If you listen to The Joe Rogan Experience, then you know Joe Rogan’s approach when dissecting and discussing any subject matter is generally better-suited to long-format, as both a listener and by-stander, just as much as a participant. That is to say, he’s not one for brief soundbites, but also, he knows all too well how the media cycle works in this era of online publications, and the fact that even if you don’t actively give a “brief soundbite” (because, in reality, who actually talks in brief soundbites?), the internet will find one for you and run with it.
Such is the case with Joe Rogan’s recent podcast episode with fellow stand-up comic, Joe List. Rogan has become more and more a magnet for controversy, it seems, since he transitioned off YouTube and onto Spotify. Perhaps it’s due to the simple fact that he signed an exclusive contract with the streaming giant, reportedly worth $100 million, but it seems like every other day a hot take (or casual statement) from his podcast is going viral for one reason or another. Today, that casual statement in question find Rogan discussing, briefly, the privilege surrounding straight white men as it intersects with woke culture– so as you can imagine, the twitterverse went wild when this clip was spliced.
During Rogan’s two-hour plus convo with Joe List, the two touched on many things, from misleading CDC numbers, Coronavirus, castratos, stand-up comedy/fellow comics, and much more.
As the two talk begin to discuss mid-2000’s comedy films in the first thirty minutes of the episode, including Step-Brothers, Rogan laments how you wouldn’t be able to put out a film like that today– “or if you did, you’d face a tremendous amount of criticism,” he says. From there, things diverge as Joe List mentions the fact that people are receiving their comedy by way of podcast or stand-up these days, rather than film or events, referring to The Oscars as a joke-less entity this past year.
Joe List kicks off the now-viral Joe Rogan twitter clip by stating: “I was listening to a podcast the other day that’s sort of like a mental health podcast, and this lady was telling the host, who was a straight white guy, he was like, ‘I’m learning about privilege’– and he was saying, ‘even my self-deprecating humour is a little offensive because it’s my privilege to do self-deprecating humor because as a straight white male, people assume i’m joking, but other people couldn’t make such jokes, because of whatever history.’ And they were literally discussing, earnestly, how straight white men shouldn’t be funny.”
Joe Rogan replies: “You can never be woke enough. That’s the problem. It keeps going. It keeps going further and further down the line, and if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it will eventually get to ‘straight white men are not allowed to talk,’ because it’s your privilege to express yourself when other people of colour have been silenced through out history. It’ll be, ‘you’re not allowed to go outside’– because so many people have been imprisoned for so many years…It really will get there. It’s that crazy.”
He continues, “We just gotta be nice to each other, man. And there’s a lot of people that are taking advantage of this weirdness in our culture, and then that becomes their thing. Their thing is calling people out for their privilege, calling people out for their position. You know, it’s f*cking crazy times.”
Finally, Rogan adds later before the go on other topics entirely: “When you talk shit if you see something stupid like that, ‘as a straight white man you shouldn’t be self-deprecating,’ b*tch what the f*ck is wrong with you? We’re humans. If you’re a human being you should be able to express yourself, you shouldn’t have to take into all the other people who are not heard, or not expressing themselves currently, or not in the same category, c’mon man, we can’t do that. You’re forcing yourself to think double, triple, about every single f*cking thing you and whether or not you have the right to express yourself.”
By the 36-minute mark, the conversation has basically passed and taken a turn into another directly entirely.
Take a look at some of the most popular twitter reactions to the clipped statement below, and if you want to give the full episode a listen, you can also check that out above.
What do you make of all this?