Joe Rogan and his massive audience

The BBQ Pit
1

If this image is accurate, that’s just jaw droppingly amazing… and sad.

I don’t know if any of you are aware of who Eithan Klein is, (He’s a popular YouTube influencer who may or may not be problematic himself - I wouldn’t know,) just tweeted:

Joe Rogan, who lives on elk meat, egg yoke and human growth hormones, with lungs full of tar, thinks he’s healthier than everyone.

This mfer is such a bitch that when he got covid, he threw “the kitchen sink at it” -if you’re so healthy just ride it out like you say a man should.

That’s not exactly how I would have worded that criticism, but it got a lot of attention online which lead me to the graphic above.

Is is legitimate? If so, that says a lot about new media, which is great, but content isn’t as ‘curated’ like it is with television.

I know my limits when it comes to my mental capacity. I have a pretty keen sense on who I believe to be intelligent and who’s an idiot that speaks with authority. I don’t understand why others don’t.

I don’t care about his eating and smoking habits; I heard someone say that if he wants to look like a Ninja Turtle, that’s fine, and I agree. Not everyone can be, or wants to be a Ninja Turtle though.

I’m sick of this guy and looked for recently threads pertaining to him, and I didn’t see anything really. I feel like he’s relevant, along with the way he got relevant, and if there’s anything we can do about it. Last I heard, a clip of his was banned on YouTube and I think he refused to do a show, (or multiple shows,) due to a vaccine mandates. I’ll look more into that.

Edit: Joe Rogan Reschedules Sold-Out Vancouver Show Due To Covid Vaccine Mandates

2

He can fuck right off and never come to BC. Plague carriers not welcome. Piss off.

3

Joe Rogan is a dipshit of the highest order, but I’m not sure things are quite as bad as you imply. Fact is, Rogan manages to get quite a lot of interesting guests, including STEM types like Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Michael Shermer, Sanjay Gupta, Garrett Reisman, Lex Fridman, Roger Penrose, and others. Not to mention many pop-culture types. Even when his guests are morons, like Ben Shapiro, they’re at least persons of interest.

Rogan’s drooling idiot demeanor is almost an advantage in this format, since it allows the guests to correct him. And mostly he allows them to talk. Doesn’t always work out that way in practice, but in my limited experience it’s a hell of a lot better than Carlson or Hannity (sad to say, I’m exposed to them every time I visit my parents, and I can feel my intelligence draining every second I have to listen to them).

I’ve only listened to a few of Rogan’s podcasts, but when I have, it wasn’t because of Rogan. He’s just good at snagging interesting guests.

4

Who knew that Joe Rogan would be the most obnoxious person to come out of NewsRadio - a show that featured Andy fucking Dick?

5

The image is comparing a podcast to broadcast television and has no link to the underlying analysis. It is also comparing US media ratings to listener numbers for a podcast that, although primarily US-centric, has an international following.

Though we can’t know if the makers of the graphic actually have up to date information from Spotify justifying the 11 million per episode figure, the 11 million is “coincidentally” the only figure given in the Wikipedia as the 2015 monthly download numbers (Link is to Wikipedia’s listed source.) I for one see no reason to further investigate an unsourced factoid in meme form when “someone is lying for effect” is the most likely explanation.

6

Thanks for looking into that and providing context.

7

Rogan gets all different kinds of guests and talks about all different kinds of topics, he talks a lot of MMA with MMA guests, he’s not just POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS like Tucker and Hannity so it’s really unfair to compare him to people like them. And any MMA fans are going to listen to him a lot.

I listen to him but only the episodes where he’s talking about aliens or comedians. I don’t listen to any other episodes.

8

That’s a good analysis. People give him way too much credit and power because of topics that actually take up a relatively small portion of his show. A quick google for the answer show he has done about 1,800 episodes. That’s somewhere over 4,000 hours of talking. The vast majority seem to be him fucking around with his comic friends. Sure there has always been a lot of woo on the show. That’s because he’s not Hannity. He’s that guy you went to college with that smokes way too much pot and talks about the universe. I like the show when its comics trying to make each other laugh. Its always been boring as hell when its been him talking about how everyone should be doing more hallucinogens. With those guests that are more serious he asks a lot of questions without pretending to know the answer. Its up to the listener to decide if they agree. He’s not Rush Limbaugh, he’s stoner Larry King.

9

Yeah, he legitimately knows what he’s talking about when he talks about MMA.

Any other topic, besides maybe comedy or marijuana, he’s completely full of shit. He’ll even occasionally admit this, but people still take him seriously.

10

This once again proves we need a like button.

11

I like Rogan’s podcast. His guests are usually interesting, funny, or both, and he’s a good interviewer with an affable demeanour. He does have the occasional idiot on, but the guy’s been doing 3-4 shows a week for about a decade. You can’t win ‘em all. Personally, I think the “hate” he gets online is overblown and is mostly generated by people who’ve never heard his show and have no intention of starting any time soon. And if mainstream networks are getting outcompeted by him then they should use this as an opportunity to reassess their business models.

12

It is worth noting that the graph linked in the OP appears to be deliberately comparing Rogan’s worldwide online views with USA-only TV viewers, which is not a fair comparison.

13

OMG, is there a worldwide audience for Carlson and Hannity?

14

Rogan does have a lot of guests who have little or nothing to do with pandemic and health issues.

But his giving a platform to Alex Jones (interviewed four times) and other conspiracy, antivax and pseudoscience promoters comes with a cost.

“When confronted, Rogan simply says, “I’m not a doctor, I’m a f—ing moron.” But he’s a moron with influence… Rogan wants secret knowledge from his rogue experts who can tell him what looks promising in the lab. He wants to beat the lab mice to it. And he’ll bank on his personal experience to decide if it works or not, even when he admits that he does so many things to improve his health, it’s hard to know if the umpteenth addition to the lot made a difference. But no worries because the cycle of excitement gets to start again with another shiny thing.”

Rogan should stick with MMA and celebrity guests and concentrate more on non-harmful trivia.

15

I’m not surprised; it’s an age-related thing.

Most anyone who is going to watch most of those other shows are some combination of elderly and politically concerned, as well as very likely big news consumers.

People who watch Joe Rogan are not that combination of things- specifically they’re younger, and more interested in the general entertainment aspects of the podcast, not specifically political stuff. In other words, it is an entertainment program, not a news program, and it’s aimed at people under about 50, and probably more under 40. I’ve watched a few episodes on YouTube where he interviewed some old-time professional wrestlers and was thoroughly entertained. I wouldn’t listen to him for actual information on a subject though- he’s a comedian and entertainer, not a pundit or authority.

And I agree with @naita. There’s a lot of context missing from the image; it is likely very misleading.

16

I don’t think Joe Rogan is evil. I think he’s just an idiot who has no critical thinking skills whatsoever and completely believes whatever the person he’s talking to tells him to believe, which changes when someone else tells him something different. He’s willing to platform everyone - there’s no agenda there, he’ll talk to reasonable, interesting people and total kooks all the same. Just based on a guess, he probably does more damage than good in the world by a fair bit, because giving a big platform to kooks does way more damage than giving a platform to reasonable people does good. But it’s not agenda driven, he’s not a propagandist, he’s not trying to accomplish evil - he’s just some dumbass who somehow managed to gain a big audience.

I heard a good way to describe him - he’s Oprah for Bros. He’s Broprah.

17

Well, of course. Against stupidity, the gods themselves yadda yadda

18

Looking at the names who come after Rogan in the picture, all the power to the man.

Last I checked, Rogan leans slightly nuttish but nothing too crazy, except when it comes to free drugs and experimentation. As far as the human race goes, on average, I’d say that he’s pretty average on the nuttiness scale and that probably helps him to be relatable. And, likewise, it means that if you can’t handle him without it gnawing at your insides then you probably couldn’t handle 90% of the world.

That we live in a world of crazies is not a good thing, I’d grant, but it’s the reality we live in and - as said - you’d rather have everyone listening to Rogan than to Hannity.

19

He’s a great host to promote enlightened centrism, If you are one of those who is committed to finding “both sides” to be equal, he’s gonna be your man.

20

That Bald-Headed Newark Asshat is Nothing but a Chump.

He aggressively road raged in front of my car to cause bumpers to hit.
He got out of his car and tried to get me out of my car to start a fight.
He called the police, sure, but he forgot about the two ladies walking their dog who were witnesses to him driving aggressively ( and trying to start a fight ). He forgot my side of the story. Also, he forgot my Dash-Cam’s side of the story.

As soon as he realized that he was Screwed, he jumped his bald ass back into his black Tesla & high-tailed it down Upper Mountain towards Clifton as fast as his little spark-mobile could go.

Joe Rogan: Gutless POS. Possibly a Coke Head.

Would have made the papers, but he left before the cops arrived.