as fact. Right. And they’ll exist whether they’re listening to Rogan, Crowder, Maron, or Stone Cold Steve Austin.Best we can do is loudly, clearly counteract the bullshit. Which is exactly what happened as soon as his “don’t get the vaccine” shit hit air.
Are you completely blind to the world that we live in? There will ALWAYS be those people, and they’ll give up power when you “pry it from their cold, dead hands.”
MY point is that Rogan is far from the problem to be focusing on.
And the reason why we need to reach these people and help them think critically instead of railing against the source of their ignorance. Dangerously ignorant voices are always going to be out there, the issue is how people respond to them.
Hand-waving, whataboutism AND historical rationalizations… all in a single comment. I’m equal parts impressed and disgusted.I don’t watch reality TV, I don’t follow any influencers, I don’t use social media outside of Linked In… and I don’t listen to Joe’s podcast. I would be fine with seeing him ‘de-platformed’ (see: held accountable for his words) because he’s completely irresponsible with his platform, is spreading dangerous misinformation, provides a stage for white nationalists and is just a generally annoying and ignorant person who tries to talk like he’s not a meathead… but then falls back on the ‘I’m a meathead’ defense whenever called out. I don’t see why anyone would bother defending him, especially while also claiming that he’s ‘just a stoner with a podcast’.The world would not be a worse place if we never heard from Joe Rogan again… it would be fine.
See, there you go, claiming I’m defending him, like many others have, even though, if you actually read what I’ve had to say before going all reactionary and rageful before you read what I’ve had to say, you might not spew bullsh*t at me.Rogan is a SYMPTOM, not a disease. I’m no friend to most of his comments, but raging AT HIM SOLVES F*CKING NOTHING… I’ve been at this a while, and I’m f*cking tired of explaining myself to people who just blurt out whatever they feel without taking the time to understand what I have to say…So goodbye, ignorant masses, may the disgusting world devour you all.
“See, there you go, claiming I’m defending him”And there you go… claiming I’m claiming something that I never claimed (two can play the ‘uh uh, I didn’t ACTUALLY make the claim… I just IMPLIED IT’ game).Also, throwing your hands up because people aren’t buying your version of reality is peak ‘Rogan fan’, imo… not saying you are one, just saying your reaction is what I would expect from one of his fans. Faux-intellectualism married with extreme ideological fragility is no way to go through life.“I’m not friend of most of his comments” is another way of saying ‘I agree with some of his comments… but won’t specify which ones’. Fine. ‘raging at him solves fucking nothing’… and raging at a comments section online does what exactly? lmaoDo you really not see the cognitive disconnect here, and why you are seen as defending him? You went out of your way to propose that giving Joe Rogan a hard time is something people should avoid… in an article that’s critical of Joe Rogan. If that’s not a defense, even if it’s a very weak one, then what is it?
You went out of your way to propose that giving Joe Rogan a hard time is something people should avoid… in an article that’s critical of Joe Rogan. FWIW, people SHOULD criticize Rogan. People SHOULD bury his bullshit in mountains of fact.I’m just really, REALLY leery of the idea that Joe fucking Rogan is some kind of dangerous thinker or iconoclast who should be taken seriously aside from telling him to stay in his fucking lane. Because he isn’t, and he shouldn’t. I’ve said it elsewhere, but look at the career trajectories of the more problematic guests he’s had*. It’s almost like the “sunlight as disinfectant” thing worked in most of those cases, even if it was a case of Rogan tripping into a window and inadvertently letting the light in.
*And if I’m missing someone who has truly metastasized into a growing social cancer, and who isn’t just a fucking grifter or fool, please tell me. I can’t count Peterson in that number, as his 15 minutes of fame were more like 8.5 minutes.
“*And if I’m missing someone who has truly metastasized into a growing social cancer”I think it’s more of a death by a thousand cuts situation, because Joe Rogan is simply the most recognizable ‘Joe Rogan’ type… but that’s like 95% of all media for conservatives right now. Hyperbolic opinion pieces devoid of context and divorced from reality… while never issuing retractions when caught spreading lies or misinformation (or trying to pass off opinion as fact, which is the most common tactic they use), instead preferring to blame the listener for not being able to suss out the truth from their lies.
I think it’s more of a death by a thousand cuts situation, because Joe Rogan is simply the most recognizable ‘Joe Rogan’ type… Then the problem is not reasonable people who happen to like Joe Rogan (as the dude you’re taking the piss out of seems to be). The problem is the mentally defective group of shitlords who take their cues from a supplement hawker with a Patreon.And as easy as it is to conflate the two, doing so helps nothing. At all.Said it before, but the best way to counteract Rogan is to slap the shit out of him when he veers out of his lane. Which, incidentally, happens literally every time he does.And if you’re looking at overall damage, I’d be eyeing more dangerous (though by now roundly mocked) outlets pushing utter garbage with the veneer of “respectability” or “scholarship.” Your PragerUs, Turning Point USAs, Newsmaxs & OANs of the world. THAT’S where the radicalized are congregating, not in the DMs of a podcast host who professes his admiration of Bernie Sanders.
I see that I’m the latest target of a weird tantrum on the part of brontosaurian. Pop me some popcorn, Cough Whitlam. I’m fresh out.
ETA: defending cough too. Yeah seems right.And he cannot read, or accurately parse a callback joke (because he’s pulled this shit on multiple targets in the past, most recently Cough).Rage away, lil’ guy. Head to the bathroom *before* shitting yourself.::awaits one of several predictable pivots::
Hey man go fuck yourself, defending cough too. Yeah seems right.
“reasonable people… (as the dude you’re taking the piss out of seems to be).”I think you and I have a different view of what is ‘reasonable’.“THAT’S where the radicalized are congregating, not in the DMs of a podcast host who professes his admiration of Bernie Sanders.”They do both… they get their feet wet with Joe, get introduced to people who will show them more extreme ideology, and then they make their way to Turning Point/etc. People aren’t born radicalized and hateful, they are indoctrinated. I’ll also say that, while he loves to use Bernie as a shield, he was also fine with entertaining supporting Trump… that’s not being centrist, or finding ‘the middle’, it’s simply to avoid exploiting his viewers/listeners. If he came out as a conservative (which, by all indications, he seems to be), he would have to start defending the GOP’s bullshit which he has no interest or ability to do… if he came out as a liberal, he would be rightfully laughed out of the room by both parties.
They do both… they get their feet wet with Joe, get introduced to people who will show them more extreme ideology, and then they make their way to Turning Point/etc. People aren’t born radicalized and hateful, they are indoctrinated. I get that, but I think that Rogan’s role in that is overblown.Dude isn’t consistently right wing enough to reliably feed his audience into that ecosystem, and the views he cosigns are exposed to the sunlight afforded to his platform (and they get loudly, overwhelmingly blasted down – every time). He’s not a stone propagandist. He’s not working some insidious angle to fuel the alt right. Some 8kunners might use his Petersen clips as indoctrination fuel, but any motherfucker sad sack enough to base their SOP of Jordan fucking Peterson were halfway down that hole anyway. Ditto PragerU, TP USA…fuck, Newsmax, etc.People can hate the guy if they want. No skin off my ass. I just think that we’re grossly overestimating both the damage he’s done and the influence that his show has had on the Alt Right. And I think the YouTube algorithm played a greater role in that radicalization than anything he’s said or hosted.NOTE: If literally any of his problematic guests had actually used his podcast as a launchpad to reach uncomfortable levels of power (that they didn’t already have), or if his content had directly influenced a terrorist cell (Y’all Qaeda), I’d be more in line with your thinking. I just don’t see that potential there, and I don’t think he gets it (if he even wants it) without the media “opposition” playing a role in *giving* that potential to him.
“He’s not a stone propagandist. He’s not working some insidious angle to fuel the alt right.” I never claimed he was, that doesn’t mean he can’t support that alt right ecosystem even if that isn’t his explicit intent. He doesn’t get a pass for being influencial AND being oblivious to that influence, or wielding it irresponsibly and then trying to avoid accountability for the damage it causes (like the vaxx shit).I don’t think anyone is here saying that Joe Rogan is the root of any problem, just another brick in the alt-right wall, and he makes sure to keep his toes in that water at least enough to keep his listeners around. I don’t think he needs to propel any guest to new heights, he legitimizes them just by hosting them… at least in the eyes of his listeners.I also can’t help but laugh when the defense of incompetence boils down to ‘well, they wouldn’t be so influencial if it weren’t for people paying attention to them!’… as though the world ever had a time where loud idiots didn’t get lots of attention simply for being loud and being an idiot.
Annnnnnnd Doink Doink Doink is a gasping fucking moron, who apparently got his panties in a wad over comments from a week ago.Habe fun, lil’ guy! ;-*
Pretty sure you’re both talking about me, and I’m about as far left as they get, lol.I donated to Bernie the second he was running in 2015 because I knew he was a no BS Democratic Socialist, since I was born, basically, and Giuliani vs Clinton would have been a horror show. I voted for Kucinich in primaries prior to him. I saw Kerry and Gore as a human pencil-holder and a bottle of ketchup built and utilized by those that built them. They both lost. Then came a woman with more baggage than ANYONE that EVER ran for office. Fair or not, it was there. She lost too, especially after BS political machinations.
SHOCKING, I know.Then the party FUCKED its future for short-term gain.Just glad The Plague is over for those smart enough not to be idiots. Hope to see you all at the polls, even if you wasted your one and only generational chance at a politician w/ both power AND morals.
“Then came a woman with more baggage than ANYONE that EVER ran for office.”Not more baggage than the man she was running against… so even this claim is bullshit.
Buddy, you’ve spent about 5 hours here, getting angry at anyone with the gall to call him an idiot, while adamantly saying you’re not defending him.What, exactly, do you think you’re doing when you attack anyone calling him out?And that’s what we’re doing. While people wish Rogan didn’t have a platform, or wish a multibillion dollar company wasn’t paying him hundreds of millions to spread his stupidity, none of us are demanding he not be able to speak.What we’re doing is offering a counterview, something he does not have on his very loud platform. If just one DougieB reads this and goes “you know what, he doesn’t seem to always understand the things he speaks about with authority, and he does seem to use his platform to give lunatics credibility far too often,” then we’ve done well.Sadly, DougieBs can’t stop endlessly defending someone they adamantly swear they aren’t defending. I think the term is “white knight.”
I may have missed it in the discussion but it seems like raging at him at least shows his fans that not everyone agrees with him and that there might be valid alternate viewpoints. I agree it probably doesn’t help much. On the positive side, if someone (like lots of people here) think his opinions and the opinions of his fans are destructive, how should we go about countering them? What can we do to bring people around to our opinions (or make them see reality, however strongly you feel about it)
How can you say you don’t listen, then write 3 paragraphs how awful he is. He cut off Molyneax long ago, before that guy went full racist. He chastised Milo. He had Gavin on long ago just as the founder of Vice, before the PB. The fact is his show is black-positive at every opportunity, but articles like this are making hay saying he’s the bad guy by proxy, with zero nuance.
“People have been listening to “shock jocks” on radio almost as long as there’s been wireless audio transmission, that doesn’t mean the listeners sympathaize with them, it just means that people’s lives are BORING, and they often want to hear about crazy, random BS, and crazy, random BS perspectives on the same topics.”Reminds me of the lines from the film Private Parts:60% of his audience loves him and listens because they want to hear what he says next40% of his audience hate him and listen because they want to hear what he says next.
Take your own advice Brosef.
the reason they wrote this article is because people will comment on it.
Well said. There are tons of ‘social media influencers’, and each has their own opinion. Mostly they are controversial just because that’s what gets clicks. Cancel Culture has a limit at some point. There’s been books and movies in the past where they burn the history books that document horrid things. We should never forget the past, we need to know about it and learn from it. yada yada yada…. I’ve done some stupid things in high school that I’d never do today. I bet 99% of us would honestly say the same. The past is the past, DONT forget it, don’t ignore it. Just be better today.
Instead how about YOU don’t click on the link, YOU don’t read the article, YOU don’t post on that article’s page?Fucking idiot.
And he is open to (very valid) criticism. If you don’t want to read it, don’t read it.(see how its possible to convey an idea without screaming in all caps?)
If anything, these articles are giving him MORE publicity!Agreed. Even in this article, it’s presented like Guthrie on Good Morning American NEEDED to ask Fauci to respond to Rogan’s comments. How many GMA viewers had already listened to that podcast!?The energy used in articles like this to rail against people like Rogan for their opinions would be much better spent trying to help people with media literacy and critical thinking skills. The real problem isn’t ignorant people with large public access saying ignorant things; it’s people not being able to understand what’s ignorant and what’s not.
For someone who doesn’t care at all about Joe Rogan you’ve sure dedicated a lot of time and effort to complaining about an article mildly criticizing Joe Rogan.Try touching grass maybe
Like most of the people who hate Rogan, I don’t listen to him. But I’ve heard enough to know that he’s a dangerous idiot. If you don’t like him being called out for that, maybe you should stop reading articles that are going to trigger you this way.
But they weren’t able to link him to call him a KKKKing so this is what we get.Popular guy with usually bad takes has bad takes. Definitely a symptom of the times and definitely not a thing that’s ever happened before!
I’ve ignored a lot in this thread but I won’t ignore this.First off, FUCK YOU and your KKK bullshit.I’ll given any one that wants one a chance to speak and defend their actions.
I’ve marched and been tear-gassed for EVERYONE that deserves less legal scrutiny and more human recognition.
Seriously, fuck you and the horse you rode in on.You know what? I’m gonna leave it there. You’re not worth my time.
u drunk bro?
I mean, the thing is, literally everything written about on this site in a way that isn’t overly hagiographic could fall under the category of “ignore it and don’t write about it.”
The entire point of a site like this is to talk about this stuff. You can also just skip the article! Personally, I think it’s worthwhile to talk about Rogan’s viewpoints given the fact that they do cause damage and are often things we are told we need to be more understanding of for some reason. I would vastly prefer to never care/think about Rogan again, but clearly HE would prefer that it not be that way as he’s very desirous of telling me how hard the world is for men like him on his independently produced podcast!
There are these concerted efforts to transform Joe Rogan into the new Rush Limbaugh, which is something Rogan isn’t and doesn’t want to become. He is, however, very shrewd and like all media personalities, he’s ego-driven. He’ll twist whatever negative pub he gets into more exposure for his show and money from his listeners. The closest analogues to Rogan I can think of might be Howard Stern, Don Imus and a little bit of Tom Snyder (In that Rogan has Snyder’s casual, conversational interviewing style).Trying to make him into the white bro whisperer with his finger on the pulse of swing voters is just about the stupidest thing media has done in the last 5 years (Besides giving endless, free attention to Donald Trump, obviously).
Don’t fucking defame Tom Snyder.
lol, thanks for the chuckle.
And you are part of the machine helping promote him with your clicks, views and wall of text comments.
HOW DARE THIS WEB SITE THAT DISCUSSES POP CULTURE DISCUSS POP CULTURE. HELP. HELP. I AM BEING CANCELLED.
Dude, Av Club managed to write a longish article analyzing an influential piece of pop culture rather than posting 100 words about something someone said on Twitter a couple days ago, and you’d really rather they not?
LMFAO, thanks. Star.
I have no use for Joe Rogan. Go away.
Who said anything about deplatforming?
“ … Rogan soon became a for the Fear Factor/UFC demo—white guys who don’t identify as either conservative or progressive.” He’s stated countless times that he’s centre-left. Being open to Jordan Peterson, who also identifies as progressive, doesn’t make him a fascist.
Hope Joe sees this, bro.
For a dude that doesn’t care about Joe Rogan you sure seem to be emotionally invested in how he’s portrayed online
Man, you can’t say something hugely popular is “just” something. Are you honestly struggling with the idea that people might be concerned about what very widely-platformed people might be doing with their platforms?
If you think the argument is that people are just annoyed by it and want it to go away, then yeah, sure “just don’t listen to it” but that’s literally not what this article is about. Did you read it?
SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Joe Rogan is a fucking dangerous clown who spreads misinformation, conspiracy theories, and bad science. Oh, he’s also a homophobic and transphobic piece of shit, too.
Good job missing the point more than anyone has missed a point before.
If they didn’t talk about or examine Joe Rogan you’d accuse them of ignoring him and his ilk. You aren’t mad that they aren’t ignoring Rogan, you’re mad that they aren’t being nice to him.
WHAAAA???? I have no idea what this nonsense means. IDGAF about Rogan, unless he interviews Maynard James Keenan because Keenan basically gives no interviews.That’s the extent of time I give to the guy. Not joking in the slightest. If my opinion of Joe Rogan pisses you off because I think he’s generally balanced in his opinions when I actually take the time to listen to him or see highlights somewhere, THAT’S ON YOUR RAGE-FULL SELF, and you should probably get counseling.The guy runs a shock-jock talk show. Bitch at Rush Limbaugh fans…. even Don Imus fans, but Rogan? He’s a a fuckin’ nobody anywhere other than self-reported ratings.
You seem pretty angry about an article that no one forced you to read.
Say a negative word about Joe Rogan and just watch all the man-panties bunch up….
I find this guy (whenever I come across him, I don’t seek him out) as one of the more interesting centrists. If the author is pissed off at him, maybe it’s because the author is more interested in stuffing their articles with links than differentiating morality and science:“Rogan believes the current power structure is whoever demands that we don’t call trans people “transvestites” or make gross rape jokes. It’s the same power structure that believes people should take the damn COVID-19 vaccine.”Huh?
I mean the most obvious reason is that he gets some pretty amazing guests, who talk more openly than they do anywhere else. I’ve never listened to his podcast, but every so often I’ll click one of his YouTube video excerpts, partly because they’re all over the bloody site, and partly because if I see a video where Edward Norton explains his fascination with Steven Seagal, sorry, I’m going to click.I guess the question from there is how did he get to the point where he attracted such a calibre of guests. Given that he was fairly well connected by the time he started his podcast, I’m guessing he started off with pretty good guests and worked the way up from there.Also the movie Bright shows that even in a world of elves and fairies he would still be doing the exact same show, so he’s just inevitable.
It’s not only the caliber of guests, it’s the diversity of his guests. Obviously there are frequently comedians and actors, but there are also representatives of pretty much every written-about profession. So if you aren’t interested in, say, listening to a Navy SEAL for a couple of hours, check back next week when you can hear from an archeologist. Or an automotive journalist, or a historian, or a biologist.He also has long shows – frequently running over two hours. Which is daunting, but also means that he can get his guests to just talk about whatever they want. If they spend the entire time talking about the particular thing related to their profession that they came to talk about, cool, if they end up wandering and talking about other topics from their particular perspective, that’s cool too. And Rogan’s conversational demeanor generally gives him a fairly easy rapport with his guests, meaning that they open up about stuff instead of having to tapdance around the kind of pressing questions that they might get from an NPR host.I’ve only started listening recently, but once I got in it wasn’t hard to see why he’s gotten so popular.
You…seem to be an adult with an open mind and you don’t proclaim your opinion about something on slices of misinformation about a subject in the most aggressive and dismissive way. What are you doing in here? 😉
Yup. What I hear of Rogan comes from Youtube clips. And I’ve watched a bunch. Rogan talking comedy with Neil Brennan? CLICK. Rogan on “what’s wrong with the Clintons?” Nope.
Sticking to the comedy entertainment stuff has worked out for me. I don’t agree with or respect much of Rogan’s political POV. But he’s an engaging interviewer. And a few of his science-y bits have been okay -Neil Degrasse Tyson explaining how most UFO sightings don’t hold up to scientific rigor was interesting (more due to NDT than Rogan, to be sure)
And back in the day. Howard Stern was the guy to go to for an interview if you wanted to get the word out for something because he had a huge, loyal fanbase who hung onto every word he said. Howard could tell his fans to vote for someone and they’d do it. He could make just about anyone tell their deepest, darkest secrets on air. I see Rogan as the new Howard Stern in that way. Except, Howard had a voice of reason on the other side of the glass.
Beat me to it. Stern was the proto Rogan without the goofy bullshit winks at libertarian culture. Also, Stern actually matured over the yearsI see the appeal of Rogan’s show, particularly for people who frankly don’t have super developed critical thinking
One thing I will say, is that his guests are more then willing to call him out on his bullshit. From what I here. And even though they do he still talks to them and brings them back again and again. That does say something for the type of show he wants to run. He is still a fucking moron and, in the current pandemic climate, possibly dangerous. But at least his guests will tell him that
Joe said he was a moron, and if anyone is listening to Rogan for advice on vaccines or the pandemic they are a complete fucking imbecile.
Probably because of some kind of masochistic tendency, much like why some people read a blog about pop culture, entertainment, and celebrities where none of the bloggers actually enjoy pop culture, entertainment, or celebrities.
LMAO, good one.
dude shit i need a stiff drink after this unexpected dose of self-reflection
HEY BUDDY- staff was promised that there’d be no self-reflection here, OK??
‘um, like… Self-reflection is a workplace aggression, Boomer! OMG.”
I think the larger issue is that the US has a large contingent of its political body that is more concerned about “preserving freedoms” to an idiotic extreme, even at the sacrifice of keeping strong the public’s faith in actual professionals.
WaPo
By Aziz HuqAziz Huq teaches law at the University of Chicago, and is co-author of “How to Save a Constitutional Democracy.” March 19, 2021 at 12:00 p.m. UTCAmericans feel strongly about their rights. In September, Rocco Sapienza, 80, was fatally assaulted
after confronting a fellow patron in a New York bar who was exercising
his “right” to go maskless. Sapienza is not alone in dying over a
supposed right. In the 1990s, seven people died in attacks on abortion
providers; since 2000, four more have been killed.Even
where outright physical violence doesn’t erupt, American debates about
rights rarely end in stable compromise. Worse, they are toxic. People
tend to argue about affirmative action, free speech, firearms and
religious freedom as if there were important interests on only one side.
Framing a problem as one of rights often leads to a dangerous
winner-takes-all dynamic.The
issue of abortion showcases the peculiar dysfunctionality of America’s
rights discourse. In the early 1970s, both West German and American
courts grappled with the problem. Over two decades, Germany’s
Constitutional Court, its parliament and its several states hammered out
legislative compromises, straining to recognize and account for serious
moral concerns on all sides. America, in contrast, relegated abortion
to the federal courts. This did not ease social conflict. We’re left
today with bitter fights over Supreme Court nominations, a manifestly
polarized federal bench and no agreement on abortion.Complaints about America’s unhealthy conversation about rights go back to the 1990s. In his book “How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession With Rights Is Tearing America Apart,”
law professor Jamal Greene addresses this history. But he goes beyond a
bare rehearsal of pathologies: He prescribes a novel remedy. His
refurbished assault on our dysfunctional rights culture is gripping,
even thrilling. The proposed resolution, though, has too many gaps of
logic to persuade.At
the time of the Constitution’s ratification, political elites disagreed
about rights, Greene observes. But their differences were quite unlike
contemporary fights. The original draft of the Constitution contained
few rights. Only because of protests by anti-Federalists such as Patrick
Henry was a Bill of Rights tacked on. These rights applied to the
federal government only and not to the states. They were also less
focused on empowering individuals than on shoring up institutions of
local control, such as state militias, churches and juries. Rights
preserved localism, rather than promoting individualism.To
explain the modern predicament, Greene fingers an unexpected villain.
In 1905, the renowned Boston lawyer, Harvard professor and Supreme Court
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a dissenting opinion in Lochner v. New York. Lochner
is famous among lawyers as the case in which the court identified a
“right to contract” in the Constitution’s due process clause and held
that New York’s labor regulations infringed on the rights of workers and
business owners to enter whatever contracts they wanted to. Lochner,
along with similar decisions, undermined progressive reforms in many
states. Holmes scoffed at the idea of a right to contract. He would have
upheld the state law without any analysis of the details of the law
being challenged.For Greene, Holmes’s Lochner opinion
inaugurated an era when the federal courts analyzed questions of rights
by focusing on the abstract legal question of whether a right exists,
while ignoring more grounded, factual questions of how individuals are
hurt or helped by the government’s actions. Courts use Holmes’s
categorical and abstract approach, Greene says, instead of grappling
with the particular human conflicts between the specific parties to a
case.Greene
thinks this was a big mistake and an important turning point in the way
the courts handle disputes over rights. He looks longingly to the more
grounded and fact-sensitive approach of constitutional courts in Canada,
Britain and India, an approach called “proportionality” review. This
involves careful judicial interrogations of the practical stakes of a
right, and the quality and integrity of the government’s reasons for
infringing it. Such an approach requires judges to weigh the conflicting
interests on all sides of a case — not ignore them.Before
training as a lawyer, Greene was a writer for Sports Illustrated, and
it shows. He is a superb stylist. He has an eye for the withering
zinger. Sometimes, he applies his irony with a shovel where a teaspoon
would work. But when Greene more simply leverages his ample skill as a
narrative storyteller, “How Rights Went Wrong” sings. New appointees to
the federal bench should be required to read his devastating takedown of
Justice Lewis Powell’s 1973 opinion upholding the funding for Texas’s
education system. Ignoring a manifest equality problem, Powell culpably
relegated Mexican American children to vermin-infested, understaffed and
ill-equipped schools — while preserving well-funded, pristine schools
for White children.Yet
it is hard to buy his core idea that our system of constitutional
rights went wrong just because of Holmes or that it can be repaired by
proportionality review. Holmes was not the advocate for abstract,
acontextual analysis that Greene imagines. His most influential majority
opinion for the court concerns the Fifth Amendment right against
government “taking” private property without paying for it — that is,
the right against state expropriation. This opinion is relentlessly
contextual and resistant to high-flown abstraction. In that case, Holmes
said a government regulation of property crosses a line and becomes an
impermissible “taking” when it “goes too far.” This Holmes phrase
invited a close inquiry into the facts about a specific regulation, not
some flight of abstract fancy.Nor
are the legal rules defining contemporary constitutional rights as
mechanical and context-insensitive as Greene suggests. One of the book’s
unfortunate omissions is its neglect of the rights of suspects during
investigations and criminal trials. The topic gets a half-page. Yet
constitutional criminal procedure is chock full of balancing. Fourth
Amendment cases involving unreasonable search and seizure, for example,
often turn on the fact-intensive question of whether a police action was
“reasonable,” all things considered. In crafting exceptions to the
criminal-procedure rules of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, the court
tends to evaluate both the harms to individual rights and the benefits
of government action. This variety of “proportionality” review, though,
has not yielded any boon for suspects — quite the contrary, as the Black
Lives Matter movement reminds us.Nor
is it clear that the polarization over rights is a result of how courts
explain themselves, as Greene suggests. The Supreme Court’s decision in
Roe v. Wade, for instance, happened in a context of a wider
realignment of the party system and a transformation in the conservative
movement. Neither of these developments had an exact analogue in
Germany. Our modern conflicts over abortion may be a result of these
broader political developments. The role of the Supreme Court may have
been a more minor one than Greene suggests.Indeed,
if recent experience is any guide, Americans don’t need courts to spark
violent and intractable conflict over rights. That’s the sad lesson of
Rocco Sapienza’s death and other violence that has flowed from mask
mandates. No court instigated these. At the same time, not all legal
settlements of rights provoke harmful conflict: Think of the growing
(albeit still woefully incomplete) acceptance of same-sex marriage.When
it comes to rights, Americans can polarize without a court getting
involved. The fault is not in our judicial stars, as Greene would have
it. We have, more depressingly, only ourselves to blame.
How dare you, Ellie Kemper is totally a racist KKK supporter cause she unknowingly attended a party when she was a kid at a place that had some vague ties to the Klan a long time ago!
HAHA! Please ignore this alt-right lunkhead, but also, please consume our endless ramblings about mediocre art.
I’m both shocked and disappointed by the apparently large overlap between AV Club Commentariat and Joe Rogan defenders.
I felt this site was getting stupid and trolly in the comments section lately. Although a lot of his fans seems to have run here to defend their moron overlord aggressively.
It’s really been on the downslide since Splinter got shut down.
I honestly quit for a while there because it just wasn’t fun anymore and I was bitter about losing Splinter, but boredom at an office job called me back, so here I am.
I think Splinter kept most of the stupid assholes from commenting here.
Oh no, I’m probably one of those Splinter stupid assholes. I was a frequent commenter over there before it shut down.
I was thinking more of the burner trolls. The site used to get swarmed with them. But with Splinter gone they had to go somewhere. And they probably figured it would be eaiser to get ungreyed on a pop culture site.
Yeah that’s true, and there was always somebody dumb enough to take the bait and pull them out of the greys.
Are you fucking serious? Splinter is THE REASON WHY THE RIGHT-WNG-NUTZ came here in the first place! Well, that, Thiel, and Hogan.
lol sure, not when Gawker was shut down by an insecure queer billionaire… splinter was the one. oof
I feel that I check on this place out of habit, it’s definitely not the quality of the articles that keep me coming back.
LMFAO… endorses Splinter but comes bck after a massive walk-out because they’re bored…How do you rationalize that?
Also, christ, you want to talk about fans defending their moron overlord, check out Jalopnik whenever someone dares to criticize Elon Musk.
Holy fuck are those Musk dick suckers bad.
The “Musk dick suckers” are nowhere as bad as the butt hurt Musk haters who still ramble on about “He called someone a pedo” as their point of hate about Musk.Some of us respect him for what he has done since taking over Tesla, Space X and how he has made some of our bank accounts very full due to Tesla stock.
Evidently you don’t realize that 1/2 of Jalopnik’s blog posts are about criticizing Musk.
YEAH!!!! LET’S WHINE!!! WE CAN HERE, SO WHY NOT!?!
ok I thought I was crazy, but a lot of the commenters in the past 6 months are all basically Woody Allen defenders and that’s all I have to say about that type of person.
I’d have more sympathy for the Allen defenders if Allen’s output weren’t incredibly overrated and awfully creepy in hindsight (hell, even THEN).But I’ll go to the mat for Match Point. Only Allen flick I saw that was compelling throughout, maybe because it wasn’t tied to a sex-obsessed nebbish who was somehow “the essence of New York” or whatever.
One of the weirder dates I’ve been on was when the girl dragged me to an Allen flick. For one, I was only sort of vaguely aware of him as some dude who always plays himself in movies, and that dude…never really appealed to me. The stammering, nervous, neurotic. I never realised he was, at some point/in some circles, a Big Deal. For two, I never realised just how many movies he seemed to crank out. Like one every year. Then I realised most of ‘em were forgettable misses. Yes, I’d heard of Annie Hall and Bananas, but holy shit, who remembers Alice, Shadows & Fog, or September? Pretty sure his creative philosophy is “Even an anosmic pig finds a truffle now and then”. For three, the girl I chose this pic. I had no dog in the race, and I’d chosen the last date, so fine. She wanted to see it. There was other stuff on, but…she was really, really keen on Magic In The Moonlight (yeah…I had to google the title – luckily Woody only did one film in 2014). We get to the lobby, and, she’s super-keen to point out that he’s a creep. Like, super-dodgy and creeped on his own daughter and married her and dumped Mia Farrow for Soon Yi and he’s really scummy and that’s a scummy thing to do and he’s super sleazy and gross and- this went on for like ten minutes while we were waiting for the choc-top guy to get back from the pisser. So I asked…why did she want to see this one? “I want to see what YOU think of it.” Admittedly, I didn’t have an answer to that. Either before or after the movie. I think there was a pet pig in it – I seem to recall that there was some sort of pig featured. And Colin Firth. I don’t think he played the pig, but. It kinda felt like a Lifetime movie, with a more expensive cast. Anyway, six weeks later she called the whole thing off because I wasn’t Asian enough.
That’s…fuckin’ weird, man! I feel like I’d have said (based on past experience), “I…okay, so do you want to fuck an old man, or…? I mean, it’s fine if you do, I’d just like to make this make sense!”
I feel like that probably wasn’t the reason
Sweet and Low Down is the only thing I’ll watch.
I’d break the motherfucker’s glasses the second he looked at my daughter, honestly.
Calling someone who admits they are a “dumb meathead” a moron is proof of your lack of intelligence or understanding of why millions of people love Joe and his podcast. Have fun with your closed mind, I’m sure it will get you a great job at Starbucks.
I’ve never listened to the guy either, and I’m not defending him, but I think Stephen Robinson is a major insult to critical race theory from his wonkette writings as he weaponizes it to tenuously attack those on his s–t list. So a lot of this is that Robinson’s views are generally coming from a place of vendettas and it doesn’t take the time to discuss the validity of cancel culture
“I felt this site was getting stupid and trolly in the comments section lately” So basically it is mirroring the content of the site. Damn I miss the days when the Onion and the AV Club were not part of what has become a cesspool of formerly good sites.
can your brain comprehend that people can entertain more than one idea at a time? Because it sure doesn’t seem like it.
What you keep NOT UNDERSTANDING is that this culture endorses and markets idiocy, and you complaining about it on a site that embraces the idea isn’t going to change anything.
FWIW, most of the “defenders” I run into are reasonable people who ::wank gesture:: at the dumber shit he says, and view it as just light entertainment.
I stopped being shocked by his omnipresence a while ago.Still disappointed, though. He’s not even interesting by shock jock standards.
Yep.Like…he ain’t an iconoclast. He’s a banal bit of fluff, who occasionally hosts “interesting” people, many of which go on to crash and burn because their fringe views cannot penetrate modern society.
You put your faith in an internet comment section….
The thing with Rogan is his appeal is kinda universal. Certain type of people on the left and right both love him. The type of people “Who are just asking questions”, or who don’t understand why they can’t say “those words”, the people who think climate change may be happening, but it can’t be human accelerated. People who think the government had to be hiding SOMETHING about aliens and JFK. People who just don’t like all those darn “chemicals” in their food………You know Morons!
Awful lot of posters here who got swirlied by an MMA bro in high school and still have a chip on their shoulder
Are you shocked, though? Where lame white men frequent, so goes the Joe Rogan nation, and there are a lot of lame white men here.
I am, sadly, neither.
It was a shock. I expected to see unanimous animosity for Rogan. Looks like we got a lot of free-thinking-fuckboys on AV Club these days.
I’m not. AV Club is a shit hole.
It’s mind blowing.
Ewww, be shocked I guess. You don’t have to defend his podcast to know this vitriol is complete bullshit.
It’s hilarious how all you have to do is tease Joe Rogan a little and a bunch of small boys will immediately appear and whine about how mean you are.
Yeah….yeah.
Shit can also grow things.
“…and even an old white guy who was the first Black president’s loyal wingman.”Can we please stop trotting out this shallow Diamond Joe Biden depiction taken straight from the pages of the Onion? It’s so frustrating to see an architect of mass incarceration continually getting a pass because of some stale memes, let alone to see him cateogorized with people who are actually from marginalized groups.
Preach, now that you’re out of the greys.
Thanks! It just makes my blood boil to see the Dems’ biggest booster for both the Iraq war and the War on Drugs to be constantly treated like an adorable grandparent.
I’m not sure how to explain that it isn’t still 1995 and people can change over time.
I’m not sure how you can be so condescending and credulous at the same time, but I’m damn sure I don’t need the writer of Wiki Wormhole to “explain” Joe Biden’s record to me, thanks.
Pretty clearly, you need someone to do it.
Well, perhaps you should tell Joe Biden that, because he hasn’t.
Love to hear how he’s changed thats not “oh but he seems so nice and respectful”
people listenyou answered your question Stephen lol
most of joe rogan’s content is stupid, silly, problematic, whatever you want to call it, and he’s definitely played host to odious guests, but the reason he’s so popular, despite the great failure of imagination (“why do people listen to joe rogan he doesn’t align with my internet politics!”) any sneering, snobbish, blogger judgement, is because he’s excellent at the craft of the interview, and because off-line in the real world a lot of people find that to be engaging
is because he’s excellent at the craft of the interview
No he’s not. He just sits there and lets the person say whatever the fuck they want with no pushback.
Why are the AVClub writers OBSESSED with Joe Rogan?
I’ve been wondering this for years. The best I can come up with is that they’re at least as dumb as he is. Which is pretty fucking dumb.
One doesn’t talk (or listen) to scientists for 3 hours a pop for 10 years if you’re dumb. But what do I know.
The best way to get rid of Joe Rogan is to shun people in your circle who continually promote and support the idjit.It may not get rid of him exactly but you’ll have fewer people ruining your afternoon.
So… cancel culture ‘em out, eh?Wait, I’m told that doesn’t actually exist.
You would shun people in your circle because they like a podcast you don’t?That seems unnecessarily confrontational and kind of narcissistic. What if these people you’re telling us to shun are otherwise pretty decent human beings?
You would shun people in your circle because they like a podcast you don’t?
No, I would shun people in my circle who support and agree with a transphobic conspiracy theorist.
Yup. Automatic dealbreaker for anyone I’m dating, because being a fan of Joe Rogan comes with a heaping side of ignorance and misogyny.
How many cats do you have?
“Rogan comes with a heaping side of ignorance and misogyny”That’s rich coming from the clearly ignorant (probably single) chick.
“Rogan comes with a heaping side of ignorance and misogyny”That’s rich coming from the clearly ignorant (probably single) chick.What the actual fuck?!?Or were you actually trying to prove SaharaTea’s point?
I understand anybody can claim anything on the internet, but for what it’s worth, I just read your very dumb black-and-white nonsense to my wife and her immediate response was, “I’ve never seen you be misogynistic, and you’re only ignorant about things like how to do the dishes properly”. We’ve been together 8 years, plenty of time for me to show some good ol’ fashioned misogyny, and I keep a list of what Rogan episodes I’ve listened to, so I don’t accidentally repeat myself, which is how I know I’ve listened to 382 episodes of his show.
Do you have any other stupid generalizations you can apply to millions of people?
I’ve made it clear to my social group that I really don’t have any interest in Rogan or Bill Maher. Both of them have better analogues if I need that kind of hollow-calorie hatewatching.
You’d think that I insulted some people’s grandmothers.
These comments bear this out. Usually only Elon Musk gets these many weird nerds defending him.
Joe Rogan is the patron saint of every stupid, uninformed, angry white guy who got dissed by pretty girls his whole life. If you’re looking for a good podcast and a good interviewer then try out Marc Maron who is vastly superior
Maron’s better but you get tired of him telling the same story or making the same observations over and over again. For example, whenever anyone mentions liking music that was popular 10 years before their birth, Maron will invariably say something like “that’s the best part of having an older sibling, they’ll turn you on to their music.” I’ve heard 20 different versions of the “this is why I’m bitter about SNL and Lorne Michaels story.” I can’t remember them all but there’s a greatest hits list of anecdotes and observation triggers. It gets annoying. He’s also really narcissistic, which he admits and which is also annoying after a while. The interviews are 40% interview, 60% therapy session for Marc Maron.
Yeah, that format is…irritating, particularly when the host has an axe to grind.I listen to mostly wrestling podcasts, and I had to give up on Jim Ross (Grillin’ JR) after he spent about 40 minutes in a 90-minute episode (multiple points in the overall episode) bitching about people who say shitty things to him on Twitter. It’s like, “Okay dude, when you spend the better part of an hour talking about how pissed off they made you, they’ve WON.”
lol, no I meant every interview with Marc Maron is 60% therapy FOR Marc Maron. The interviewee is compelled to participate in it.
I got back into wrestling during covid and AEW brought back everything I loved about it. But JR has been difficult each week. He’s just cranky.I also tried listening to Cornette. The fact that Corny supports so many progressive causes made me re-consider if universal Healthcare is actually a good thing.
Cornette is fun for a bit, but it gets old, and occasionally he and Brian Last get so into shtick that I just turn it off.Most recently they were taking the piss out of David Shoemaker, for daring to write a book on wrestling when he isn’t a beer-bellied former Mid Atlantic NWA champion or some shit. And holy FUCK the “joke” that got him fired from NWA Power.
I think it’s pretty clear he loves talking about Lorne Michaels, it’s a pre-requesite for all of the ex SNL people he’s interview. I think his engagement in interviews is directly related to how interesting he finds the subjects but you make a lot of good points. I feel like Maron has matured to a degree, even in the last few years, especially after what happened last year
What happened last year?
I really got into Maron and really fell out fast years ago, when I realized he spends like 40% of an episode trying to understand ___ person’s relationship with their father, and another 10% complaining about his own.
Personally, that’s why I like Maron. His interviews aren’t the usual “tell us about your new project and why it’s the best thing you’ve ever done” fluff. He actually tries to drill down into what makes creative people tick, and I’m always fascinated by that.
I listen to it mostly when he’s talking to other comedians, those are usually fun, and yeah, I listen to Maron too, you can listen to more than one.
You sound like the angry white guy.
“If you’re looking for a good podcast and a good interviewer then try out Marc Maron who is vastly superior”
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Nice troll but you tipped your hand with the Maron part
Maybe it’s too early, but did I forget the meaning of the First Amendment? Is Spotify government sponsored?
Is it that hard to figure out?People listen to Joe Rogan because he has an opinion that doesn’t look like it was assembled randomly from a list of socially acceptable progressive buzzwords.I don’t listen to him myself, but it’s not that difficult to understand his popularity. There are millions of people out there who wouldn’t consider themselves to be progressive. While it’s easy (and lazy) for sites like this to write them all off as bigoted assholes, that’s simply not the reality of the situation. There are some people like that, but most are basically just good people who have a different idea of how things should be. Nobody else is really discussing things from that point of view like Joe Rogan is.Hell, just look at this article. “He said he’d prefer to “talk to his friends,” which presumably didn’t include the first openly gay presidential candidate.” As if it’s unthinkable that people could discuss political candidates in terms beyond sexuality, or race, or gender. But there are millions of people who just don’t care about those things. And you don’t necessarily have to agree with them, but if you can’t even UNDERSTAND the fact that they exist, that’s a problem with you, not them.
Instead, his opinion seems randomly assembled from a list of fragile gripes every 18 year old incel that never left his hometown has, with the worldly understanding every 18 year old incel that never left his home has.His opinions are generally childish and exceptionally common, though, again, held mostly by 18 year olds.If your knowledge of the world hasn’t grown since you were in HS, Joe Rogan is the angry dimwit for you!
Wait, so…a show that has super-diverse guests on 3 hours at a time for ten years & is interesting enough to be the #1 talk forum in the world is the progeny of a guy with the mental limits of an 18 year old? That “18 year old” went to Hollywood and succeeded in 4 distinct careers (acting, comedy, sports commentary, talk show) but he’s arrested at a stoner high school level? I’ll grant you he used a hack code of his looks to get on tv and the fledging-ness of the UFC to grab the “Madden” post and then the Fear Factor money to have the financial freedom to start the pod and then the pod put him in arenas as a comedian. BUT…this is a fairly savvy accomplishment, where weirdly he’s become a Rorschach test for modern society & is seen by a vast scene of people as being the “common sense middle-of-the-road” avatar. He didn’t get here by accident, but he was just purehearted enough to resonate, it seems.
I don’t think I’m exactly shocking anyone with this “new” information, but people are dumb as hell. They’ve always been dumb as hell. It kind of feels like they are getting even dumber but that’s probably just perception. At the same time the vast majority of the media we consume is bad and getting worse. It’s not just this site. Many others have taken a nose dive over the past several years (and weren’t great to begin with). I don’t know what the causal relationship is there but it’s not a great combination. You have dumb, poorly educated people consuming surface level, at best, or downright completely fabricated media. The saying used to be, “garbage in, garbage out”. Well, now we have garbage going into other garbage. What comes out can’t be good.
> It kind of feels like they are getting even dumber but that’s probably just perception. At the same time the vast majority of the media we consume is bad and getting worse.Is it maybe possible that’s also just perception? Not sure how old you are, but the media I consumed growing up in the ‘80s was just unfathomably shitty by modern standards. We get a bunch of shitty false equivalencies like, “the ‘70s had The Godfather and we have the Saw movies, but that’s because people forget all the bad stuff from the past, so no one remembers that Godfather II was outgrossed by Earthquake! and The Towering Inferno.It’s very easy to fall into the trap that everything’s getting worse, but it’s just that, a trap. They have to keep making IQ tests harder because every generation is better-educated than the one that came before, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect), but we think our great-grandparents were reciting Virgil in Latin because that’s what rich people were doing, while a lot more people were farmers signing their name with an X.Joe Rogan, though, that guy’s definitely getting dumber.
The Towering Inferno is its own kind of classic.
I completely agree. I was even thinking of noting the ever increasing IQ scores as I wrote my post. Perception is a very powerful force. At the same time, it really, really feels like people are big ol dumb dumbs.
I think the phenomenon is also that media has gotten way more diverse. So the good is out there but, the democratic nature of information in this day and age also allows for far more access to the bad. To the point that anyone can go conclusion shopping for the crackpot issue de jour.
Earthquake was in SENSURROUND
Is it maybe possible that’s also just perception? Not sure how old you are, but the media I consumed growing up in the ‘80s was just unfathomably shitty by modern standards. We get a bunch of shitty false equivalencies like, “the ‘70s had The Godfather and we have the Saw movies, but that’s because people forget all the bad stuff from the past, so no one remembers that Godfather II was outgrossed by Earthquake! and The Towering Inferno.Every generation spends a sad amount of its time bitching about how everything is going downhill. I remember that going on when I was growing up in the 70’s to 80’s, then noticing it going on every decade since. The younger you are, the more you knowledge of the past is limited to someone else’s bullet-points of history and so you don’t have a good understanding of the constancy of cultural noise that goes on between the memorable stuff.
Saying people are dumb is a bit cynical for my tastes. But I will posit that the average person possesses average intelligence.
It’s honestly hard to argue against the notion that people are dumb when in the past year 70 million people voted to re-elect a transparently corrupt game show host who golfed his way through half a million American deaths.
Dumb as hell people listen to 3 hour discussions of science? Maybe that’s good?
Why?Because he tells them what he wants to hear, he makes people unlike the listener out to be enemies without doing so in an overt way, he preaches that people like him (as the audience believes they are) are special snowflakes and everyone else is wrong, and he preaches a world where straight white men are always right and therefore require no accountability, but everyone else must be held accountable for every slight against them, real, misrepresented, or outright faked.
“he preaches a world where straight white men are always right and therefore require no accountability”lol… what?!
‘Preaching’ is an odd characterization of it, and not particularly accurate. He mostly shoots the shit with people. (“Do you like this weed? Have you been to Austin before?” etc. whatever.) I don’t think it’s even just an opinion to state that there is a lot more ‘preaching’ here on this web site than there is on that podcast.
Ahh yes…. another attempted takedown of Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan is a massive dumb fuck with a podcast. That’s all you need to know. The people who listen to him are also massive dumb fucks. Ignore them and they’ll eventually OD on pre workout supplements and go away.
So says the massively ignorant dumb fuck.
You can settle down. I don’t think Joe is going to read this.
Because he makes mistakes and doesn’t feel the need to apologize profusely for them. I believe that’s how many people want to live.He’s a good host that lets people talk and has a varied set of guests. It’s entertainment and funny. I’d like to think i have enough common sense to pick out the factual stuff from the ridiculous stuff (UFO landings).By the way, i’m not american, nor white nor conservative and i like fight sports and Joe Rogan. It’s pretty reductive to think only “conservatives” like him.
OK
“It’s pretty reductive to think only “conservatives” like him.
True. There are people of all colour and political stripe who should be sterilized.
Rogan can do whatever he wants and you can choose to listen or not listen. so there.
Reminds me of all of the family groups that continually tried to get Howard Stern thrown off the air.
I can also choose to talk shit about Joe Rogan relentlessly. So also there.
If that’s your choice, you are a sad pathetic little person.
Kinda like the writers here can write what they want, and you can not read it? Had that not occurred to you??
Boy you can really tell by the comments that some Libertarian circle jerk is passing the link around today.
Very misleading article by Robinson and it looks a little plagiarized. This is typical of right and left wing journalism today. A poorly written piece of trash used for click bait.
This was a completely biased article and filled with half-quotes and errors….the one thing to remember is Joe has repeatedly said “ Why would anyone listen to me, I’m a dumb comedian and cage fighting commentator?” People enjoy Joe because he’s genuine and honest, he changes his mind, listens and doesn’t like the BS of todays generation. It’s a nice change up from the woke, #metoo, I’m initialed culture of today. You can’t get more diverse than a conversation with Alex Jones to Neil Tyson.
The fact that this mendacious lunkhead actually has influence with people is a condemnation of everything about American culture.
Imagine telling someone 20 years ago that Andy Dick wouldn’t end up being your least favorite former cast member of NewsRadio.
You’re forgetting that son of a bitch, Dave Foley.
This right here!
It’s interesting how this article paints the picture like Rogan only has these “controversial” guests on but doesn’t mention the fact that most of his guests are either his comedian friends or journalists/scientists/interesting people.He had a scientist Dr Swann on a few months back that was studying the effect of plastics from our food on our bodies which was pretty interesting. Or the Journalist that went to China undercover to find out where Fentanyl comes from, Etc.Hopefully this websites doesnt hurt itself too much patting itself on the back as a bastion of moral righteousness and virtue…..
thanks for sahring
Please don’t call this an article, the blogger isn’t talented enough to write an article. Clearly he has never watched Rogan and is unaware of the fascinating guests that Rogan has on that you learn from. That’s why I like Rogan because he introduces you to different topics, viewpoints and lets you learn or understand where people are coming from. This hack blogger acts like Rogan’s listeners/viewers follow whatever Rogan says like lemmings, but I guess if it gets him clicks he’s doing his job.
Compare and contrast this article—which offers up Rogan’s connection to a certain class of male and then identifies the moral and political implications—with The Atlantic’s 2019 deep dive into why it is that he’s gained this measure of trust from a constituency that tends to be suspicious of public figures. [link here]Is one of them going in with a larger set of predisposed conceptions than the other? Is one approach better or worse as a journalistic approach?
Why would anyone give Joe Rogen a single column-inch?
It’s really too bad a major Presidential campaign spent a good chunk of their 2020 effort parading his endorsement.Had they told him to get fucked it would’ve gone a long way to de-legitimatizing him.
Why would anyone listen to Joe Rogan?There will always be a demand for easily-digestible, pseud0-intellectual confirmation bias fodder.
“It keeps going further and further down the line and if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it’ll eventually get to straight white men are not allowed to talk, because it’s your privilege to express yourself when other people of color have been silenced throughout history.”
I mean, it’s not exactly a grim picture he’s painting here… and I don’t think anyone besides the frailest of white ego’s believes that white men will ever be barred from speaking in this country.What he’s really saying is that he’s scared that he’ll be held accountable for his words, and that by giving minorities equal footing (in your mind), you are opening the door for accountability to follow, which means he wouldn’t be able to say stupid and offensive shit without consequence… which has been more or less how he makes his money.
I can take him in small doses. And it depends on the guest / subject matter. My wife and I sat through three hours of him with Dave Chappelle and loved every big of it. If he’s talking to a guy who will end hunger and cure mental illness all with the Martian mushrooms he’s growing in a bunker under a trailer park in Utah, I’ll most likely take a pass.
The problem is all the dumb mother fuckers, not Rogan. I stopped listening in 2020 because of all the covid crap. If someone is so stupid that they just sit and believe him, that’s on the stupid assholes.
That’s what you’re really mad at, that millions of people like and listen to Rogan, but aren’t smart enough to sort out the bullshit. And those people vote.
This is am amazing example of the worst kind of lib who’s lost sleep being offended in his head that someone could dare to dislike American hero and icon, Pete Buttigieg.
For those replying to me, I’d really like to read what you have written and respond, but the Kinjaverse has made it very difficult for me to follow up with you. I’ll do my best, but things got muddled at around 100 total community comments, and I’m having a hard time finding direct replies right now. No offense intended.
It’s a Kinja feature!
For some reason as of late, Kinja doesn’t even open to the comment I’m looking to reply to. I have to filter through all the discussions to find the particular reply, and if it’s in the greys I can’t even find it.
I’ve been greyed for calling out the AV club.
“he turned down requests to host Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, and Joe Biden”well, good to know he still makes good decisions occasionally.
You know, it’s crazy to me how the government has totally botched its message to anyone even the least bit broish. The clear winner for why guys should get vaxxed is this, and I’m sure Joe Rogan would be swayed:https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210513/coronavirus-lingers-in-penis-and-could-cause-impotence#1
Coronavirus, much like piss, is stored in the balls.
I don’t know if it’s an aspect of the human subconscious, or a willingness from bureaucracy, but Covid is a great indicator that, regardless of the country, bureaucrats are much more concerned about mitigating the hurt feelings of the panicked elite than curbing the life-threatening impact to the more vulnerable of people. Even in the wake of over half a million dead in the US alone, and the sheer amount of death in India, we’re all entertaining those worrying about the “health” of wearing a mask, or the “religious freedom” to congregate in an epidemic. This is going to be the most embarrassing period of our lives in retrospect, that we encourage political leaders to not fix its messaging.
we’re all entertaining those worrying about the “health” of wearing a
mask, or the “religious freedom” to congregate in an epidemic
Speak for yourself. I’ve been cutting out people left and right. Including my own goddamn family.Half the problem is that the American electorate is so fucked by Trumpism that you gotta tip toe around some of this shit at a high level because the next thing you know they’ll vote you out and replace you with some shithead who thinks Coronavirus is a hoax.
This is an interesting take. What do you think the US government should have done differently? Tell the anti-maskers, “fuck off, any masks US people don’t wear are going to India/Canada/etc.”, or, “Any unused vaccines doses are going to Canada and Mexico.” Not that I’m disagreeing with that, I’m just wondering what specifically you think could have been done differently.
Quick answer- take as strong a response as Australia, much more earlier. Don’t let dipshits like Ron DeSantis or Greg Abbott (or here in Canada, Jason Kenney or Doug Ford) determine a lax closure is best. Drill it through all of our thick heads that our personal choices affect those around us as much as ourselves, when it comes to a contagious disease. Make sure fuckwits like Joe Rogan isn’t using anti-Covid response measures as a way to build a following.Right now, we have all these variants because humanity is too stupid for its own good, and allow all these transmissions to occur, creating all these variants that increase rate of transmissions and then increase the amount of variants in turn.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to strap down any willfully unvaccinated to fix the problem… but that goes against my firm belief in body autonomy. That’s why I’m wondering if we should attack the low hanging fruit by suggesting that our allocated health resources will go to “undesirables” if the willfully obtuse won’t take advantage.
*Obviously I don’t think there are any undesirables, especially during a pandemic. Everyone vaccinated makes everyone else a little bit safer.
I’m not saying that people should be strapped down, or that there should be a “carrot and the whip” option presented to the public by governments- I’m saying the people we all trust to direct the politics of any situation split the aisle on the politics of personal responsibility to protect those around you. DeSantis is fine with risking immunocompromised demographics for the sake of not having to support businesses through a lockdown; Las Vegas mayor Carolyn Goodman tried and failed to just trust people can gamble without spreading Covid; Joe Rogan amplifies the “if you’re healthy just don’t worry about getting Covid”, which disregards what that person will do to a family member, coworker, or otherwise anybody in close contact that has respiratory conditions. There’s a reason certain places don’t entertain the bullshit we’ve done in North America or UK, and it’s because our leadership is fully stupid from the beginning of this epidemic.
I would not be surprised if getting it becomes a condition of returning to work once it receives full FDA approval. At least at my employer.
He was the #1 podcast 5 years before the pandemic. He had on Michael Osterholm before the pandemic truly became a thing, and he had Dr. Peter Hotez on in the middle of it.
You know, it’s crazy to me how the government has totally botched its message to anyone even the least bit broish.
It’s not though when you consider just how much power Trumpism and this kind of broish anti-intellecutallism has on the American male.
Joe Rogan doesn’t come across as someone who believes the right wing nutjobbery or psuedoscientific bullshit that is frequently featured on his show. But he does come across as someone who is overly credulous to his guests. Someone trying too hard to keep them calm and get them talking. Who doesn’t call them out on obvious lies or insane notions. Essentially Bro-Barbara Walters.
i just, in general, do not care what an over-50 guy in a tight henley thinks. guy clearly must genuinely connect with people on some level, though, as he’s had a steady career for what feels like my entire life.
I’ve listened to at least dozens of Rogan’s podcasts. He doesn’t know everything, no one does, nor does he claim to know everything. He is willing to engage with a variety of thoughts and perspectives rather than stay in a narrow lane. People who put him in a “bro” category based on his appearance show a narrow range of thinking perhaps harkening back to being bullied or intimidated by muscular types in their past. I see this editorial as prepared bad faith performative signaling of supposed enlightenment without really going into the content in good faith. We need more long form, open-minded discussions in our world, not less.
He is willing to engage with a variety of thoughts and perspectives rather than stay in a narrow lane.
Except some of those “thoughts and perspective” don’t need to be given the time of day.Namely conspiracy theory and bigotry. Both of which he not only platforms, but agrees with.
The ironic thing is Rogan was raised by hippies and was a genuine artist (drawing)…but got picked on because he was so small, so he picked up martial arts. Frankly, that entire sentence sums up the base appeal of the show. Right when you’re sick of his knowledge of the 8th fighter on some Japanese card, he’ll talk about a Liz Phair song (who’s been on the show).
I don’t get the appeal of Joe Rogan. At least when we use to hang out with my buddies stoner older brother in highschool, he shared his weed and hooked us up with beer. Joe Rogan is the same level of bullshit talking points but without the free weed and underage beer drinking.
Listen to the episode with Neil Degrasse Tyson for one of many examples of how whatever you wrote makes zero sense.
“The Yang interview is informative and Rogan’s a good listener who keeps the conversation moving. It’s overall more probative than an appearance on any other talk show, even The Daily Show, where humor is still the primary objective.” Wow, that is a good review. I should start listening to Rogan more.I have heard a couple of his shows, I thought, like you, he is a good interviewer. His politics are all over the place and I don’t mind that. Fundamentally, he is fellow of broad but thin interests who doesn’t pass himself off as an expert and has a variety of guests.
The problem is that his 200 million listeners take him seriously.Source?I listen to the odd Rogan podcast while I’m doing work around the house. I choose which based on the guest. It’s a 3 hour conversation that flows nicely and you learn a lot about the guests on a personal level.I don’t turn to the host for medical or political advice because I’m smart enough to understand that there are learned experts in those fields with much more accurate and grounded advice. I don’t think I’m much more intelligent than the average person, and expect that most people do the same.I don’t quite understand the point of these alarmist hit pieces though – what is the purpose – to convince Spotify or Youtube to deny the show a platform for easy access? To convince people to stop listening? I think this energy would be better served to help the people who do take whatever Rogan says as gospel to understand that he’s just a comedian/MMA analyst/game show host who shoots the shit with interesting people, and to take his opinions with a grain of salt… you know the whole media literacy and critical thinking thing? It’s more important to society than creating a group-think mob to decide who’s allowed to speak to a large public audience and who is not.
https://www.avclub.com/joe-rogan-who-wont-shut-the-fuck-up-is-scared-of-bein-1846916901 Newsweek said 200m downloads a month. Not sure if that means 200 million listens or what that even means given he would have put out 10-12 podcasts in a month.
“Rogan is very popular with men who resent that the world has changed and they might have to change with it.”Perfect line.
“This is why it’s a mistake to dismiss Rogan as just some comedian with a podcast.”Counterpoint: Joe Rogan is a comedian with a podcast.
I often go to Wonkette because I love people who point out the Republicans stupidity and, bar none, Stephen Robinson, has the articles on that site that are most offensive to my intelligence. I took a lot of critical race theory and shouted it from the rooftops, but Robinson creates such tenuous linkages between racism and everything, his overreaches are the reason that someone would turn to Joe Rogan in the first place.
That being said, this isn’t one of his worst articles. However, he has several gaps of logic in here. One is the idea that doubling down makes someone worse or blind to their own gaps. “Doubling down” isn’t a thing other than simply believing the same thing you believed before a woke mob viciously attacked you. The second is a fallacy known as begging the question that’s just as much in play as a slippery slope fallacy. Whether cancel culture is real or not is what the Joe Rogan issue is about and you’re dancing around addressing it while writing a whole piece that addresses Joe Rogan.“but Rogan believes the current power structure is whoever demands that we don’t call trans people “transvestites” or make gross rape jokes.”
That is the thinnest strawman of what those who decry cancel culture believe, that it’s just not even worth responding too. All the people in these comments sections who saw the BS by which say Seth Rogen and Ellie Kemper were subjected to in the last few weeks by the media (including the deranged AV Club) merely for working with James Franco or attending a prom in 1999 by a group that was segregated 25 years before that are smarter than that.
“It’s the same power structure that believes people should take the damn COVID-19 vaccine.”
No, it’s about your crusade against anyone who stands in the way of your wokeness, Stephen Robinson. People believe multitudes of things. I believe you should take the vaccine, I believe the Republican party should be dismantled, but I also believe you, Stephen Robinson, are full of crap. Good riddance.
This is my new copypasta.Man, liking Joe Rogan is so core to vapid white dude identities that saying something negative about him inspires lunatic diatribes. People can’t handle insulting him and take it so personally. Their entire personality is “generic enough to love Joe Rogan.”
The response is to the article, which is a full lunacy diatribe. I’m not sure why you hold comments to some standard that even the article doesn’t meet. You don’t like the guy. You don’t like the topics that Joe Rogan discusses. We get it.
I can’t think of anything I’m less interested in than avclub’s opinion of Joe Rogan.
why
I liked the episodes where he and Matthew had weird feuds the best.
Democrats are Republicans who don’t like guns or restricted access to abortion. Fuck Joe Rogan but fuck the two party “system” also.
predominately white male audience
That link is just a repeat of the Ted Cruz one. So I have seen no evidence that Rogan’s audience is less diverse than that of the Gizmodo sites.
as the old saying goes, a libertarian is a Republican who likes to smoke weed LOL I have always called libertarians “Republicans who unironically think they’re smarter or more enlightened than every other Republican” because, well, I’m still waiting to be proved wrong about it.
“Biden can’t handle the pressure of the presidency but T***p can.” That sounds like exactly the type of laughably meaningless bullshit answer a cultist would pull out of their ass to defend supporting Dipshit. #1, of course T***p feels pressure, look at how he angrily lashes out like a little bitch when you point out how fat or stupid he is. #2, this is the wrong standard for T***p because in order to feel pressure you have to fear uncontrollable consequences, and in his mind the only uncontrollable consequence he cares about is going to jail or having the world see how inferior he truly is. He didn’t give two shits about possibly provoking nuclear war with North Korea because he knows if that happens, California would probably suffer more than anyone else (and they didn’t vote for him), and he’ll be 100 feet underground in a secure bunker.
I think this is an example of how Rogan just can’t quite connect the dots. Most presidents visibly age during their terms. I can see how someone simple-minded could see Trump and think he didn’t buckle under the pressure. He appeared to steamroll Biden during their debates. I don’t think he comprehends that it’s easy to argue strongly when you have no shame and don’t care about the accuracy of your words. If you feel no obligation to do a good job or worry about the welfare of your people, of course you can waltz out of the White House no worse for wear. But I get the feeling this would go right over Rogan’s head.
Joe Rogan’s podcast is for dumb people who think they’re smart.
The about how “a Joe Rogan endorsement could help (or backfire on) Bernie Sanders.” As the eventual nominee once said, this was a “big fucking deal.”
Look, I know you linked to the source of Biden’s “big fucking deal” quote, but the context you use it in for this article is hilariously (and embarassingly) out of context.
Sanders trumpeted Rogan’s endorsement, generating backlash from the marginalized groups that Rogan had unapologetically mocked over the years. This led to a debate about whether Rogan’s transphobia and casual racism
was something Democrats should tolerate in exchange for winning over
the “non-woke” electorate, those elusive voters who resented #MeToo and
“identity politics” but were open to UBI and Medicare For All.
What you leave out is that Sanders and his campaign staff (including national spokeswoman Brianna Joy and top speechwriter David Sirota) argued that we should throw marginalized communities under the bus if it means gaining a few Trump voters.And while they argued it was because they supported UBI and M4A (which they didn’t) it was because Sanders knew his only path to the nomination was to try and bulldoze over the Democratic base (black voters) with as many traditionally socially conversative voters as he could draw in.And that’s ultimately why he lost. He spent his time bashing the Democratic party and antagonizing it’s base while publicly playing footsie with Trump’s voters. It was an embarassment.
It’s the inverse of the supposed “economically conservative/socially liberal” voters, many of whom did end up backing Biden.
That was the other big mistake Sanders and his allies made in 2020. “Social conservative/economically liberal” voters don’t exist. At least not in the sense that they are “inverse” of the traditional moderate or liberal Democratic voter.A “social conservative” isn’t going to back a national health care policy that provides for abortions. A “social conservative” is not going to back any kind of federal program that acknowledges same-sex marriages or trans identity.This is because decades of conservative rhetoric have successfully taught their voters to tie social welfare programs to the rights of minority groups. It gave birth to the idea of a “welfare queen” to tie public aide to women’s rights. And in the past few years they have fought to tie terms like “coyote” and “open borders” to any sort of talks about immigration reform.You can’t ally yourself with bigots and expect to make progress, as they will jump ship the second they suspect your programs were so bold as to help the people they hate.
He’s always just going to be that guy from Newsradio to me. It’s wild that he has a popular podcast
Hey, fuck you for giving him air.
Hey, fuck you for giving him air.
Leave Jeselnik out of this. There’s a difference between thinking political jokes are lazy (they often are) and putting your head in the sand to any other person’s world view. Jeselnik is a very liberal person and talks about it a lot on his own podcast. Just because he doesn’t think there’s a lot of craft in making overtly political humor doesn’t make him ‘covertly conservative.’That said, I generally agree that Joe Rogan has gone from someone who used to be open minded and skeptical to, well… The Onion said it best as always:
My listening of his podcast has gone down quite a bit. I use to listen to every episode for years. I dont enjoy it as much. So i dont download it. I am a big fan of weed, boxing and MMA, i enjoy guests like Neil Tyson and animal rights activists and those are the ones i listen to. As comedian Bill Burr pointed out in his face, hes not going to listen to Rogan’s takes on medical shit cuz neither has a medical degree. Sounds like sound advice and i follow it.
Nobody is listening to Rogan for medical advice despite what this blogger is trying to portray.
for all their book smarts, dems will not learn from people like him & his popularity. it’s not the guy, it’s the followers.
Rogan is popular because he seems more authentic than just about everyone else. Mistakes, saying the wrong shit, so called “casual racism” (he’s not remotely racist though) all feed into that persona. Are we supposed to be convinced that Fallon and Kimmel are more genuine? Both guys have exhibited WAY more blatant racism than Rogan ever has. And you can’t deny that Rogan does a much better job interviewing a guy like Bernie Sanders than just about anyone else – no commercial interruptions and a 3 hour conversation. This is intelligent programming, despite Rogan’s poorly educated background and mind numbing commentary. But his lack of education is appealing to the medium educated male demo.
Now I’m just laughing AT you. Also, Howard Stern has been a much better interviewer for a MUCH longer time.
Relax. He’s a cool bro who likes to get high and shoot the shit with overachievers in various fields. He will tell you he knows nothing outside of MMA and standup and that you shouldn’t take him too seriously.
Here’s the problem with “Fear Factor”- it was actually “Gross Factor.” I’m not “afraid” I’ll have to eat rotten eggs. I just don’t want to because it will make me puke. And that’s the only thing I’ve had to say about “Fear Factor” in probably fifteen years. As you were.
I’m a progressive, If you listed every single major issue “progressives” care about, I am right on board with all of them. And yet I love Rogan’s podcast. I know several others exactly like me in this regard. How do I fit into your box ticking nonsense? Could it be that audiences are more diverse than you give them credit for? Could it be possible to hear Rogan say something stupid, shake your head, and then move on to something else? We are continuing to lose any form of nuance in this “hot take” economy. Also, if you didn’t strawman Rogan’s positions constantly, you’d know that he continously praises Yang, and credits him with turning around his thoughts on UBI. I just think he didn’t believe Yang would be a good President. (I’m kinda with him on this. I love a fair amount of Yang’s platform and like how he tries to come up with solutions, even if I don’t agree with them, but I don’t think he has the charisma to be President).
“He agreed with his guest Anthony Jeselnik, who said that political comedy just pisses off half the audience and too easily pleases the other. This criticism is both reductive and covertly conservative.”Is it really? It seems like it bullseyes almost every bit of conservative political humor I’ve ever heard.
Based on your blog post, you don’t ever listen to Rogan which makes me wonder why the hell you are writing a long winded piece about him. I am a white guy who listens to Rogan since he has a great range of guests on his show.I listen/watch Rogan because you learn from his guests. He has brilliant scholars and scientists that inform you of things going on in the world. There is a lot more to his show then the few points you bring up. Yes he has some UFC shows, but I have never watched any UFC so I could care less about that. What he does bring is a wide range of interesting people from diverse fields and ideologies. You bring up the nonsense point about what Rogan mentioned about vaccines for young people. People aren’t following whatever Rogan says, and if anyone does they are a moron (which Rogan called himself after that statement). Following what he says about important topics like that would make as little sense as learning to write an article from you.
I can’t believe you guys gave this blowhard a single column inch.
I tune in for Bigfoot and Aliens and tune out for literally everything else
Joe Rogan has been a stand-up for over 30 years, and the most well known thing he did on stage was interrupt someone else’s act.
An act assembled from the bones of everyone else in that club. People love to bring up “HAHA HE’S THE FEAR FACTOR IDIOT!” except the FF money allowed him the financial security to actually stand up to a brutal joke thief, which once that went public actively tamped down on a problem roiling the comedy community. But sure, he didn’t do anything noteworthy in comedy.
FYI – Even Patch Adams (the real guy) has been telling people to wear a mask and get vaccinated. We may not know everything about the virus, but what we do know is that the sooner people wear a mask and gets vaccinated, the quicker this pandemic will come to an end.
I think Rogan is a reactionary dumbass, but I also think there are a lot of media figures who’ve arguably had a more pernicious effect on America.
“ … Rogan soon became a for the Fear Factor/UFC demo—white guys who don’t identify as either conservative or progressive.” He’s stated countless times that he’s centre-left. Being open to Jordan Peterson, who also identifies as progressive, doesn’t make him a fascist.
This makes me laugh so hard. I don’t even listen to his podcast, but I love the guy for how hysterical he makes our of a particular breed of smarmy, ignorant liberals (a large portion of the Kinja readership).Almost to a one, every comic I respect and follow will give Rogan his due—not to mention what a huge deal it is for lesser known comics to get on his show and get such a huge platform.
I know this is crazy, but I will take the words of people in comedy over the humorless woke scolds on Kinja and all over social media. It is pretty unreal how wildly out of touch the comments are vs. how people in the industry view Rogan. It’s also pretty telling that it’s almost universally people who never listened to the podcast, too. And yet are somehow experts. The hard you humorless dummies try to push back the more popular he gets, even with people who wouldn’t otherwise care. It’s woke exhaustion and I hope more people who lean Left will get on board. It’s gotta be incredibly tiresome to fan the flames of fake outrage every single day.
You guys are like the Monstrous Final Form of that picked-on Kid in school.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Rogen is harmless, but his podcast’s popularity baffles me. Each episode is only as interesting as the guest featured. Rogen himself is a complete and utter blank.
I am all for holding people accountable for their poor choices and bad behavior in nearly all scenarios, but at some point we can also veer into this social media driven phenomenon of people being seemingly addicted to outrage. Too often now controversy strikes and people who never knew the issue existed and never cared about it before are suddenly frothing at the mouth. Collectively we are so eager to demonize. I have my moments of this two. Sometimes the outrage is out of proportion to the alleged crime. Aziz Ansari is an example where a story emerged on the heels of legitimately bad behavior as #MeToo was reaching its crescendo and far too many people were eager to end his career and publicly shame him over what was essentially a bad first date.I vehemently disagree with many of Rogan’s comments on covid and the vaccine. Yet that doesn’t mean I am going to condemn him as a bad person or demand that his career be damaged. I listen to the JRE podcast episodes with guests I am interested in and I ignore the ones with guests I am not interested. If Joe teeters too far into bro science or ill-informed political ideology, I tune out or skip forward. He’s a wildly successful stand-up comedian, podcaster and UFC commentator. He’s also a moron about many, many topics…as are the rest of us. If you believe he is “casually racist”, that’s because you are choosing to focus on a few minutes of incredibly old comments where he is high, drunk and fucking around with other comedians out of well over 30,000 minutes of content. When a person wants to dismiss a person entirely without any consideration for context or intent…my assume is that they have never reflected upon their own similar moments or are simply being dishonest about their own level of perfection. Transphobic? The only thing he has said, aside from Caitlyn Jenner jokes, has been about his concerns regarding transgender female MMA fighters fighting biologically female MMA fighters and whether one inherently has an unfair physical advantage. Are we really surprised to hear someone who has been so heavily involved in the sport for decades express concern about that? Even if you reach the conclusion that it’s a non-issue, having the conversation is not unreasonable. It’s also an extremely specific topic that hasn’t really come to the forefront beyond a single fighter several years ago. Of course, people also want to claim Dave Chappelle is transphobic as well based on portions of a crafted comedy set without any logical consideration for context or intent.I will admit to not giving any shit at all about professional stand-ups telling offensive jokes on stage or on a podcast. Welcome to the entire history of stand-up comedy. It’s an honest entertainment profession in the sense that they either bomb on stage or they don’t. Either enough people find it funny or that person doesn’t succeed and there are different styles that suit different tastes. I respect someone for standing up against a offensive situation in their workplace, their personal life and other social interactions. If you are the kind of person who would verbally object during a set or walk out of a club because you were offended by the comedian on stage however…goodbye.
the asshole from NewsRadio? No, not the one who got Phil Hartman murdered, the other one?People listen to him?
Yeah, he’s the guy who tried to save Phil by telling him to leave her.
I hate this prick.
Hi. I’m not sure how you can execute the entire point of your article “Joe and his ilk aren’t changing!” when that’s exactly untrue. He’s never called anyone the n-word, and back in the day only wanted to take away its power by just making it another word (this is straight from the Bruce/Carlin playbook of “why are we making nuclear words?”). He doesn’t even go there anymore. Way back in the day he was still saying the f word while taking great pains to say he meant “weak”, not “gay”. He gave up on that word too. He has 3 daughters (including one of African-American descent), and is having powerful women on all the time (and engages in no blatant misogyny). He only got mad at Fallon Fox in 2012 for not disclosing her former life before entering MMA matches. The fact is any of the guests or “gotcha” moments people throw at Rogan happened long ago, Rogan has generally apologized for them, and he’s now doing the exact opposite every commenter in here is saying: he talking to a lot of cis white males about kindness, acceptance, openness, and anti-racism (WITH an emphasis on using people’ preferred pronouns). The fact articles like this take a small sliver of “evidence” to paint a picture that everyone in here has bought is the actual irresponsibility, because you’re ginning up the notion that this massive podcaster is hateful towards so many. How does that make vulnerable people in this country feel, you think? Except all this kvetching will make some check out the fuss…and see the notion is completely wrong. His sheer numbers prove that.
Is this the third headline that the AV Club has felt obliged to edit in 2 weeks? The weird Joss Whedon one, the garbagefire Ellie Kemper one and now this one, for some reason. This one’s pretty innocuous though.
I too am outraged that so many modern men fail to measure up to the towering pillar of masculinity that is Ted Cruz.
I’ve gained so much value from that podcast from interesting people talking about things that have nothing to do with the “socioeconomic…”blah blah blah that is entirely unavoidable in 2021 (for example, the AV club used to talk about pop culture, not just a given piece of work’s “has to say about the issues”). This is a straight up ignorant portrayal of someone that’s created a nice body of work and is one hell of a podcaster. He’s hyper masculine and, while curious, not that smart about many topics. I find snooty elitists have a problem with that more than regular people. And Jimmy Kimmel? BAHAHAHA!! He got paid and wants to avoid the gulag, like every other woke capitalist that avoids critical thinking if it might cost him $$. I’m glad you guys let Aziz out of the penalty box, though. Unfortunately they all come back with the vibe of someone that went through gay conversion therapy.
I too, can throw together seemingly contradictory statements by a man who has thousands of hours of tape.
Fuck Joe Rogan and fuck his listeners.
This piece is the most important thing this “insert pronoun” will write all year, LOL. I bet Joe’s feeling better then Fuci right about now😂😂😂
How dare a guy let people from each side come on his show so he can interview them, let them express their ideas, shitty as they may be, and have an actual dialogue so a listener can evaluate for themselves what they think of it. Don’t you know this is the age of media that picks up a particular narrative, invites only those people that fit the narrative and suck their dick or lick their taint, while damning to hell and back anyone who thinks otherwise. Listen only to Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson or Rachel Maddow or Chris Hayes!
Rogan is to mediocre white males what Paltrow’s Goop is to over-funded middle aged trophy wives.
Hilariously stupid, and an efficient way to weed out the kinds of people you invite to the good parties. Oh, and you quietly hope they’re going to follow some dumb advice and remove themselves from the gene pool for the good of the rest of us.
wait so when I click on a notification it goes to the article itself and not the comment? How does this encourage dialogue?Fix your goddamned site.
Even MS Teams has figured this out
So Dave Chappelle, Rza, Killer Mike, Immortal Technique, Neil Degrasse Tyson, Malcolm Gladwell, Willie D, Donnell Rawlings etc… Are all guilty of enabling this horrible bigot. Why do you not cancel them. I’m sure they’ve all had to confront way more racists than you.
Also, you can listen to this counterpoint.