#Joe Rogan Controversy

[williamknotts]

Unfiltered Influence: How The Joe Rogan Experience Redefined Modern Podcasting and Media Culture

The Influence and Evolution of The Joe Rogan Podcast

The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) has become one of the most influential podcasts globally, drawing millions of listeners and sparking wide-ranging discussions on subjects from science and philosophy to comedy, fitness, and current events. As a key figure in modern media, Joe Rogan has cultivated a unique podcasting platform that breaks traditional media norms, allowing his guests the freedom to speak without constraint. This article explores the success, impact, and controversies of Rogan’s podcast and why it continues to captivate audiences worldwide.

A Brief Background on The Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan launched The Joe Rogan Experience in 2009, initially as a casual experiment with comedian Brian Redban. Since then, it has evolved into a multimedia powerhouse, with Rogan interviewing prominent personalities, including scientists, comedians, authors, athletes, politicians, and cultural influencers. By 2020, Spotify acquired exclusive streaming rights for the podcast in a landmark deal valued at around $100 million. Today, JRE is often a top-trending topic in media circles and remains consistently at the top of podcast charts.

Unique Format and Approach

A major draw of JRE is Rogan’s long-form, open-ended interview style. Unlike traditional news or media outlets that often follow rigid formats, JRE episodes can range from 2 to 5 hours, offering guests ample time to dive deep into subjects. Rogan's conversational style encourages his guests to share perspectives and insights that may be left out of conventional interviews, covering everything from fringe scientific theories to mainstream political discourse.

His approach to interviewing is more conversational and informal, which allows a dynamic range of topics to surface organically. This format resonates with listeners who seek a more nuanced understanding of issues, as Rogan often plays both the skeptic and the layperson, asking questions his audience might ask.

Diversity of Guests

Part of the podcast’s success comes from its eclectic range of guests, which has included prominent names like Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders, Jordan Peterson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Edward Snowden. The diversity of viewpoints featured on JRE enables listeners to explore topics through various lenses, often leading to enlightening or polarizing discussions.

In particular, Elon Musk’s 2018 appearance, during which Musk smoked cannabis, became a viral sensation and exemplified the spontaneous, unfiltered nature of the show. Such moments highlight Rogan’s ability to provide a platform where high-profile figures feel comfortable revealing different facets of their personality.

Impact on Media and Culture

The impact of The Joe Rogan Experience on the media landscape is undeniable. The podcast has become a major source of alternative information for millions who prefer Rogan's authentic approach to traditional news sources. Rogan’s choice of guests and his laid-back questioning style make it easy for listeners to digest complex subjects, helping boost awareness and interest in topics like cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence, psychedelics, and alternative health practices.

This influence has extended beyond entertainment. Political figures, thought leaders, and even healthcare experts view JRE as a platform that can sway public opinion. For example, Rogan’s COVID-19 discussions drew considerable attention and even backlash, with some questioning the accuracy and impact of his views. Despite criticisms, Rogan’s influence remains strong, as listeners appreciate his independence from corporate media pressures.

Controversies and Criticisms

With influence comes scrutiny, and Rogan has faced his share of controversies. Critics have raised concerns over misinformation, especially when he discusses health-related issues, controversial ideologies, or political views. For instance, some of his episodes on COVID-19 and vaccinations were criticized for allegedly promoting misinformation. Spotify even faced internal pushback from employees demanding content moderation for his episodes.

However, Rogan has consistently argued that he values free speech and believes in giving all perspectives a platform. His supporters view him as a rare voice in media who’s unafraid to address contentious topics, while his detractors see him as a risk to public health and societal unity.

The Future of The Joe Rogan Experience

Looking ahead, JRE seems poised to remain a significant force in the world of podcasting and media. As of 2024, Rogan continues to explore new topics, host diverse voices, and stir conversation across various fields. His platform’s success has inspired countless creators to explore podcasting and has set a high standard for authenticity and audience engagement in media.

Conclusion

The Joe Rogan Experience is more than just a podcast; it’s a cultural phenomenon that exemplifies the power of independent media in shaping modern discourse. Joe Rogan has captured a global audience and expanded what’s possible in modern media through his authentic, inquisitive, and sometimes controversial approach. While the podcast may draw critics, its influence on the media landscape and how we consume information is undeniable.

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

2025 is actually off to the funniest start ever :D

Can't believe I was thinking of ending it all when this year began...I would have missed all of this!

Two people I despise are dead, two more have lost their homes and cherished posessions

I hope the whole year is like this :D

LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL :D

[darkmaga-returns]

President Joe Biden harshly criticized Meta’s decision to eliminate its professional fact-checking program in favor of user-driven community notes, labeling the move as “really shameful.” His comments, delivered during a press conference following a speech on economic progress, reveal a concerning push for increased control over online discourse.

Biden’s statements came on the same day Biden criticized Meta when Zuckerberg appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience, revealing that the Biden administration had actively pressured Meta to censor content related to COVID-19. Zuckerberg disclosed that officials repeatedly contacted Meta, demanding the removal of memes and truthful posts critical of COVID-19 vaccines. He recounted how the White House would “call up our team and scream at them and curse” over content they deemed unacceptable.

[lean-mean-demon-genevieve]

Is there any evidence Jared and Gen were friends with Joe Rogan? Jared used to follow him but he doesn’t anymore after his political views came out. That doesn’t mean he ever knew him personally.

I got this ask a few weeks ago and life was lifeing and it didn’t get addressed. But answering it today feels extra appropriate.

I planned to say that while I didn’t have any evidence of Jared knowing Rogan personally, I also would like to question anon’s assumption that Jared unfollowed Rogan because of his political affiliations…because that’s not the impression I got. Again it seems anon may be assuming goodwill and good intentions based on overall liking/being a fan of Jared’s.

If anyone has proof of Jared decrying Rogan for his political leanings, I would love to see it.

If you believe this Reddit thread, Jared unfollowed after some Twitter backlash in 2019:

Liking a post doesn’t always mean that you support everything attached to it, but it’s a stamp of approval of sorts. Jared may have liked the comeback story of the guy in the picture. I believe facts and patterns. Call me a cynic, but I try not to attribute good intentions to anyone who I don’t know personally and especially not someone with an image for sale. This is true of any celeb. But Jared has a well documented habit of popping off and then weakly taking it back. So in this case, I’d much rather hear it from him explicitly that he disagrees with Rogan’s views.

Joe Rogan has been a known bro with problematic views long before he became even more openly right-wing in 2020 following the pandemic. Hence the backlash that caused Jared to unfollow in 2019. So basically, Jared didn’t unfollow until people noticed and it caused a dent in his own image. That’s not the same as cutting ties.

Let us not pretend that unfollowing means anything more than PR. In fact, in August of 2020, Gen had this to say in an interview:

Jared may have unfollowed Rogan’s socials but both of the Pads were still listening to the podcast a year later, per her report. And listening enough to proudly endorse Rogan’s “candor” and attach themselves to him in a public interview.

Gen also endorsed some of the same products as Rogan, including Four Sigmatic (mushroom power for focus) and Butcher Box. In this ad for Butcher Box in March of 2021, Jared can be heard to have more knowledge of Rogan’s promo codes than those of his own wife. So it seems 2 years post unfollowing, he is still paying pretty close attention to Rogan’s content:

Even more recently, The Pads and Rogan both endorse Ways 2 Well; a bougie Austin med spa for all things IV, supplements, stem cells, and otherwise “medical anxiety of the rich” related. Is this a crime? No of course not. But I do think it suggests that they all run in the same circles:

(Don’t get me started on Rogan’s anti-trans views while also receiving gender-affirming hormone treatments.)

Cut to this week, and a former Walker bit-part actor is singing the praises of Jared and Rogan in the same post. (To a Jason Aldean soundtrack, no less. You may recall this turd from his song controversy last year.) The post is tagged at Rogan’s comedy club in Austin, Mothership. Rogan himself moved to Austin in 2020, reportedly in part because of the state’s lack of income tax and because LA was too liberal.

And ok, so this says that David is friends with Rogan and also friends with Jared. And to anon’s point maybe we don’t have a documented friendship between Jared and Rogan but I’d argue that it doesn’t matter to me.

On the night before the US election, Rogan endorsed the then presidential candidate Donald Trump in this promo post for his Elon Musk interview:

An endorsement of this nature, I feel, tells us a lot about Rogan’s beliefs. I don’t have the bandwidth nor space in this post to detail all of those points. But from this leftist’s perspective, it includes endorsement of anti-choice/“prolife” (but also anti public assistance), anti trans right, pro war/genocide, anti climate change, and anti vaxx to name a few.

Pada-fans will often cite Jared’s connection to the Austin-based, pro lgbtq+ non-profit organization Out Youth as evidence of his liberalism. But I wonder what the people of Out Youth will think after seeing this photo of Jared and knowing that he came out to Mothership comedy club to see Rogan’s brand of “anti-woke” comedy. (Rogan was performing that night, per this post.)

Here is an article from an Austin newspaper that details the vibe of the club: X

I also think this bit is…interesting. Go ahead and Google the “vibe” of these other comedians if you’re unfamiliar. Big yikes.

And here are a couple other links that detail the content of Rogan’s most recent Netflix special, for further context on the content of his standup: X and X

I have several friends who are also trans. I, unlike Jared, have also never listened to a single Rogan podcast. But regardless of how big of a personality Rogan is, if I had the opportunity to meet him and get my photo taken with him, my values would give me serious pause. If my friends saw me with my arm slung around this guy, what conclusions should they draw from my smile and the comfort they see? Personally, since I do not agree with anything that Rogan stands for, I would opt out. I wouldn’t want to even risk someone assuming my affiliation.

Jared, on the other hand, did.

At the very least you can say that he was willing to risk the misunderstanding. And I think that’s because he knows it still won’t matter to most of his fans. They will always find a way to excuse his choices.

[justinsentertainmentcorner]

Wajahat Ali (02.10.2025):

In America, politics runs downstream from culture. Andrew Breitbart understood this phenomenon. Donald Trump and MAGA took his playbook, which is why the current state of America resembles a reality show from hell. After all, Trump is only President thanks to The Apprentice. His Secretary of Defense is a former Fox host and his Secretary of Transportation is a Real World alum. On election night, Dana White, the CEO of UFC, thanked YouTube stars Joe Rogan, the Nelk Boys, and Theo Von for helping push Trump over the top. Elon Muk, the richest man on Earth, bought a money-losing social media platform, Twitter, so he could promote and mainstream right-wing disinformation and conspiracies. The Trump Administration is a turnstile for Fox and right-wing media hosts.

Fox, UFC, WWE, country music, and Kid Rock have all bent the knee and lent their “talents” to help normalize Trump’s cruelty and whitewash his incompetence through their cultural platforms. However, Black and POC cultures, aside from Snoop Dogg and Nelly, have been resistant. Trump, and right-wing stars to a large extent, deeply covet acceptance, love, applause, and assimilation from the dominant mainstream liberal culture which they claim to loathe. This explains why Trump decided to purge the Kennedy Center board and appoint himself as Chairman over the weekend. He claimed the “shows were terrible” and a “disgrace” despite immediately acknowledging he had never seen any of them. It’s about power and control. MAGA must see the rest of us bowing down, kneeling, obeying in advance, and accepting the master MAGA narrative without being uppity or problematic. It’s about the rest of us willingly being silent as they erase our books, our stories, and our narratives through the Trojan Horse of dismantling DEI and wokeness and replacing it with white Christian nationalism and delusional lies in service to Trump’s fickle ego and vindictiveness pettiness. To appease Trump and not trigger MAGA, the NFL obeyed in advance and removed their “End Racism” lettering from the endzone. The game was between the Philadelphia Eagles and their Black quarterback Jalen Hurts, who has endured racist slights from some white Eagles fans and reporters, and the Kansas City Chiefs, who have a Black quarterback Patrick Mahomes and a white Christian nationalist kicker, Harrison Butker, has formed a conservative Christian PAC, endorsed and palled around with Senator Josh Hawley, and told women to embrace the role of “homemaker” in a controversial commencement speech. Surprisingly, Laura Ingraham and conservatives didn’t tell Butker to “shut up and dribble” and keep politics out of sports. That paternalistic finger-wanging is only reserved for Black athletes protesting racism and police violence, such as Lebron James and Colin Kaepernick, who was blackballed for quietly kneeling in protest during the national anthem. Well, Pulitzer Prize-winning artist Kendrick Lamar had other ideas during the Super Bowl. He decided to put on the Blackest Super Bowl Halftime show in history in front of Donald Trump, America’s white supremacist President. Lamar warned white and racist America from the jump that “The revolution ‘bout to be televised. You picked the right time, but the wrong guy.” It was a fantastic spectacle filled with deliberate, intentional choices. For example, the show opens with Samuel L. Jackson coming out as Uncle Sam and popping up throughout the performance to tell Lamar to follow the established rules and tame the Blackness. As Uncle Sam, with the top hat and all, he told Lamar during his performance, which featured all Black dancers wearing Red, White, and Blue, not to be “too loud, too reckless, too ghetto.” Lamar responded by singing “Humble” and “DNA” which celebrates unapologetic Blackness. He started rapping while standing on top of a Buick Regal as a stream of dozens of Black dancers kept coming out of the vehicle. (Lamar’s dad brought him home for the first time from the hospital in a Buick Regal.) He had the GOAT, Serene Williams, crip walking during “They Not Like Us.” Williams has endured and thrived throughout her entire illustrious career despite having her Black body and upbringing mocked, ridiculed, and shamed by white reporters. Lamar, who is peak petty, even wore an “A minor” necklace throughout the show and decided to both body white supremacy and his rival Drake, even going so far as to basically call him a pedophile in front of 100 million people. The “A Minor” refrain was loudly echoed by the fans in attendance which was a call against Drake, whom Lamar loathes as being a fraudulent affront to Black culture, and Donald Trump, whose entire being is forged in racism, anti-Black hate and lies.

Last Sunday’s Super Bowl Halftime Show served up Black culture representation amid Trump’s racist anti-DEI crusade.

[88y53]

Okay, I wanted to like the new Superman cartoon, but this is really annoying to me:

This is Leslie Willis AKA Livewire.

And I just...

They completely missed the point of Livewire.

Leslie Willis was originally a controversial shock jock who would parrot hate-speech and spread misinformation on her show because it got her the most views. This was to contrast her with Lois Lane and Clark Kent’s more respectable journalism, and to illustrate what she really is–a massive attention whore.

That’s really why she became a villain in the first place–it got her way more notoriety than her previous career.

This is way more topical than it was in the 90s.

Making her a run-of-the-mill gangster/mercenary strips her of what makes Livewire a compelling villain for Superman, and a compelling villain in real life–she’s a person who genuinely does not care who she’s hurting as long as she gets the attention she thinks she’s entitled to.

They could’ve easily made her right-wing podcaster like Candice Owens, or Joe Rogan, or Ben Shapiro, or literally any of the misinformation attention whores we’re currently suffering under.

I know people are upset that they made Deathstroke look like he’s 20 years old, but if you ask me there’s way more mileage in the Livewire controversy because this Deathstroke is still fundamentally the same character.

You can’t say the same for Livewire.

[icedsodapop]

Look, I have been critical of Kamala Harris and her presidential campaign for the past few months. My biggest gripes with her are her support for Israel and her appealing to conservative and rightwing voters, among many other issues typical of liberal and centrist Democrats.

However, declining to appear on Joe Rogan's show is not a bad thing. In fact, I'd say this is one of few things I have to give Harris credit for. There is a subgroup of reactionary White leftists like the OP of the video that I get so frustrated by. This subgroup of reactionary White leftists love Joe Rogan, even tho he has literally hosted White supremacists, MAGA assholes and Zionists like Gavin McInnes and Bari Weiss, allowed his guests to tout islamophobia and transphobia on this podcast, and then there's the antiblackness.

I'm sick and tired of these White leftists thinking that Joe Rogan can be used as a useful idiot for the Left, becos the man is literally complicit in providing assholes a platform to market their products and spread misinformation about minorities. The enemy of our enemy is not our fucking friend, marginalized pple should not have to be thrown under buses just to appeal to reactionaries and criticizing this strategy is not "purity politics".

Refs about Joe Rogan bullshit:

[nando161mando]

A reminder that Spotify continues to find new ways to not pay smaller artists while simultaneously paying hundreds of millions of dollars to white supremacists like Joe Rogan.

Please consider other ways of getting your music.

[vague-humanoid]

I first heard about ghost artists in the summer of 2017. At the time, I was new to the music-streaming beat. I had been researching the influence of major labels on Spotify playlists since the previous year, and my first report had just been published. Within a few days, the owner of an independent record label in New York dropped me a line to let me know about a mysterious phenomenon that was “in the air” and of growing concern to those in the indie music scene: Spotify, the rumor had it, was filling its most popular playlists with stock music attributed to pseudonymous musicians—variously called ghost or fake artists—presumably in an effort to reduce its royalty payouts. Some even speculated that Spotify might be making the tracks itself. At a time when playlists created by the company were becoming crucial sources of revenue for independent artists and labels, this was a troubling allegation.

At first, it sounded to me like a conspiracy theory. Surely, I thought, these artists were just DIY hustlers trying to game the system. But the tips kept coming. Over the next few months, I received more notes from readers, musicians, and label owners about the so-called fake-artist issue than about anything else. One digital strategist at an independent record label worried that the problem could soon grow more insidious. “So far it’s happening within a genre that mostly affects artists at labels like the one I work for, or Kranky, or Constellation,” the strategist said, referring to two long-running indie labels.* “But I doubt that it’ll be unique to our corner of the music world for long.”

By July, the story had burst into public view, after a Vulture article resurfaced a year-old item from the trade press claiming that Spotify was filling some of its popular and relaxing mood playlists—such as those for “jazz,” “chill,” and “peaceful piano” music—with cheap fake-artist offerings created by the company. A Spotify spokesperson, in turn, told the music press that these reports were “categorically untrue, full stop”: the company was not creating its own fake-artist tracks. But while Spotify may not have created them, it stopped short of denying that it had added them to its playlists. The spokesperson’s rebuttal only stoked the interest of the media, and by the end of the summer, articles on the matter appeared from NPR and the Guardian, among other outlets. Journalists scrutinized the music of some of the artists they suspected to be fake and speculated about how they had become so popular on Spotify. Before the year was out, the music writer David Turner had used analytics data to illustrate how Spotify’s “Ambient Chill” playlist had largely been wiped of well-known artists like Brian Eno, Bibio, and Jon Hopkins, whose music was replaced by tracks from Epidemic Sound, a Swedish company that offers a subscription-based library of production music—the kind of stock material often used in the background of advertisements, TV programs, and assorted video content.

For years, I referred to the names that would pop up on these playlists simply as “mystery viral artists.” Such artists often had millions of streams on Spotify and pride of place on the company’s own mood-themed playlists, which were compiled by a team of in-house curators. And they often had Spotify’s verified-artist badge. But they were clearly fake. Their “labels” were frequently listed as stock-music companies like Epidemic, and their profiles included generic, possibly AI-generated imagery, often with no artist biographies or links to websites. Google searches came up empty.

In the years following that initial salvo of negative press, other controversies served as useful distractions for Spotify: the company’s 2019 move into podcasting and eventual $250 million deal with Joe Rogan, for example, and its 2020 introduction of Discovery Mode, a program through which musicians or labels accept a lower royalty rate in exchange for algorithmic promotion. The fake-artist saga faded into the background, another of Spotify’s unresolved scandals as the company increasingly came under fire and musicians grew more emboldened to speak out against it with each passing year.

Then, in 2022, an investigation by the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter revived the allegations. By comparing streaming data against documents retrieved from the Swedish copyright collection society STIM, the newspaper revealed that around twenty songwriters were behind the work of more than five hundred “artists,” and that thousands of their tracks were on Spotify and had been streamed millions of times.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Pfeiffer at The Message Box:

Even in a media environment where consumers have unlimited choices, a 60 Minutes interview is the coup de grace. A campaign would do almost anything to be featured. The highly-rated program comes on right after NFL football — making it the one thing on broadcast TV that still draws a mass audience. Donald Trump pulled out of the 60 Minutes interview, ceding the entire show to his opponent. In the campaign's final weeks, Trump also reportedly pulled out of interviews with CNBC and NBC News. He turned down an opportunity to participate in a prime-time CNN town hall. In fact, Trump didn’t do a single interview with a traditional news outlet in the campaign's final stretch. No national broadcast interviews, no sit-downs with local TV anchors or newspapers.

The winning candidate ignored the traditional media, focusing instead on partisan media outlets and politics-adjacent podcasts. While this change isn’t new, it seems clear that 2024 was a pivot point for the role of the legacy media in politics. Democratic communications strategies have evolved over the years — and the Harris campaign did some very innovative things. Nevertheless, our approach to communicating with voters continues to depend heavily on the legacy media. When we have something to say, we look for a cable or broadcast network to say it on. We spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the morning tipsheets and which surrogates are booked on cable news. New York Times headlines can be a party-wide obsession. Do Democrats need to follow Trump’s lead and break up with the legacy media? The Right Wing media’s advantage was particularly decisive during this election. This is the first in a series of posts discussing how Trump outmessaged us in the 2024 election and what we can do in the future. 

A Changed Dynamic

For a long time, the political press was the most powerful force in politics. So powerful that they were known as the “Fourth Estate” with the capacity to make or break a campaign. The list of failed presidential candidates who were unable to win over the tastemakers in the media is long. One can credibly argue that unfair press coverage from the New York Times and others were a significant factor in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss.

The traditional media has been losing relevance for a while now. The death spiral of the political media is a much longer, more complicated story (I wrote a lot about it in my most recent book), but there have been a few dynamics driving this descent.  The first is the rapid pace of technological innovation. Newspapers were once the most powerful entities in media. A presidential campaign wanted nothing more than a great picture on the front page of the Des Moines Register, Philadelphia Inquirer, or Detroit Free Press. Most local papers are shells of themselves — simply carrion for private equity to drain the last few cents before closing up shop. While the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are thriving, the Washington Post is bleeding money and full of controversy, and USA Today barely registers (I had to Google if it was still published). Cable and broadcast viewership is down as more consumers cut the cord or turn to social media for news. Legacy media is simply reaching fewer people. Second, the media reaches people who are less likely to believe what they read/see/hear. 

[...] A Data for Progress poll found that Kamala Harris won voters who consumed “a great deal” and “a lot” of news but lost the voters who consumed no news by a whopping 19 points.

The New New Media

The biggest media events of the 2024 campaign were not on 60 Minutes or Meet the Press. They didn’t involve the New York Times or any of the major cable channels. They were interviews with podcasters Joe Rogan and Alex Cooper. The media titans are influencers with large followings and parasocial relationships with their audiences. Many voters no longer trust media institutions, but instead trust folks with whom they often spend hours every week. A Pew Knight study found that one-in-five Americans – 37% of adults under 30 – regularly get their news from social media influencers. Trump and the Republicans have better understood this shift than Democrats. At the end of the campaign, nearly all of Trump’s media interactions were with Right-leaning podcasters commanding massive social media followings. During Trump’s victory speech, UFC boss Dana White came on stage and specifically thanked Adin Ross, the NELK Boys, Theo Von, and the folks from Barstool Sports. The GOP has actively tried to support their influencers with interviews and attention. While Kamala Harris did appear on Cooper’s wildly popular Call Her Daddy podcast, most Democrats kept podcasters and news influencers at arms length.

Dan Pfeiffer’s latest Message Box Substack post shows that the Democratic Party’s overreliance on legacy media at the expense of nontraditional media came back to bite them, and that Dems should focus more on nontraditional media outlets in addition to the legacy MSM.

[aloneandforsakenbyfateandbyman]

One of the most psychotic things to me is that people find Joe Rogan’s podcast to be…. Controversial. And some even think it should be banned for “spreading disinformation” LOL. Over time I’ve grown to appreciate Joe because he’s an inquisitive meathead who makes complex topics accessible for Americans who don’t read or engage intellectually with subjects bc their brains are fried by screen damage and tiktok, so I actually think he’s doing our dumbed down society a favour by being the modern day steroided Fear Factor version of Socrates.

Like he’s made zombified reactionary leftists defecate themselves once again bc he had RFK Jr on his show eviscerating big pharma and poor khoevid decisions which led to a literal Great Depression 2.0. They freaked out and called RFK Jr an anti-waxxer and “far right” etc. The latter of which has no meaning anymore because anybody who isn’t on a permanent CNN IV drip is apparently “far right.” We’re living in a timeline where Bobby Kennedy’s son is considered the equivalent of a /pol poster lmao.

It’s not like RFK Jr is a perfect candidate but I think Joe had a lot of guts to bring him on his show. And I’m stunned at how Bobby JR has the nerve to point out that the CIA literally murdered his dad and uncle bc he’s putting his own life on the line to do so. Not only that, but he called out the industrial military complex and the US funding of massive wars etc so I feel like he’s going to be the newest whacked Kennedy soon RIP I hope he and Joe both lift and inject TRT together and have some happy last days

[taylortruther]

I’m not american, but like basically the rest of europe i’m totally fixated on the upcoming US election. We watch with horror, but lately also a lot of empathy and perhaps a little bit of hope. I saw a thread on twitter where a loooooot of people talked about how they’ve lost close family and friends because of MAGA. And I can’t even imagine how frustrating it must be. And its just.. so sad. Do you live in a swing/red state? Do you like.. feel how divided the country is on a daily basis?

(Sorry if this is invasive and rude or something, i’m just so curious how it is to be in the middle of it)

i live in a deeply red state (texas), and in a liberal city, so i do feel it pretty regularly. and for anyone who doesn't know, a red state is one that is historically republican, meaning most people vote for republican candidates.

however, i also see - beyond political labels - how broken our system is, period. i live in austin, which is liberal, but the city is deeply racially segregated, gentrified to hell, historically enabled a corrupt police force (shocker!), and has regular power struggles with the very conservative texas government. plus, tech bros and tesla. i think what frustrates me the most is seeing people move here to enjoy a more liberal city and then just completely disengage from politics otherwise.

BUT i also see a lot of protests, since we're the capitol, plus ut is a huge university and located here. day to day, i feel i could easily go to almost any stranger, and commiserate about losing abortion access in texas. but anything more controversial or nuanced and i think i'd lose people. and if i left the downtown area/city limits, i would assume people are republicans, we're basically surrounded by very conservative areas (and that's the case for every major city in texas.)

the biggest thing i notice is that joe rogan fans and elon fans are everywhere, and that skews my above statement lmfao.

[paronymie]

thank you for writing this about joss because I've noticed it too. I'm not even a joss stan but back when people mentioned that he follows donald trump on X I checked out of curiosity and saw that he was following joe biden and barack obama too. then I checked his insta and he was following almost 1300 accounts but only a few were right-wing, I could recognize just 6. so I think it's unfair how people only mention him following these few controversial accounts when he also followed a lot of liberal and neutral accounts. and zero thai right-wingers, none. only pro-lgbt+ accounts. his list was actually surprisingly diverse. now he did a cleanup and doesn't follow anything political anymore. he unfollowed many non-political pages too. I don't know, this "controversy" seems overblown to me and dishonest. I've seen people comparing him to certain actors who have actually shared or expressed bigoted beliefs, and I think it's unfair because afaik joss never did such thing

Yeah i'm weirded out too, and I'm not even someone who likes to voice my opinion much online. I understand the wariness because the far-right figures he followed are very nasty individuals with harmful beliefs, but I am also wary of cancelling someone who has not expressed bigoted beliefs openly and publicly (people saying that he quoted Tate or others on Twitter are welcome to provide a link - I haven't seen anything other than the Joe Rogan quote he's got pinned). And if his American following must mean that he is a bigot, then by following the same logic, his Thai following makes him a liberal? This is a reminder, to me at least, that someone's online presence is in no way a replacement for knowing them personally.

The amount of projecting has got me peeved, and I'm not even a stan, or a fan of Joss either, but what a weird situation.

[darkmaga-returns]

Officially red-pilled Hollywood icon Mel Gibson sat down with Joe Rogan yesterday—and is it just me or is Mel looking more and more like Del Bigtree’s sexy older brother every day?—

—and it nearly broke the internet. It seems that at the very time of the interview, Mel’s $14.5 million Malibu mansion (along with roughly 9,000 other structures, but who’s counting?) was burning to the ground in one of the many horrific SoCal fires currently raging. Alert the media! Stop the presses! All hacks on deck!

During the otherwise all-but-ignored-by-MSM interview—other than to call it controversial—Mel casually mentioned having three friends who had been diagnosed with stage four cancer and completely cured themselves using red-headed stepdrugs like ivermectin, fenbendazole, and methylene blue. Gibson also recounted the tragic tale of catching Covid from his gardener of twenty years. “We both went to the same hospital, we both got remdesivir, and he died and I didn’t,” said Gibson, adding, “I couldn’t walk for three months after I had that stuff.”

[namtanlovesfilm]

I know you're done with joss asks and I 100% get you, so you don't have to reply to this, but I just wanted to add that he doesn't have the "be the hero of your own movie" by joe rogan quote pinned anymore, the quote that is his pinned now is by his friend Kevin. atp I feel like people are just making additional shit up cause claiming that joss is cancelled by thai fandom is a big massive shameless lie. I couldn't find a single thai account criticizing joss. I'm cool with people not vibing with joss, but they don't have to invent lies about th fandom in order to justify their stance. not to mention how intentionally skewed and insincere that one post is. it's designed to be interpreted in the worst possible way. ignoring for a second that some of the pages claimed weren't among his followed ones, even most of those that were are misleading. eg. they claimed he followed JBP. well, no, he didn't follow JBP on twitter or his official page on instagram, instead he followed this random collection of quotes: https://preview.redd.it/discussion-thread-about-joss-social-media-follows-v0-s45kr4abclce1.jpeg?width=1186&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=246e514ec57b322770abc2ddf2b338a45b53cfbf, which was just one of the many motivational quote pages he followed at some point. imho it doesn't automatically makes him a JBP stan, it's just a stupid page with basic ass quotes 😭 ugh, this is so negative, srry. I love your blog so much and you're my favorite gif master ❤️

alright this will probably be the last joss ask I answer for a while, and thank you for the compliment at the end I'm glad you appreciate my blog 💜 I do not doubt for one second that there is some (if not a lot) of misinformation about this joss situation out there. that's why I feel like he really should make a statement about it to settle it once & for all, which he likely won't. and the reason why he won't is, like you said, that the thai fans don't know or give a fuck about his political following. 1) most of the thai actors controversies actually happen in the international part of the fandom which is widely americanized, especially on tumblr where half of the users are americans. 2) if you look at the gmmtv actors who have apologized for a controversy in the past (as examples phuwin, pond, krist, new, ohm, etc.) it was ALWAYS when that controversy was huge in the THAI fandom, not just the international one. why? bc while inter fans are great at promoting & adding views to gmmtv shows, thai fans matter so much more to gmmtv. they're the ones who go to the concerts, events, fanmeets & pay an insane amount of money for their idols. however now that gmmtv is doing more international fanmeets & counting more on unter fans' money, it'll be interesting to see how this will evolve. so to go back to joss, the reason he hasn't addressed it is bc he knows this will not taint his career. thai fans don't care & they're the ones who matter most, and inter fans will forget once they see him making out shirtless with gawin in mgb. so I get why he's not doing it, but I so wish he would. not bc it's the best thing to do for his career, but bc it's the RIGHT thing to do. and that for me right here is why I don't feel comfortable supporting him directly anymore.

xxx

[everyepisodeofallymcbeal]

S1 E1 - Pilot

Maybe I'm saying this as a millennial (born 1993, or 4 b.m. -- before McBeal) but there is something so... specific (?) about watching 90s TV. The 4:3 ratio of old TVs, the colors, the quintessential geometry of 90s TV hair. Ah, the 90s! What a time to be alive: smoking in restaurants, I didn't know what a credit score was yet, it was the end of history!

Also, the SOUND! The sound of these shows is so appealing. I'm not talking about the music (at the end, we had 3ish minutes of a woman's voice soulfully wailing over a piano) but literally the production/mixing of the dialogue. Typically, I find myself watching Netflix/etc. with subtitles on so I don't miss a line of dialogue. But the sound balance in Ally McBeal comes across crisp, loud, and again, a distinct feature of 90s TV production.

On to the episode...

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Amidst the Frasurbane aesthetics of the late Clinton years, we meet Ally. The pre-opening-credits sequence (see previous post) shows us a young Ally in love with her boyfriend Billy as pre-teen paramours. Their relationship lasts from youth to law school at Harvard. After a year of law school, Billy decides to transfer to Michigan to get a spot on their law review; in doing so, he breaks up with Ally.

In present-day Boston, Ally quits her job at a law firm due to a senior partner's sexual harassment. To feign innocence, the senior partner (whomst I'll refer to as Mr. Mustache because I do not remember the character name) claims to have OCD, which compels him to squeeze women's butts, and uses this sham diagnosis to avoid punishment. Upon learning of this injustice, Ally immediately quits the firm. While walking out the door and onto the sidewalk, she bumps into an old friend from law school, Richard Fish (did I mention she went to Harvard?). This friend immediately offers Ally a job at his new firm, Cage & Fish. I love a plot point like this in a TV show. I get it, you need to set up a back story in 10 minutes or less, then get on to building characters and relationships. It can't be purely logical and reasonable. But it also sounds like this is how boomers and white-collar Gen-Xers got jobs before application portals and AI resume screening.

Cage & Fish is not like other law firms, they're a ~fun firm~. Mostly what makes them ~fun~ is the gender-neutral bathroom. And Richard Fish is shown to be obsessed with making money. That detail is used in a flashback as a joke, but like... you went to Harvard Law, I already assumed you didn't have morals and enrolled there to maximize your income slay. The gender-neutral bathroom detail I knew about Ally McBeal (the show not the woman) before watching, as a concept that has floated around in pop culture.

I'm not sure how I feel about the gender-neutral bathroom. Not due to any gender issues, but because of the architecturally open floorplan layout of the bathroom. Everyone is hyperexposed to every sound, smell, and splash of their coworkers' excretory varia. It's also a little upsetting to think about how this concept would be even more controversial today due to transphobic culture warriors creating the fake issue of bathroom usage. I love to be distracted by cultural conflict instead of building class consciousness!! How about you? Sorry, back to the episode. Wait, no, one last comment -- if a show today tried to have a gender-neutral bathroom on it, you'd have Jiminy Bumfuck from East-East-South Tampa pausing his episode of the Joe Rogan podcast to Google "Ally McBeel address" to try and mail Calista Flockhart a poorly-made pipe bomb. Maybe the loss of shop class in high school curricula was a good thing? Jiminy Bumfuck, of course, was encouraged in this venture by an X (née twitter) post from M4rjori3 T4yl0r Gr33ne. And if this post is ever used in a court of law, you should know that my newly diagnosed OCD causes me to say outrageous things for attention and I would never besmirch a lawmaker under my own volition! Now back to the show.

Ally starts at Cage & Fish, and is introduced to her assistant JENNA MARONEY. Ahem, let me try again. JENNA MA- ok, let me do this one more time. She's introduced to her assistant and star of TGS with Tracy Jordan, Elaine, played by Jane Krakowski. Elaine is very good at her job, and straight up should be a lawyer. Instead, she's Ally's assistant, staying on top of every case and all ongoings at Cage & Fish. She takes her job seriously, is literal to a fault, and very annoying. We didn't have the language for this in the 90s, but she clearly has autism. And VERY curly hair! But mostly autism.

Also working at Cage & Fish, and the emotional crux of the show, is ALLY'S EX, BILLY THOMAS. He's supposedly a very good lawyer (even though he went to Michigan (Ally went to Harvard, in case you didn't know)). Something I loved about the scenes between Ally and Billy were their joint usage of wispy bangs. Ally has the classic 90s wispy bang, with 4-9 sandy-brown tendrils bouncing across her forehead. Sometimes those tendrils get pushed up or to the side, to show that she's serious--or more likely as a continuity error. It's also so refreshing to see Billy with a wispy bang too. His hair doesn't really know what it's wants to do, so it just sort of comes forward and sits there to frame his face but remind you he's still young doesn't have it all figured out himself. Metaphor alert!

Ally is still desperately in love with Billy. Which is complicated by the fact that Billy is now married, and his wife Georgia is a lawyer at another firm! Georgia confronts Ally at her apartment about how they both love Billy and hate each other. Ok, sure, that seems normal. It's so confusing sometimes to be a girl, I guess. I hope that by the end of the series they can work it out on the remix.

Why is she in love with Billy? In the (admittedly) brief time we've known these characters, we don't learn much about Billy or his supposed charms. All we know is that he has a strong jawline, wears suspenders in the office, and I guess is a good lawyer. We have evidence that their relationship was built not on shared interestsor compatibility, but purely time. Speaking of time, how old is Ally McBeal supposed to be? Calista Flockhart was 33 at the time the pilot aired. Before I even looked up that fact, I assumed that they were in their early 30s. Billy would have broken up with her around age 23/24. It's been at least 7-9 years since you have SEEN or HEARD from this man, and you fall in love again at first sight? Ally, you don't need another dusty lavender skirt suit, you need THERAPY.

Ally has a roommate, Renee. Boston rent is expensive, but come on Ally, you're a corporate lawyer; you can get a 1-bed on your income! Renee is also the only person of color who had lines in the episode. There's a scene toward the end where Georgia is in Ally's office, and then Renee comes in to seemingly bully Georgia (why do we pit women against each other!), and all three women are wearing suits in three distinct but deeply Clinton-era shades of beige-inflected purple.

Also in this episode, we see some TV lawyers get to work! And of course, practicing the law is never as straightforward as you think. Although the way they "win" the sexual harassment case, by secretly recording Mr. Mustache, probably isn't legal in Massachusetts, I do love to see women win! The second case is about a Playboy-esque magazine being sued for libel for printing a comic about a priest involved in an affair. The judge gets sooooo angry about the print media! And how they "stoop so low to sell magazines"! Ah, the print media, how quaint. I'm not a lawyer but I do like the inclusion of legal cases in TV shows. It's sort of like a logic puzzle embedded into the plot! I find that charming and yes I was more of an indoors recess kid, why do you ask?

While Ally tries to figure out life, love, and the law, we get a peek into her psyche through surreal daydreams -- a child-sized Ally sitting in a giant chair when she feels insecure in a meeting, or arrows shooting into Ally's chest upon Billy informing Ally of his marriage. This is fun! This is what the show is about. This puts us on Ally's side, makes us root for her even through her foibles and imperfections. The audience wants to see into the internal world of Ally, but as the mulit-camera, stage play style sitcom grew out of fashion in the late 90s, we wanted to know what these characters were thinking/feeling without hammy over-acting of, say, The Nanny, or saccharine emotional turns of Friends. These daydreams have a direct link to the use of 1-on-1 character interviews in mockumentary style shows like The Office of Modern Family -- to make obvious the internal worlds of the characters and serve as a punchline. The ironic and fast-paced tone of the show my keep us at arm's length, but Ally's fantasies invite us in just enough to make us empathize.

The politics of the show are a snapshot into the not-too-distant past: is sexual harassment bad or funny? Should Ally flirt with the potential clients to get their business? Isn't it funny that one of the potential clients iS A LeSbiAn?! There are two instances where "fat" is a punchline. You can't get too precious about the political correctness of a TV show from a pre-iPhone world. But I am looking forward to see how this point of view comes across through the advancing sexual and racial politics of the late 90s and early 2000s.

Overall I like the show! I like that Ally is a flawed hero. Which, yes, is a euphemism for annoying. The type of girl who would dominate a lunchtime conversation with tales of how "everyone" in her office is being "so dumb" but very quickly you understand that she is the villain in every story she tells. Otherwise, the show is pretty fast-paced and joke-dense. I'm not sold on some of the character relationships/details, but eh, the pilot episode needs to set up a lot in a limited amount of time. TV is supposed to be for turning off part of your brain and going along for the ride. I'm looking forward to watching these goofballs get along. It's clear that on Ally McBeal, nothing is black and white. Instead, it's these very 90's shades of charcoal and ecru.

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I've decided to watch the show and write about it because I needed to hmmm feel like I have a goal to accomplish and use my brain so it doesn't turn to mush during this time of unemployment. I make no promises about the length or even content of future posts. Thanks for randomly reading this!