This was relentless and I loved it: “The improbable revival of Joe Rogan, America’s bro whisperer”
The improbable revival of Joe Rogan, America’s bro whisperer, by Stephen Robinson via AV Club.
Mr. Rogan is fine. I have enjoyed and laughed at some of his stand up. I very much respect stand ups. I personally love podcasts that are long because then the guest and the host can really talk, really have a conversation, and Rogan’s podcast does that. However, Rogan is not a journalist, he’s not a public health official, he’s not a medical professional, he’s not an economist, not a politician, he’s just a dude with a massive platform, and a primo, number one example of misusing a platform. This article was unrelenting and worth the read.
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.
