As I understand it, the Joe Rogan Experience has been the world’s biggest podcast and discussion youTube channel for some time.
Now, I am well aware that YouTube et al are not meritocracies. The most popular videos are often “Attractive woman walks around” or just some random slapstick stuff.
But that’s just it: the biggest things have popular appeal: anyone attracted to women can enjoy on some level seeing an attractive woman. What’s the popular appeal of JRE?
It’s not funny, it’s not smart. Or is it…does he have smart insights about MMA?
The interviews are a terrible, rambling mess.
The only positive I can see is that he’s basically his own man: he shoots from the cuff, while being respectful to his guests. But that’s worth in the high tens of millions of dollars per year?
I also find Mr Beast interminable, but I understand at least there’s a degree of creativity and spectacle there, and why people may enjoy that.
AIUI, and I could be wrong, Joe Rogan is essentially Alex Jones without all the “crisis actor” crap which got Jones into legal hot water with the Sandy Hook folks.
Are you dumb as a post? If so you’ll feel a kinship with Joe Rogan. It’s an act. Watch News Radio, he’s playing the role of Joe Garrelli in real life for a lot more money.
Back when I was a kid you didn’t need Joe Rogan. We all had a friend who had had a 27 year-old brother who was a fucking loser who would smoke pot in a room with blacklight posters and tell you that the Mayans invented cell phones.
I’d probably go with the previous. He’s sort of the eternal embodiment of the cooler older brother/bad uncle who’s sort of fun to hang out with because it makes you feel naughty.
The problem is, of course, that the longer you keep hanging out with him the more he’s going to influence you into being much the same.
I know I’m guilty of participating as well in the discussion, but before this becomes a Bill Maher gripe party instead of a Joe Rogan show discussion, just a reminder that we have a lengthy and still active Pit thread about Bill and his show here:
What I usually say when Joe Rogan is brought up is that both those that hate him and those that love him take him way too seriously. He’s a pothead comic who likes to ask people questions. The quality of the show depends greatly on the guest.
His detractors seem to be bothered by the fact that he asks questions but doesn’t attack the answers. If you want that maybe listen to someone who isn’t high. He can have Terrance Howard on one day and Neil Degrasse Tyson on the next and ask the same questions. He will let both of them speak. If you hate that, don’t listen. To me his best shows are with comedians but I rarely listen anymore.
He is a very good fight commentator. I don’t think his podcast deals with that a lot except when the guest is from that world. He has legitimate fighting skills and knows what he’s talking about. He was in at the ground floor of the UFC and did the first dozen or so main events for free.
Joe Rogan has a talent for interviews, much like Larry King had.
Let the person talk and say what they want to, feed them a few questions so they can expound on thier position or let then dig the hole they are in even deeper. He has a talent for letting the person feel relaxed, no probing questions, about their position. Not advancing a particular political ideal that comes from so many news outlets these days.
Let the person relax, ask a few innocuous qustions and they will just blab away. Large egos like Neil Degrasse Tyson just eat this stuff up.
Joe seems like he doesn’t know what he is doing, but he is very good at it. The new Larry King.
Rogan claims to know a friend whose wife “works at a school that had to install a litter box in the girl’s room because there is a girl who’s a furry.”
“Her mother badgered the school until they agreed to put a litter box in one of the stalls,” Rogan tells Gabbard. He added that they “conned the school into putting this expletive litter box in a girl’s room.”
I’m bothered by the things that he himself says. He’s not a passive participant. Check out the tweet in @griffin1977’s post above for an example.
The comparison to Alex Jones that @Skywatcher made isn’t too far off. He’s not as bad, but he’s in the same vein. He is just better at it than Jones and doesn’t go so far that he gets himself in trouble.
I don’t hate him, I just don’t understand how he has anything like the popular appeal to be #1.
I don’t see it. But, that’s a completely valid answer to the OP. I might not care for his style of interviewing, but I may be unusual in that regard.
As I say, I do notice that he seems to speak genuinely, while being polite to his guests. That’s not nothing. I guess I am just missing whatever elements make it entertaining.
According to some of the cast of News Radio, the writer’s took real life aspects of Rogan and worked them into the character. So …it doesn’t appear to be an act.
Joe Rogan is good at having a popular podcast. But general knowledge stuff, he’s an idiot. He loves conspiracy theorist and I’m convinced he believes them. He loves Graham Hancock and his nuttery. Joe, up until recently, believed we did not go to the moon. During the pandemic he bragged about not wearing a mask.