Sunday blogs - a brief analysis on Joe Rogan and the alpha male podcast phenomenon

I'll be honest that upon my first encounter with Joe Rogan, I did not think he was that bad. I was dating someone who at the time regularly listened to his podcast, despite openly acknowledging that he didn't believe in every stance Rogan held. (I secretly think that there was some additional compulsion in the fact that they were both bald mid—30s men who liked putting Laird's turmeric creamer in their morning coffee to the tune of intellectual discourse, but alas.) To make matters more interesting - and infinitely more cringeworthy - it was the first interview Rogan did with Ben Shapiro, an openly alt-right, dorky Jewish guy who's biggest red flag is probably dismissing all forms of systemic discrimination in the name of libertarianism. He is also made fun of on the internet for how uncomfortably unsexy he is. His robotic reading of Megan Thee Stallion's lyrics on “WAP” was attached to the instrumental of the song as a viral joke, along with the anecdote that he probably has never seen a wet pussy in his life. (I showed this video to someone I was on a date with a couple months ago. She did not think it was funny.)

Granted, he honestly has it coming to him, and I found that out much more quickly than with Joe Rogan. If Shapiro speaks at college campuses in liberal areas, he has to be accompanied by security guards because he's considered so controversial and his presence is openly protested against. While I genuinely think Shapiro has some valid ideas – for one, the libertarian point of view is pro abortion, largely anti war, and for smaller and lesser government interference, all of which I agree with, and all of which Shapiro has openly expressed his agreement for – he has said things worth protesting over in the same realm as he advocates free speech. The one thing he always fails to specify is that free speech, which really only protects one from government prosecution over what they say, says nothing about certain points of view assuming a form of mental or sociopolitical violence as opposed to physical, or something just being in bad taste, straight up psychopathic, or with an expressly hurtful lack of human regard. For example, Shapiro believes it's your right to be transgender, but also openly says that he thinks it's a sham, it's often done for attention or for affirmative action purposes, or it's trendy, without ever having a conversation with someone who is actually trans or acknowledging the simple fact that saying this point of view out loud on a public platform (in which he has some relative populist authority), when trans folks have some of the highest suicide rates and murder rates of any gender demographic – contributes to their oppression. The fact is that it's not only their right, but they deserve to feel free from mental and physical violence and oppression to lead happy, long lives like anyone else. And this is what Shapiro never acknowledges. It's the lack of social awareness that makes me lose immediate respect for him on nearly every count.

Joe's podcasts have a high production value – Spotify bought and funded his podcast, there are multiple high quality camera angles, video cutting and editing in addition to audio, and the podcasts go as long as three hours sometimes. All of his videos get millions of views – this video in particular had 10 million. With the rise of populism that has come with gradual government distrust and the presence of Trump in political discourse, folks will take these internet opinions as seriously as that of their politicians. Now, this doesn't have to be a bad thing. We all know politicians often lie, do things for the sake of partisanship, financial incentive in the form of lobbying, or whatever it may be. It's not like they're always the most reliable or trustworthy. But everybody lies – the “people” are not immune to this just because they are not in political power. The internet wields a different kind of authority that happens at the democratized level (i.e. a platform anyone can join or start without educational or financial prerequisites such as Youtube), and Rogan's podcast is a great example. A neglect of politics is one thing. An open neglect of science and historical contextualization is another. And this is where the problems begin.

So I'm watching the podcast with Rogan and Shapiro. This one, numbered podcast #1276, starts off okay. They make fun of Shapiro's old hairstyles, talk about how he has people to style him for appearances and whatnot. They go on to talk about how Shapiro is misrepresented as someone in the alt-right, when he openly expresses disdain for alt-right ideology as “a devastatingly awful twist on what western civilization is supposed to be” in his podcasts and his books over and over again. He mentions that nobody brings this up in his interviews, and Rogan goes on to discuss the vehement blanket categorization, confirmation bias, and group polarization of our modern culture that has stifled a ton of very complicated discussions for anything that falls in between or completely outside of the right or the left. I agree 100% with this so far. There is not enough discussion from democrats about faults within the democratic party or republicans about faults within the republican party, since doing so appears traitorous and malicious. I can't remember the last time a Democrat pointed out that Barack Obama deported more immigrants than Trump or Bush under his administration, that Joe Biden approved a military defense spending bill equivalent to that approved under Trump (an unnecessarily exorbitant amount), or that Kamala Harris put countless individuals in jail on minor marijuana charges as if to contribute to the mass incarceration issues that disproportionately affect folks who look just like her. In other words, it's not a bad point. I think this kind of critical examination within one's own political party might get us out of this growing group polarization hostility that lately has seen no light at the end of the tunnel – and it would make everybody trust politicians again.

Then, of course, we get to the stuff I don't agree with. Shapiro goes on to say that Bill Gates has helped far more lives with Microsoft than he has with all of the charities he's contributed to, a point of view he's also held about Jeff Bezos with Amazon, because of the number of jobs those companies have opened up – many in some form of manual labor, an industry that we have seen get smaller and smaller with automation developments taking the place of human jobs. Never mind the horrific working conditions at Amazon that forced employees in to environmental danger over fear of losing their job, or the idea that charitable donations have value not only in money but in philanthropy and setting the standard for how billionaires should redistribute their excessive wealth. And Rogan, who has let Shapiro have the majority of the conversation for the first 22 minutes, hits irony on its big fat head when he makes one of his classic efforts at pragmatism: “if you believe one thing, and another person believes a different thing, you should probably talk about it. […] if you want to silence points of view, I have to wonder about your intent, I have to whether you're going in to this conversation with good faith, I have to wonder if you have really objectively assessed whether your argument holds up against scrutiny.”

Here's why it's hypocritical. First of all, in reference to the point Shapiro was making, he seems to hardly objectively assess several of the unsubstantiated claims that Shapiro makes about Microsoft and Amazon because he agrees with the point that the technological efficiency these two companies amassed has changed our lives to be easier, and yes, the two companies have created jobs. That is not the whole picture. I would have been more convinced of his pragmatist stance had he also examined that in conjunction with valid counterpoints. For example, efficiency and fiscal market value does nothing to assess a philanthropic value, something that is difficult to quantify in numbers but does not negate the fact that its value is often far longer lasting and meaningful. Or what about our material greed or environmental hazards and waste that have come as life threatening byproducts of growing technological and supplier efficiency? If Amazon has made products affordable and easily accessible to many low income individuals in the U.S, is it even relevant if we don't address that the market monopolization a company like Amazon holds is the reason why many of those individuals have lost their work in the independent service, small business, and retail industries?

Another thing that Rogan recently came under fire about – not to mention, some openly racist comments that he let air on his podcast – was his anti-vax position. A recent clip shows Rogan being faced with factual evidence from Dr. Sanjay Gupta that the vaccinated were eight time less likely to become infected with Covid-19, and that their viral loads were managed more swiftly to minimize the virus' contagious period. (Not to mention, serious illness is much more rare in the vaccinated). Rogan then changes his stance and proceeds to explain that folks that are older or high risk should get vaccinated, but young and healthy adults and children should not. He cites myocarditis as a result of the vaccine as a primary example - no mention of the effect of long covid in adults, which has been as serious as permanent fatigue or complete loss of taste and smell – Dr. Gupta says the statistic is around 30%. The infamous report on myocarditis cases from vaccines from Dr. Matthew Oster and Dr. John Su, on the other hand, reported an incidence rate of 0.0008%. In other words, it has as much risk as any other vaccine that has been established as standard healthcare practice.

It is this idea of having authority and promoting problematic views that may be within the host's rights, but implies something far more dangerous – a neglect for scientific work, statistics, and facts supplemented with appropriate representation – that makes folks hate Joe Rogan with a passion. A sort of populist authority is the template of the podcast, and with folks who are gullible enough (hint: there are many of them) it can override the opinions of specialists and professors. To me, it's one thing if Spotify doesn't want to infringe on anyone's free speech or wants to encourage open, multi-sided discourse. It's another that Spotify set an ad in the Broadway-Lafayette train station calling him “Dr. Joe Rogan”.

It's a common theme in today's internet centric culture that unfettered, unregulated, and unsupported claims are taken seriously and admitted to the world without second thought. Why do you think folks are more willing to say and believe absolutely ludicrous, unsubstantiated conspiracy theories? Internet availability and inflammatory language is having it out against the word of scholars and doctors. I don't think it's unusual that we have almost exclusively seen this from white, cis, straight dudes with a sort of tempered, pseudo-intellectual mind, pledging being centrist and recognizing issues as extremely complicated and multi layered (while ironically countering this with poor historical contextualization and representation relative to subject matter). They become palatable by speaking monotonously and dispassionately, as if to give the illusion of pragmatism to listeners, and believe enough that their points of view need to be heard by the world enough to put forth a high production value podcast with three hour episodes for it.

But there isn't anything unique about what's being done by Joe Rogan. Centrism and skepticism is not an excuse to miss out on research. If he really wants to present “all sides” of a situation, maybe he should have a trans guest on before he speaks on trans issues. Maybe he should fact check his Covid vaccine skepticism to see if the reasons for the skepticism are substantiated by medical professionals and their studies, not because the government has hosted some crooked politicians and officials and so they cannot be trusted to have anyone's best interest – even on global health crises. Maybe he shouldn't say race is a non-issue if he doesn't understand why using the n-word, even when to quote something, is inappropriate and violent.

So, why did I say the “alpha male podcast phenomenon”? Because a lot of men feel emboldened to share their unsubstantiated opinions online, so long as there is an easily impressionable audience to back them up – intelligent or not, well researched or not. There's a joke going around on Tik Tok about a different strain of problematic alpha male podcast types – specifically, the “fuck boy” podcaster taking after the style of shows like The Breakfast Club who publicly and shamelessly perpetuate misogyny (likely out of some deep personal insecurity – more on that next week), stereotypically accompanied by the affirmation of the fellow other concurring, unquestioning bros on their podcast or in their audience. The Tik Tok trend, started by women, makes fun of these kinds of statements – because they really are ridiculous! (“females need to know that their true place is serving their king at the house, that they bow down to the king, you know what I'm saying”, think DJ Khaled), is accompanied by a filter that puts a trimmed beard, a backwards snapback, and a septum ring on the woman. The idea is to make fun of their belief that they are “special alpha males” and have something more important to say than the rest of the world despite the fact that their beliefs are problematic, hurtful, discriminatory, and most of all - not compelling, special, or original in thought...whatsoever. And certainly, Rogan overlaps with this. Trivializing discrimination that he has not personally faced or shown comprehensive study of is not “being a skeptic” - it's a way of getting out of doing the work and not having to suffer the consequences.

Joe Rogan is not the worst thing that's happened to the internet, and I still maintain that he has made some good points on some subjects that both the political left and right could learn from. But he does not deserve the platform he has, and he is no revolutionary stake in the non partisan game if he does not see it all the way through. That, my friends, is just the alpha male illusion, doing its magical work on the highly impressionable folks of America.