When I think of Joe Rogan, a range of unpalatable things spring to mind: supplements, MMA, Jordan Peterson, pro wrestling, cannabis … and now vaccine misinformation. Rogan is also the most successful podcaster on Earth with around 11 million listeners per episode.
What is his appeal?
Stepping out of my echo chamber and into Joe Rogan’s world, I want to find out by living the Joe Rogan Experience for the next five days – consuming no other media except for his podcast.
Day 1
HOLY HELL. These podcasts are long! Rogan releases three to four podcasts per week, with an average length of two hours and 35 minutes per episode. Listening to every single episode of The Joe Rogan Experience nonstop would take about 211 days or just over half a year.
Scrolling through more than a thousand episodes on Spotify, I decide to listen to a mix of random thinkers and pundits and some of the more controversial podcasts that lead to him dominating the headlines this week. I start with an author selected at random. Michael Pollan is a journalist and Rogan is interviewing him about his new book on plant medicine. I intend to listen to Rogan while I do housework, but this podcast is really interesting and jammed with information. You can’t take it in while multitasking. I sit, listen and learn a few things: Moses might have been stoned when he came across the burning bush; the Greeks probably took psychedelics with their wine when celebrating Dionysius; and the PCR test we all take for Covid detection was invented by a guy high on LSD.
Rogan himself is a good facilitator. He talks (and is fluent in drug bro talk) but not too much, and gives his guest a good opportunity to expand on his work. The questions are intelligent and Rogan comes across as curious and engaged.
I meet a friend for a walk and tell her about Rogan. She shudders and warns me not to get red-pilled. As if!
I drop by another friend’s house. Nick has listened to a bit of Joe Rogan who he describes as “a dumb person’s idea of a smart person”.
I do not tell him I think Rogan’s smart.
Day 2
I wake up and start listening to Rogan before I get out of bed. This episode is one with his friend Duncan Trussell. I watch the video of them talking and they appear to be in a cave with lots of candles. I don’t know who Trussell is and I find their conversation hard to follow and boring. Lacking a central topic like the Pollan one, it’s too discursive. They are talking about Taiwan, about some wrestler I’ve never heard of called John Cena, and crypto. I fall asleep for a bit and wake up and they are still talking about crypto.
Abandon this one and switch to an episode featuring a libertarian and comedian Dave Smith. Have not heard of Smith. Get out of bed. Do yoga while listening to Smith and Rogan.
I’m doing some stretches and some breathing exercises but it’s hard to chill as the talk is turning hectic – Iraq, Gaddafi, losing your wallet and not being able to pay for Starbucks, Putin, Ukraine, Bill O’Reilly, Trump saying we’ve killed a lot of people too, Assad, the corporate press (“has lost its monopoly”, “is losing its grip on power”, “no ethics”), how “masks don’t work” and how Americans became totalitarian in 2020.
It’s a lot. I keep listening as I walk to a reiki session.
“Civil assets swot raid … this shit is insane … ,” says Smith, rapid-fire.
In reiki I turn off Rogan and enter an all-white room that is subtly lit and lightly scented with incense. I wonder if I am carrying the jacked-up energy of Rogan with me into the room. In the 90-minute session, I find myself falling into a state of deep relaxation, something very akin to hypnosis. The reiki master is clearing my energy. Is it the dense energy of a three-hour Joe Rogan podcast? In my trance-like state, when I come to, the idea of listening to more Rogan repulses me. But yet – I haven’t even listened to a full episode. I must push on.
I listen to more Joe Rogan that evening. (“The left wing and right wing are crazy and spinning out of control.” “We’re on the national suicide watch.” “The centre became the radicals and the radicals lost any centre to gravitate to.”)
Still affected by the reiki I wonder if Rogan will start to mess with my subconscious. If the only voice I hear is Joe Rogan’s, what sort of person will I become?
Day 3
Wake up. Listen to Joe Rogan interview author Sebastian Junger. Junger has had an interesting near-death experience but the conversation takes a boring segue and they end up in a pointless cul-de-sac making small talk about the late comedian Robin Williams.
I’m tweeting that I’m listening to Joe Rogan and people on my timeline are so anti. They respond “why” and “he’s awful”. But I am not regretting listening. Rogan himself is personable and warm. A friend of mine who is a journalist on a UK news podcasts says, “He’s not what people think he is. On the vaccine he’s super-dumb, but other stuff he is quite reasonable. He has a nice vibe to him.”
Go on a foam roller. Pain. Try and distract myself by listening to Joe Rogan interviewing Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. It’s a bit of a soft interview and I don’t really buy Dorsey’s vibe as a rich hippie who just wants the world to talk to each other and solve their problems through his platform.
I see some friends for dinner. I notice I am introducing a lot of conversations with: “I heard this thing on Joe Rogan” and “Joe said … ” Perhaps I am being red-pilled? After listening to nothing but Rogan, his cadence is starting to creep into my speech: “That fucking sucks … ,” I find myself saying in a kind of Rogany drawl. Argh. Stop! But the things I am hearing are making me think about things (donating blood, Occupy Wall Street, psilocybin in communion wafers, Twitter as an instrument of world peace). It has not been a total waste of time.
Part of the seduction with Rogan is that he doesn’t appear to be controlled by outside interests. He’s natural. If you are used to watching say three hours of breakfast television a day, you know that Karl Stefanovic is not going to just say what he thinks or offer guests a joint or go super niche on things like defunding the police. And so when someone in the media does appear to break out of some corporate mould, it’s compelling.
Day 4
Joe would like this. I’m going to go to the gym for three hours and listen to a full Joe Rogan podcast while I WORK OUT. Then I’m going to buy some supplements.
I cue up Whitney Simmons – the first female guest I’ve heard (male guests vastly outnumber the women by something like nine to one).
It’s hard to listen to Rogan while on the elliptical. For a start I need to hold my phone as headphones don’t really reach, and secondly it’s not good workout listening. But I like their chemistry: just two people hanging out, shooting the shit.
At the gym my headphones break, which means on my walk, where I was going to try and get in an hour of Rogan time, I have to circle Rushcutters Bay with Rogan on speaker.
Listen to Rogan interview Macaulay Culkin while folding laundry. Listen to Rogan interview Matt Taibbi while cooking rice. Can’t bring myself to listen to Jordan Peterson, which I’ve queued up next.
Day 5
Wake up and am determined to tackle the second hour of the Dave Smith interview. Will it ever end? I’ve been listening to it for days. Oh, I see. This is no good. I was kind of with them until Joe started saying that young people don’t need the vaccine. That only the old and vulnerable like his parents should take it. Gross. Get some nurse that’s been working on the ICU for two years as a guest on your show rather than a fuckknuckle libertarian.
I’m disappointed.
It’s not just misinformation – but it’s misinformation from Joe. His tone implies that young people who take the vaccine are pussies. And by this stage, after listening to him for hours and hours and hours, I like him (and I am starting to speak like him). I think he’s cool and funny. And if he says people who take vaccines are pussies then that has an effect.
Part of the unique danger and disappointment of Rogan spreading misinformation is that he is so trusted by so many listeners. The guy is super sticky. Listeners are with him for three hours at a stretch. They get to really know him and value his opinions. This is a type of power in the media we’ve not seen for a very long time. And of course, with great power comes great responsibility.
The effect is to finally turn him off.
