What are the connotations of Joe Rogan?
What are the connotations of Joe Rogan?
I know of someone who says they listen to Joe Rogan podcasts (political I assume) but I don't know what this means or what the connotations are. Both this person and I live in east asia.
Joe Rogan is a clueless buffoon, and admits such, and leans libertarian. He also thinks he’s a neutral philosopher and doesn’t recognize his subjectivity.
A lot of uneducated people think they’re enlightened by listening to him but most of the time the show’s material is not really based in reality.
I immediately assume that once someone brings up Joe Rogan they are easily susceptible to authoritarian propaganda and should be avoided.
Rogan brings on guests who argue in bad faith for topics which they are unqualified to comment upon. They provide no evidence and Joe immediately agrees with whatever random bullshit they spew out. Doing this creates the image of credibility (big podcast man agreed with psycho, maybe I should agree with psycho), and since perception is reality that image has value.
Well first his show is one of the biggest podcasts in existence and spent a lot of time at the #1 spot - it’s not just a new thing.
Compared to other career interlocutors we might name from old media like Barbara Walters or Michael Krasny, Joe Rogan is a major step down on intellect. He doesn’t really prepare for interviews - reading the subjects book or whatever. He just wings it and spends a lot of time nodding and saying “wow.”
This is a problem when he invites on guests who spew misinformation. Joe doesn’t know it’s misinformation because he doesn’t research. And in fact he seems to think he’s a rebel journalist who hosts people that others want to silence. And he himself falls for many conspiracy tropes, frequently throwing out phrases like “they don’t want anyone to know this.”
So you’ve got a big dumb show full of misinformation that reaches a lot of young people. This is a problem for a lot of folks.
Others love Joe and find his lack of intellect relatable. He’s just a “regular Joe” to them. Maybe they don’t want a fancy interviewer who’s read all the books. Maybe they want someone just as uninformed as them so the information conveyed in the interview arrives at their level.
Sadly, Joe’s now hosted many of the top minds in the world. People like Neil DeGrasse Tyson just see him as a podcast host who’s popular with the youths. So why not go on his show. These people have boosted his numbers even more and legitimized him. Then he brings on a vaccine denier and it all goes to shit. He seems to thrive in the criticism, too, doubling down on the fact that he wants to investigate the things everyone else wants to bury (when his critics say he’s just giving the worst people in the world a platform).
Joe Rogan is in the business of making reactionary content for people who respond (regardless of whether that response is good or bad) to reactionary content. A bit more advanced that YouTube videos of prank fake bank robberies or filling a car with cement. But still in the same vein. He says things about hot button issues that I don't necessarily think he believes just to be controversial. He also tries to legitimise those opinions (even ones he doesn't believe in), and his fans believe him and therefore hold him in high esteem.
There is the potential for the person you know to like him or his show because it's absurdist in content. However it's more likely that they like it because it feeds certain biases of theirs. A world view that they embrace that doesn't necessarily match reality. The politics in your country may not be the same. But the politics in the US definitely have an effect on just about every other country in the world. Not all of Rogan's takes are political. He spreads a lot of general misinformation. I wouldn't be surprised if your acquaintance was just looking for validation in his content.
Politics aside I would say the connotation here is that this person isn't very intelligent. I don't mean that as a statement on their intelligence but instead that Joe Rogan falls into the category of anti-intellectual, low bar entertainment. I'd consider Joe Rogan to be the equivalent of a tabloid paper but for people who listen to podcasts.
Rogan has 2-3 hour interviews with people from every walk of life but got obsessed with COVID misinformation.
Rogan has explicitly supported gay rights/marriage, drug legalization, prison reform, and other leftist positions, but recently appears to have become swayed by right-wing talking points to the point that he is unnecessarily confrontational.
He has some amazing podcasts in the bank with amazing people, and has some newer podcasts that are garbage. He has like 1500 3-hour podcasts.
So look up some of the athletes, the biologists, the astronomers, geologists, a lot of interesting non-political podcasts before covid happened and you'll probably learn a bunch of interesting things.
But anything remotely political in the past few years is pretty rough to the point that I haven't listened to any of his podcasts since.
Lot of unhelpful answers here. I'll try my best.
In a nutshell, Joe was a UFC commentator who also avidly practices various martial arts. He's also a successful stand-up comedian. Being personable and well connected, he started his podcast interviewing friends, comedians, and celebrities.
It should be fairly obvious how he appeals to people interested in masculine personalities. In particular teenagers, young men, and people who aren't very secure in their masculinity tend to like him.
He had/has a rule of letting nearly anyone on the show so long as he felt he could have an interesting conversation with them. To massively simplify, this ultimately led to him having some questionable political provocateurs on the show, many right wingers. Combine this with Joe's non-combative interview style, and his show ended up being a platform for some pretty out-there political theory. The way he talked about COVID struck many people as pretty irresponsible, for example.
Eventually, many who are left-of-center were scared of even associating with him. That's a problem for your public image if you claim to be a centrist, as Joe does. Or at least he did, I haven't kept up with him in a while.
TL;DR: if you listen to Joe Rogan's podcast people might think you're overly concerned with your masculinity or that you're being indoctrinated into extreme right-wing politics.
For me, it kind of depends. If Rogan is interviewing an actor, comedian, or MMA/UFC fighter, he’s more in his element, and the interview can be alright. The problem is he’s kind of an “all sides” show and he doesn’t really understand all the stuff some of his guests pedal. This is problematic when he has folks on pedaling stuff where he doesn’t recognize and call out the potential toxicity. A good example is someone like Jordan Petersen. A guy whose credentials would seem to indicate he knows what he’s talking about. In reality, a lot of the MRA-adjacent BS he spews sounds somewhat reasonable, if a bit “edgy,” on its surface. Petersen knows it isn’t actually backed up by any research (which is where his credentials are), it’s just his musings that he’s found an audience, and quite a bit of money, espousing. This is a problem because Rogan doesn’t usually call this stuff out for the dog whistle that it is, and he has a massive audience.
FWIW, I haven’t listened to him in years, and didn’t listen to him very long to begin with.
Ask them their stance on apes. If they stay an ape could mess a dude up theyre probably just into martial arts. If they say something racial they are probably racist. And maybe you shouldn't be friends with them.
To my knowledge the Rogan community is strong advocates of the idea that most other great apes can beat us up.
I'll try to give an unbiased answer. Joe Rogan podcasts aren't just political, but they do discuss political topics frequently in conversation. The connotation for a regular listener is that they are very likely to be misinformed, plain and simple as that. As many have already said, it's likely that they are libertarian at best or into conspiracy theories and alt-right at worst. I'll explain why:
He brings in a lot of different guests to his podcasts. These guests could be celebrities, athletes, book authors, researchers, actors, etc. Sometimes he would have politicians, from left and right. He would also bring in people who spread conspiracy theories, aka "qanon" types.
He never confronts any of his guests. Some people hate him for it, others listen to him precisely because of that.
Rogan gives a platform equally to all of his guests and presents and treats them all as if on the same level of legitimacy. This means, today he interviews a scientist who is an eminence in their field, with 30 years experience in research... and next week he brings in some influencer on the same topic, who doesn't understand the science behind what they say. Both guests sound equally knowledgeable to the average listener.
The problem with this is that this spreads misinformation, and if you as a listener are not already well informed on the topic then you are likely to fall for it. Most people don't question everything they hear, let alone understand in depth anything discussed superficially over a podcast. This is evident with science, but it gets really hairy when you add politics and personal values/morals to the mix.
I hope this helps you understand better.
A lot of the comments above are super creepy in how neutral they are on Rogan, who is well known to be a far right conspiracy crank who mostly platforms other cranks and super bigoted people and credulously spreads their claims as accurate.
He very rarely has actual decent people on and, frequently when he does so, tries to argue with them that they're wrong. Especially if they're scientists.
His whole thing has been that of being a skeptic for many years, whether it's in legitimacy of certain combat sports, whether pumping your body with TRT will have any negative effects, or in what medical professionals push. This seemed all fine and dandy when the political landscape was sane, and when society didn't need people to follow medical advice.
Like many, he's realised that his fans will follow anything he says, and he's become more vocal towards his own views. For lack of a better term, he's an influencer, and his views influence people. From a MMA perspective, many would say that this has had an effect on his ability to call the sport he's an expert in, because his analysis is often pretty poor - even compared to commentators with minimal knowledge of the professional sport.
The connotations for Rogan is that fame corrupts. The connotations for your friend are that he might be exposed to utter bullshit and assume it's correct because "Rogan brings experts on the show".
I feel like this is the type of question that needs to be asked on different platforms to get a proper feel for what people think about the guy. You won't get an objective answer from any one place.
The dude is a bit of a meathead who will listen to anyone he has interest in for better or worse. I enjoyed his show for a while because I generally enjoy hearing people share their thoughts on things, even if sometimes they end up seeming a little off. As it so happens, I was just as willing to hear out criticisms against his show as well when I started noticing those. Then I just kind of lost interest. It can be a fun show to listen to, but it’s kind of like a dude-bro celebrity magazine-turned-podcast for people who fantasize about being rich and smarter than everyone else. I like to call him “Joe Brogan” now because I think it fits.
Permanently Deleted
I used to watch his show on YouTube, not for Joe, but for the guests. I was pretty selective in who's episodes I'd watch so I feel like I avoided a lot of the bullshit by default. But I did watch some of the real crazies just to see how crazy... very... the answer is very.
I haven't watched or listened to any of his stuff in a long time, probably since the start of Covid where he would push really hard that it's fake and that freedoms were being impinged. We had some pretty tough lock downs in Australia but the vast majority of us could see why. What Joe was saying was being echoed by "the cookers" so he lost me.
"The cookers" (as in Meth, as I understand it) is the nickname of the conspiracy theorists.
Chad interviewer, he's clueless about everything so he gets the interviewee to explain everything and asks grade 1 questions the audience can follow along
You wouldn't rely on him for advice (unless it was related to ufc/training perhaps)
Depends on the context, but generally it indicates a lack of critical thinking and a capacity to be easily swayed by sensational claims. Joe Rogan has no legitimacy as a journalist, and a checkered record when it comes to the veracity of what and who he presents on his show, which has shifted significantly rightward over the years, going from pot smoking and ancient aliens to diet supplements and anti-vaccine narratives. Generally, in the US, Joe Rogan fans are predominantly white, male, and right-wing with a libertarian bias.
The deal with Rogan is that he has become increasingly politically activated in the past years since COVID started. People consider him right wing because he holds certain economic beliefs about the pandemic and is hostile towards Biden and Senator Fetterman. He is constantly complaining about how much he personally was affected by the pandemic lockdown and is completely upset about how people with large amounts of wealth were not able to freely move about because of the pandemic. He’s a comedian that really enjoys performing, and was extremely personally and financially “hurt” by the COVID measures put in place by California, where he lived most of his life until the pandemic. His views strongly represent an upper/far upper class perspective that the pandemic measures were stifling to his career and ability to vacation. He’s otherwise pretty open minded about topics of conversation outside of COVID, and can be a good source of fitness information (by that I mean, fact check anything he says before you really take anything to heart). He really honestly comes off as an idiot to people who are an expert in any field outside of athletics where he spews an “opinion” that often gets misconstrued as an educated position on whatever complex topic.
He's a sophist.
Bill Burr said it best: knuckle scrapper.
I don't know what the connotations of him are in East Asia. I think the question might be geographically biased against a good answer from most English speakers.
We can tell you what he means over here (and many people are in these replies), but that might be very different from his meaning over there, so keep that in mind.
Maybe this is my chance to bring a nuanced answer to this.
First of all, these are all speculations, because you can never diminish a person down to what content they consume.
That said, let's have a look at Joe Rogan: he is a podcaster who started out with a solid baseline viewership and with a positive perception. His views were very moderate. Because of a lot of circumstances he became very popular fairly quickly (one of them is probably that people found his laugh funny). He then changed his topics a bit, got more prestigious guests on the show and also changed his views from what he let shine through in the podcast. He got very much more libertarian / conservative and his topics got a bit more bizarre sometimes. Nowadays a lot of people don't identify with him anymore and he has had some very controversial situations and takes.
So if someone watches such a person there's different reasons: maybe they do it for entertainment and don't take it seriously, maybe they take it very seriously and agree with him a lot. Either way, It's like watching trash TV: it's not inherently wrong, but it looks kind of weird to support it, if even just by watching.
Ok this is my little summary. Hope it helps. Also everything else old correct me if I got things wrong.
This is a great video on the topic: https://youtu.be/sLaXSvpfDZs
He used to be interesting, for about 6 months. Now he’s just grifting the idiots at $10 a month on Spotify. The reason I joined Apple Music lol
I used to like joe Rogan as a comedian. His entire set was basically the first thing my brain thinks of - an easy crack joke with some wit. But one cannot live one’s life according to the fastest, easiest joke you can conceive of. Deeper thought reveals most of these impulse thoughts as stupid, over simplified and with surface interpretation only. But he seems to just run with it, and has made that his public and political personality. My smart ass should not be making any meaningful decisions.
It's an incredibly popular podcast. There's every possibility the connotations are wrong about this specific individual. I wouldn't try to dig too deep into it.
I saw this video recently and honestly Hasan puts it best.
Well, Joe Rogan is stupid.
So, it doesn't take much to presume that people who find what he has to say interesting are also stupid.
He's a wrestler that became a podcaster. At the time his podcasts gained popularity because he was able to get very high echelon guests and he would have a very simple conversation with them. It was new at the time.
As time goes on things got muddy. He's a bit of a doofis who likes to say things without thinking, and some people claim that he is irresponsible with what he says because he has a large platform . Two people having a poorly thought out natural conversation becomes something different when it's being broadcast to millions of people.
In the US he has become associated with the "right wing". He has a bit of a cult of personality following him. People lable his fans as "dude-bros" who think they're smart, but aren't.
Personally I think that just like Howard Stern's interviews, they shouldn't be taken as informational, but can be entertaining. He does have a lot of interesting guests. I treat podcasts like these like I'm going to the zoo. The animals are interesting, but that's about it.
My friend, you’ve asked this question in a very left-leaning forum. As you can see, most or all of these answers are gonna be from people who generally disagree with Rogan. If you want to get an idea of what his podcast is about there’s lots of short clips from his podcast on YouTube. I think we need more context as to why your acquaintance is saying this to answer questions you might have about connotations or meaning.
Joe does long form interviews with lots of different types of people. All you could really assume is that they like listening to people with different perspectives.
Joe mostly talks to Western people, so maybe this person likes to hear about western society through Joe's podcast.
I enjoy Rogan. I hear shit I should know without the msm slant.
Some of his guests are batshit crazy, but I think he just gives a platform to everybody. You know, free speech is also freedom to disagree. But censorship isn't good, and he's not about that.
From time to time his guests say some ridiculous shit though. I'd say I agree with maybe 40% of the content, disagree with 40%, and am neutral or uneducated on the 20% in the middle. It'll spur me in to read / listen to other topics and expand my knowledge base so I can form an opinion.
There's a load of shit brought up on Rogan you might otherwise have not known, because the media is a stilted propaganda machine.
Holy shit you guys are terminally online if you think that Joe is far-right. People watch him because he lets the guests talk, but still follows along good enough to ask good questions. It's really not that deep. And of course he brings controversial people on the show, why would you not in his place? It shows he has no bias and he's ready to listen to opinions and ideas that are new/opposed to his.
If you think joe is far right, it would also mean you think the average >40 is far right. He's the perfect depiction of a centrist/neoliberal