Tag: Joe Rogan

Joe Rogan’s Hatred Of SNL Is A Tell


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because everything is fucked, we find ourselves in a situation where Joe Rogan is the voice for millions of mostly white mostly men who feel disenfranchise. What’s interesting is Rogan is a gateway drug to the fascist MAGA New Right. One of his quirk is he’s not exactly a fan of Saturday Night Live.

So, he brings on all these washed up, has been comics who also hate SNL. Rogan often asks leading questions about SNL in hopes that people will agree with him and shit on SNL.

It seems like this probably comes from Rogan’s secret longing to have been on SNL at some point in the past. SNL is a sink-or-swim workplace and this is something that is latched on by Rogan whenever he criticizes the show.

But the key thing is, Rogan’s hatred of SNL is a prism for us his overall worldview. Rogan is a standup comic who was a minor player on Newsradio decades ago. It’s just he’s lucky that he’s able to hide who he is by wrapping everything in an earnest masculinity that really appeals to bros who think they’re at risk of being canceled by “the woke cancel culture mob.”

Yet, I think we need to step back and appricate who Rogan really is. I would suggest that the best equivalent would be Jon Stewart at his height. Both men love the power they have, but whenever there’s any blowback on stray comment he makes, he falls back to “but I’m a comic!” as a defense.

Anyway, I dunno. The whole situation is annoying.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy Should Go On The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve always thought Joe Rogan was something of a grifter when it came to giving otherwise alienated men something to latch onto. Just because you’re earnest in your masculinity, doesn’t excuse you if you show signs of misogyny, racism or fascism.

But here we are, Rogan is hugely popular in large because a lot of men are struggling to adapt to this strange new world we live in where many “woke” people think that, by definition, being male is bad. Slay the patriarchy and all that.

Then there is Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine. He gives me hope as a man because he doesn’t have any gimmick like Joe Rogan. He’s just a dude doing traditional dude stuff in a traditional dude manner. So, it makes me wonder what would happen if Rogan in all of his earnest masculinity were to interview Zelenskyy.

I think in the end, Rogan would be a puppy dog to Zelenskyy. I say this because Rogan doesn’t have the weight that Zelenskyy has and he’s always angling in to come across as reasonable, even he’s interviewing a fucking bonkers fascist. As such, Rogan frames his conversations in a way that grades people who are demonstrably bad so they they seem just misunderstood.

There is a reason why Rogan is a alt-right, New Right, MAGA gateway drug. He has a tendency to want it both ways — he wants to have power and yet when it gets called on some dumb thing he says, he does a Jon Stewart and says, ‘Why are you listening to me in the first place?”

Anyway, it would definitely be illuminative for Rogan to interview Zelenskyy. Hopefully the war will be over soon so that can happen.

Joe Rogan Is Becoming the Jon Stewart Of The Right — And That’s Bad For Everyone


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There was a point when Jon Stewart was, by proxy, one of the most influential political figures in American politics. But he always seemed very uncomfortable with taken so seriously. It got to the point where whenever he could not help himself and flexed his political clout, he would crack a fart joke to soften the blow.

Joe Rogan / The Internet

And, so, now, we are in a new era, the Joe Rogan Era, where he is in a similar situation to Stewart, only for the Right. The analogy isn’t one to one, but there’s enough similar to take note of it.

Rogan isn’t nearly as smart or engaging as Stewart, but he has garnered a lot of attention in the “alt Right lite” by having clear opinions that he’s will to defend. Up to a point, of course. Wrapping yourself up in an earnest masculinity will only get you so far. Rogan can be a big fucking idiot.

And that tendency to be an idiot has gotten worse as his political influence has increased. In fact, the case could be made that he is yet another cog in the massive, extensive permission structure that allows Traditionalists to make common cause with the MAGA New Right.

He’s part of the amorphous media blob of non-FOX News, non-OANN, non-NewsMax media outlets that water down and make palatable the putrid bullshit of Alex Jones, et. They do this so Traditionalists, who feel pushed up against a political wall because of negative polarization, are looking for any possible excuse not to make common cause with the center-Left in an effort to defeat the rise of fascism in the United States.

Joe Rogan is a pretty big player in all of this. And, you could plot out a counter-factual in which it was Rogan, not Trump, who ran for president in, say, 2020 if Trump had not run in 2016 (or lost.)

Meanwhile, just like Jon Stewart, if Rogan ever does something that causes a lot of pushback, he simply shrugs and says he’s a “comedian not a doctor” and why is everyone getting so upset.

Anyway, Rogan has a lot — a lot — of very passionate defenders who love his gruff, earnest masculine platitudes. No matter what we end up doing — having a civil war or turning into an autocracy, Rogan is likely to only grow in power until things reach some sort of stability again.

What that New Normal will look like is anyone’s guess.

We Have To Talk About Joe Rogan’s Weird Anti-SNL Fetish


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

What the fuck is up with Joe Rogan bringing on people who can’t hack the hyper competitive environment of SNL? Now, let me be clear — I BARELY listen to Rogan’s podcast on Spotify, but from what I’ve seen of the clips on YouTube there is a recurring theme. And that theme is SNL is some sort of shitty place to work where everyone is out to get you.

This, of course, is bullshit.

What I think is going on is there two things. One, Rogan probably couldn’t get on to SNL and he resents that. Two, the idea that SNL is some sort of viper’s nest plays into Rogan’s New Right lite grievance politics.

What is really going on is this — SNL is competitive as hell. Either you sink or swim. If you can survive — and thrive — in such an environment, then you have what it takes to be a huge star.

But Rogan brings on people who hate that type of environment and they sit around talking about what a shitting place SNL is. Ugh.

The Curious Appeal Of Joe Rogan


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ah, Joe Rogan. The thing about Rogan is how he’s a representation of the hypermodern media landscape. Rogan believes he can say anything as long as he hides behind his earnest masculinity. He’s appealing to a lot of young men who feel unrepresented and disenfranchise.

For the most part he, himself, is harmless. He’s a decent interviewer and I do find him often interesting in what he has to say. But. And there’s a big but, there’s a meta element to his popularity that is downright sinister. And that meta element is he is a gateway to the Alt Right and Incel movements in the sense that a lot of young men start the path to radicalization by watching his show.

It’s not really Rogan’s fault that this is the case. And if the United States wasn’t tearing itself a part at the moment, the whole thing would be a lulz. What I find the most irritating about Rogan is often frames his arguments in such a way that you feel like an idiot if you don’t agree with what are essentially alt-Right talking points.

Thankfully, Rogan has no (apparent) desire to run for office. He, like Tucker Carlson have all the makings of a popular modern politician. The larger point is our democracy is undead. The era we live in is the last gasp of traditional American democracy before we either turn into an autocracy or we have a civil war.

There are no easy answers.

Axis Of Red Pill Derp — Joe Rogan Interviews Quentin Tarantino


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a huge Tarantino fan. I think he’s one of the last great auteurs out there, but he can also sometimes be tone deft when it comes to cultural issues. I haven’t watched all of his interview with Alt Right Lite hero Joe Rogan, but what I have seen is very interesting.

As expected, there was a lot of Red Pill derp going on between these two guys. I don’t think the average person appreciates how a huge swath of the young adult male population has grown alienated from the existing media narrative. In fact, on YouTube, there’s an entire on-boarding system designed to hook such individuals into getting “Red Pilled.”

So, while in Tarantino’s mind, he was just dropping truth bombs in the context of how he’s one of the last great Hollywood directors, a lot of young men see his interview as validation for their “women and minorities control everything” narrative.

Thing about all of this that is so aggravating is how difficult it is to pin down in concrete terms what things like “cancel culture” even mean. One person’s “cancel culture” is another person’s “well, we live in a new age where audiences really aren’t as accepting of the gratuitous sex and violence that Tarantino is know for.”

Red Pilled young men are a lot like most MAGA people — they are spooked by abstract changes in modern American society. Both groups can’t really articulate what bothers them, they just know they hate liberals. Red Pilled young men hate things like Kathleen Kennedy and love the earnest masculinity of Joe Rogan.

A lot of the problems in American culture are so nebulous and abstract and yet so powerful that they’re even more intractable than they would be otherwise. As such, I suspect they’re only going to be solved when the United States finally becomes a MAGA autocracy — or we have a civil war.

Either way, a lot of difficult-to-pin-down fears that people on both the center-Right and center-Left may have will become very, very moot.

The Problem With ‘Red Pill’ Culture


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I understand it, there’s a whole on-boarding system that exists for disenchanted young men to “red pill” themselves. When this happens, they start to rant about how women and minorities control everything. But this usually doesn’t happen overnight. They start by watching videos on YouTube about how much Star Wars producer Kathleen Kennedy sucks. Then they start to get into Joe Rogan.

Before you know it, they turn into incels who are MAGA friendly.

There is so much wrong with this. The key issue for me is we, as a society, are not doing enough to educate young men about the New Normal we live in. Nothing’s right or wrong but thinking makes it so, as the Bard would say. So, in a sense, it doesn’t have to be this way.

I’m of the general opinion that a number of things have led to “Red Pill” culture. One is, the lack of a draft to force young men to do Man Stuff with other men from all over the country. Having some sort of unisex National Service would do a whole lot to helping the United States avoid the existential choice of autocracy or civil war. But, sadly, it’s too late now.

Another problem is young blue collar men find it difficult to find high pay jobs that would allow them to fit into the traditional norm of breadwinner. In other words, they find it difficult to get laid, get married and have kids the way their parents did.

Throw in a rather abrupt shift in women’s self perception associated with the #MeToo movement and you have a recipe for a lot of young (white) men to “Red Pill” themselves and radicalize.

There are no simple answers to any of this. I understand things like media narratives and so forth and even I get really irritated with some modern changes, like how Victoria Secret is just about done for.

But, at the same time, I’m educated and refuse to go down the Red Pill rabbit hole so I come out the other side a deranged lunatic. I do think, however, that everything is going to sort itself out between now and, say, January 2025.

We may not like what we have to go through to solve Red Pill culture. It’s going to suck.

My Hot Take On ‘Cancel Culture’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I say the following knowing damn well that my own personal history — and views — don’t fit the media narrative and are, as such, ripe for me to be “canceled” rather abruptly if I ever make it big somehow.

But, having said that, to me, it’s a clear mark of someone with very simplistic and recursive political views if they ever start ranting about “cancel culture.” I say this because most of the people who rant about cancel culture don’t even really know what the fuck it is. In general, I think, they see it as evil liberals destroying the lives of conservatives like themselves for just being conservative.

Things grow a lot more muddled, however, when inevitably these “canceled” people either pop back into the mainstream media world after a little while or if you look into why these people were canceled. The vast majority of the time, the conservatives who were canceled for just being conservative usually did something that they deserved to be “canceled” for. They used the N-word. They were forcing women around them to jerk off, they were being over-the-top abusive in some way. Or, they were just assholes who happened to be conservative, too.

But the reason that the abstract fear of “cancel culture” resonates with the average conservative is ever since about 2012, America’s culture has been changing at light speed relative to what your typical conservative thinks of as “normal.”

So, what you often find happening now is conservatives are told by their thought leaders to live in abject fear of the abstract concept of being “canceled” when the average person just living their life — even conservative people — don’t really have much to worry about. All the instances of conservatives being “canceled” I can think of off the top of my head, they were assholes who deserved it.

The abstract concept of “cancel culture” is now something for really earnest, really masculine men to hide behind whenever they “red pill” themselves and start ranting about this or that fucked up thing. The worst part of all of this is I agree that a lot of people have grown too sensitive at the edges of social and political debate. But I think that is more a problem that is a sign of our late-stage Republic than anything else.

Once we either become an autocracy or we have a civil war, shit like “cancel culture” is going to be, well, uh, canceled. When the autocracy comes, we’re all going to be so worried about not getting pushed out of windows by ICE that we won’t have time to worry about who got canceled. Or, if we have a civil war, by the time it’s over, cancel culture will be the least of our worries.

But something about how people who are into Joe Rogan’s podcast getting all bent out of shape about “cancel culture” and seeing it as some sort of vague monster that is holding them back really fucking gets on my nerves.

CNN Should Replace Chris Cuomo With Someone More Like Larry King


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Larry King was a hallmark of CNN for decades. And then he just vanished. It was kind of weird. And, even stranger, CNN has completely ignored that for a lot of long-term viewers like me, having a breezy, value free chat show on during CNN’s weekday primetime was a rather comfortable thing to see.

Chris Cuomo just doesn’t do it for me. He’s strangely off putting for some reason, nowhere near as affable as Larry King was in his prime. I struggle to think of who CNN could replace him with, however.

The first person who comes to mind is Joe Rogan. I think Rogan can be a real idiot at times, but he is affable and given his alt-Right lite credentials, I could see his presence on the network doing a lot to bridge the gap between CNN and the rabid, bonkers MAGA shitheads who hate it so much. (Yet, who am I kidding — MAGA hates CNN because it’s objective and they crave to be fed the party line. But, luz.)

I suppose someone like Jon Stewart might be able to do the type of show I’m looking for, but that just doesn’t seem very practical. Neither Stewart nor Rogan seem really all that interested in being on CNN for various reasons.

Now that I think about it, given how King was not a traditional journalist and, as such, you could even draw from an unexpected place: SNL. There are a number of SNL-connected people who would be great as a potential Larry King-like interviewer. Kenan Thompson or Tina Fey would be just the right mix of regular person and interviewer-with-an-interesting-personality to bring back the same vibe as Larry King.

But, who am I kidding. No one listens to me.

The Curious Case Of Joe Rogan


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The United States is one stolen election away from formally becoming an autocratic “managed democracy” like they have in Russia. One of the more curious media phenomena in this politically overheated moment in our history is Joe Rogan.

Now, let make it absolutely clear that this “media commentary’ on my part is cursory and breezy. I’m just using what I feel I know off the top of my head, so I’m going to be rather fuzzy about some details.

But, anyway, in general, it seems as though Rogan wants it both ways. He was main stream acceptability, while at the same time refusing to pick a side in the political division America finds itself in. He wants to, with a wink and a nod, support MAGA without coming out and saying it. He hides behinds a facade of masculine earnestness, which is why he has earned the nickname “Oprah for Dudes.”

He knows that if he can have a thin veneer of main stream credibility, his cultural relevance will be significantly greater. But it seems to me that this whole thing is a massive cop-out. There simply is no credible reason not to pick a side and this point. Besides, we all know if push comes to shove Rogan is MAGA.

Which raises an interesting question.

Now that the United States is a fascist state, is it possible that Rogan is playing the long game? He’s a young guy, if he plays his cards right he could very well find himself in line to be far, far close to the Oval Office than any of us could possibly otherwise imagine.

It might be a decade or so before House Trump allows anyone other than a Trump to be president, but the possibility is very real. Things will be so dark by then, of course, that Rogan may be one of the few independent voices left in the media, period.

Anyway, Rogan is a reasonably good interviewer. The only real problem I have with him is he’s kind of a media gateway drug to the Alt Right and Qanon.