Why did I ever listen to Joe Rogan?

As every generation grows older, some of our most cherished memories will become hilariously entrenched with feelings of 'what was I thinking?!' regret - your parents' 80's perms taking centre stage in their wedding photos for example. In more recent years, millennials are looking back on our skinny jeans and man bun phase with a simmering embarrassment.

Thankfully most of our most regretful phases are in the fashion and hairstyle department but for a lot of men, looking back on their podcast era, will have slightly different flavour of regret - why were we listening to this tiny little, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, racist piece of human garbage?

How can this man who's very name elicits a groan today be the same guy I used to listen to speak about aliens for over 2 hours at a time, just a matter of years ago?

Well let's explore it...

For many of us, the podcast boom of the 2010's gave us a great new way to help pass the time at work or on long drives and while most of us were still figuring out what the hell a podcast was, the Joe Rogan Experience was already dominating the downloads as one of the top podcasts in the world building listeners since 2009.

So we can be forgiven for giving it a listen at first, right? What did we really know about him? A comedian interviewing conspiracy theorists and professional fighters, harmless... surely.

Like many of the early victims of the Joe Rogan Experience, I was Mixed Martial Arts fan growing up and so I was suckered in by the familiar voice of the colour commentator, the pyramids were built by ancient aliens? Sure, tell me more. From the get go, we're not expecting big things intellectually, but where were the red flags for him being so harmful? Well, in the early days Mx Rogan represented themselves as a happy-go-lucky comedian that was super progressive and liberal - a man who used to think world leaders should just smoke weed and do psychedelics and we could end all wars.

Where did it all go wrong? Well I guess that all depends what episodes you watched, when you would inevitably get a glimpse inside the workings of the man's mind. His politics came on to my radar when he slowly but intensely developed an obsession with the trans community. Initially disguised as curiosity and naivety, a dark obsessive fear and hatred began to spill over into most of his conversations. Why? Let's leave the Joe Rogan is gay conversation for another time.

Strangely enough, his lambasting of trans people coincided with him becoming captain of the 'can't say anything anymore' brigade; a fear I hoped would be contained to worrying about his shit jokes being criticised. Like many men who spent too long thinking they were really nice guys, it didn't appear like little Joe was ready for criticism or accountability and instead decided that anyone who disagrees with him is just a woke snowflake who can't appreciate his comedic genius or hardcore facts.

Like a well meaning but problematic uncle, you might have thought this is his one thing he's a bit backwards about but once he has some exposure he'll surely change his opinions. Well you'd a million fucking miles away because once the alarm bells are rung and you start to really listen to the man and you realise he's always been a misogynistic homophobe and then you watch him quickly spiral into a state of right wing mania.

If hatred is too strong a pivot at this point, don't worry the man cannot stop finding ways to be worse. Bearing in mind he's just a dumb comedian asking questions, he can't possibly be held accountable for who he platforms to his ten million plus monthly listeners. He innocently goes onto consistently platform racist billionaires like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel (and dozens of Thiel's army of grifters, spreading science misinformation), convicted rapist Mike Tyson, all without asking a single uncomfortable question. Why? is our champion of manhood and weight lifting a huge coward or a piece of shit?

Well coward, scumbag or both the unofficial king of masculinity is the kind of man who interviews Donald Trump as a presidential candidate, previously impeached and accused of rape and sexual assault, for several hours and doesn't come close to holding them accountable for their crimes.

So can we be forgiven for tuning in to listen to Sir Roger Penrose before we knew any better? The better question is should we be embarrassed and despise the hate and stupidity machine that is Joe Rogan and his podcast? Absolutely.