Joe Rogan Shouldn’t Be Silent – Orange County Register

Do I really want to protect someone with a $100 million deal?

Yes.

So, in case you didn’t know, Joe Rogan is one of the most popular podcast hosts in the world and in 2020 signed an alleged $100 million deal with the streaming service. stream Spotify to host his “The Joe Rogan Experience” show.

Rogan’s popularity has long triggered a green check on Twitter, because more people are more interested in listening to or watching his podcasts than in watching more (and worthy) unrelated channels. agencies like CNN or Fox.

This came to a boil recently when several music artists demanded that Spotify pull their work or Joe Rogan’s podcast, because, they allege, Rogan is promoting misinformation about widely heard and watched podcasts. his. This has been cheered by experts, who tend to only grasp what they are talking about superficially. Even the White House has called for “more” to be done in response to the controversy.

Unlike most of Joe Rogan’s critics, I’ve actually heard “The Joe Rogan Experience”. In fact, I’ve heard it a lot, at least a few hundred times, for at least seven or eight years.

Here’s the thing, Rogan’s podcast is all about free-spirited discussions of serious, non-serious, and completely ridiculous topics with serious, non-serious, and completely ridiculous people.

Sometimes he’ll have a mixed martial arts fighter to talk about their lives and recent battles. Other times he would ask comedians to talk about something or how comedians are modern day philosophers or something. Other times, he would invite scholars to come and talk about their work on anything from astrophysics to nutrition to psychedelics. And other times, he’ll have polarizing figures like Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders and Edward Snowden.

Unlike the confines of a television news segment, where people can only relive canned lines in a completely outdated structure, Rogan allows his guests to speak their mind, sometimes challenge or agree with them as he sees fit (as one does in a conversation), because the hour is over.

Regular listeners of Rogan’s podcasts will certainly recognize Rogan’s biases and bad habits, such as his tendency to act as if he’s the authority on something because he’s read Skim an article at a time (then back out and declare yourself a ‘shouldn’t be heard’ if he’s been called enough). They know what they are hearing.

That’s part of the fun.

It is true that Rogan has had criticisms of his podcast about the way governments have handled the coronavirus pandemic and criticisms of the COVID-19 vaccine. These include Peter McCullough, a cardiologist and former professor at Texas A&M University, and Robert Malone, a physician and biochemist who has drawn criticism for the way COVID-19 has been reported. Treatment and safety of mRNA vaccines.

But it’s also true that Rogan has had guests on his show who have directly challenged misinformation on the podcast, including CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, Dr. Rhonda Patrick and broadcaster Josh Szeps.

It is also a mistake for Rogan’s critics to assume, as they often do, that podcast listeners are the only ones who believe everything people say on the podcast. It may be shocking to those who criticize him that people are curious about many things, love to explore a wide range of ideas, and can listen to something without believing every word that is said.

If you Google McCullough and Malone on the Rogan podcast, you’ll find there’s no shortage of different store credentials, which is a good thing and to be expected, because that’s how the internet works. As it turns out, discussion, even misguided discussion, can be an opportunity to promote a broader understanding. Who thought?

Now, is it certainly the case that there are people who listen to the Rogan podcast only to confirm their anti-vaccination worldview, “it’s all just a pandemic”? You then. I have personally met and know people who have done so. But should we pretend that a few episodes of Rogan why there are people like that? We live in a world where people believe in a lot of good things. The recent uproar about Rogan seems to overstate his reprehensible capacity for this.

Personally, I’m all for the vaccine and I don’t believe in any conspiracy theories about COVID-19. But as someone interested in how people see the world, I love to listen to McCullough and Malone hatefully so I can better understand what pandemic conspiracy theorists believe.

It’s also why I sometimes, about once every five or six months, hate watching CNN or Fox. (I don’t hate watching MSNBC, because it’s pure intellectual cruelty and I don’t hate myself that much.)

For his part, Rogan has hinted that he’ll offer a more direct point of view with guests who have a counterpoint. If he does, he’ll do more for public speaking than basically all of his critics.