I’ve never followed Joe Rogan, so I’m a bit ignorant here. Didn’t he used to be really popular? What changed, did he become right wing or get really into conspiracies or something?
No integrity.
Let any nut job on his show spew their easily falsifiable claims/conspiracies and then gave those nut jobs legitimacy by just sitting there and nodding at them as if agreeing with them.
He sold out for money/views. Simple as that.
He’s not very intelligent overall and he doesn’t care who his guests are and what harm the words of those guests do.
At around the beginning of the pandemic he started to switch. At the start of the pandemic - March 2020, he had a virologist on that convinced me covid-19 wasn’t just another SARS or MERS that was going to fall flat.
Rogan began his spiral into deplorability after that. Inconvenience outweighed reality for him.
Prior to then, I’d say he had a great mix of all guests from politics to science, hunting and fighting, comedy and entertainment… He was a good interviewer then because he’d ask good questions, shut up, and let them talk. Moreover, he’d ask questions common people might ask a preeminent physicist or politician, getting from them answers accessible to most people.
I stopped listening to his shit back then. Now, he’s a big toe. He has a self serving agenda. He’s a MAGA Republican asset, which makes him a Russian one by proxy if not directly.
He promoted voting for trump, he’s an actual right winger.
Rogan declared his support for Trump in the 2024 presidential election against Vice President Kamala Harris the night before polls opened. He credited Tesla CEO Elon Musk with his decision to endorse Trump.
Good christ, I wasn’t talking about now. I was talking about the old days. If you had payed attention to the words I wrote, you would have seen that.
I was reactive because there wasn’t indication of context in the reply. I’ve apologized but I won’t delete my old comment so people don’t guess.
He was a good interviewer then because he’d ask good questions, shut up, and let them talk.
And there was no time pressure on his podcast. The episodes took as long as they took, so no need for people who aren’t good at sound bites to figure out how to explain something complicated in a fast and simple way.
But, even back pre-COVID, pre-Spotify, he was a dangerous idiot. Like, he’d have Alex Jones on, and the guy would spew vast quantities of dangerous misinformation, and Rogan would fact check him on one little thing and that moment would go viral. Meanwhile, Alex Jones gets platformed and most of his BS goes unchallenged.
He had maybe 3-4 good years when his podcast changed from having the same MMA fighters / comedians on again and again every year, to having new people every week, to when it went full-on right wing. In 2012/13 it was still an MMA / comedy podcast featuring mostly the same people every week. Then he had Neil Degrasse Tyson, Dana White, Dan Carlin, David Lee Roth, Douglas Rushkoff. In 2017 he had Alex Jones for the first time. But, by then he was already platforming woowoo people pushing “supplements”, and right-wing assholes like Stephen Crowder and Gavin McInnes.
He has in the past had some good conversations with interesting individuals, but he is probably the most credulous person on the face of the earth since Joseph bought the line about the virgin birth.
He doesn’t just give no pushback, he believes whatever he is told as received wisdom. He’s the kind of guy that Ancient Aliens was targeted at. Unfortunately that has got him into the secret truths/fascist death spiral.
Conversation implies two people participating equally, I don’t think he ever had good conversations. He had some interesting guests on, but he was in no way an equal or even significant contributor to said appearances.
Also I questioned the believe everything he’s told thing. I’ve seen clips of people explaining why he’s wrong on things and his Meathead not been able to grasp it and sticking with it. Even clips of his producer explaining why one of the things he says is completely wrong and made up, and he still believes it. My favorite clip of him is him screaming at a scientist who spinner entire career studying chimpanzees I think it was. He didn’t believe what she said. So I’m not so sure about the believes whatever he is told thing.
His comedy has always been edgy, and I think many comedians that are in this niche tend to be opposed to anything that tells them where the line is. When you go against “woke” you naturally gravitate towards being right-wing.
Alongside this, many of his friends are the same, particularly his boss Dana White. Surround yourself with assholes and eventually you become one, I guess.
Even pre-COVID, he was really into conspiracies, and his thoughts on TRT against most medical advice was pretty weird. He got away with it because he’s a fifty-something dude that runs a podcast. It’s fine when he’s broing out, but a danger when he’s spouting conspiracies that harm the average person.
I only know this guy as the Fear Factor guy and his podcast. I cannot imagine this guy ever being funny in any possible context. Make it stop.
The thing that made him popular was “he’s open to all ideas”. The issue with that stance is you end up leaning one way over another when the ideas come from people with absolute certainty vs ones that are self scrutinized. So, he ends up being a mouthpiece for the right as a result. He genuinely might be surprised to be accused of being a propagandist. His folly is that he is an idiot.
Rogan allows wrongthink, which is the greatest affront to the liberal mind.
Its funny you say that shit about liberals when Rubepublicans are banning books. How’s your reality down there? Is the worldview narrowing?
I think liberals are also attempting to ban books nowadays, so that’s not a great point to raise.
