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The reason lads want Joe Rogan His podcast is pure Gen-X masculinity

The New Man? (Credit: Spotify/Joe Rogan Experience)

The New Man? (Credit: Spotify/Joe Rogan Experience)


September 29, 2023   5 mins

In terms of scale, there are podcasts, then there is The Joe Rogan Experience. The difference is an order of magnitude. If The Joe Rogan Experience were a pop single, it would make Bryan Adams’s monolithic 16-week stint at Number One in 1991 look like “I’ll Be Back” by Arnee and The Terminators. The total pre-eminence of the JRE enrages and confuses the podcast industry, whose workers tend to be faithful representatives of the tote-bag class. As an article of faith, Rogan’s work is deemed to be at best crude, possibly a fluke, and certainly a sump for “disinformation”. Success leaves clues, but when it comes to the most popular show in the world, no one is dusting for fingerprints.

So the cognitive dissonance was palpable when the country’s first Rajars-style consumer survey of podcasts was published last week, offering the best snapshot yet of what Britain listens to. Much of the top 25 paints the UK as essentially and irredeemably twee. No Such Thing As A Fish — gadzooks trivia from high-end neckbeards. Off Menu: whimsical comfort-eating celeb fodder. The Therapy Crouch: Peter Crouch having a mind-numbingly pleasant chinwag with his missus. Shagged Married Annoyed: exactly what it says. The Rest Is Politics: a show built around the heartwarming premise that the last 20 years can be neatly scooped up and packed away.

But at the top of the charts were two shows that pointed towards something hiding in plain sight. A missing market: the market for men. Podcasts are a confessional booth medium, after all. Up and down the train carriage, no one knows what’s in anyone else’s earbuds. As economists would put it, they are an example of “revealed preference” as opposed to “stated preference”. What you actually want, rather than what you think you should want. And by their mass adoption of Rogan, it seems that what men want is the old tradition of the men’s magazine, continued by other means.

At the start of the 2010s, the last of that old world — the shining city on a hill of Arena, Select, Nuts, Jack, Loaded — finally fell away. We were told this was because there was a new lad in town. Softer, kinder, he could “do better”, if he avoided his inherent “toxicity”. He had the feeling of inevitability that all modern archetypes take on. Vice threw off its buccaneering spirit, and actively mocked its old ways. Even LadBible, once at the end of a scale that could genuinely be termed toxic, has reformed itself into the doughy shapes of the maaate cultural revolution.

The message of the new man was gynocentric: by 2013, the conversation among women had begun to guide what men’s interest media looked like. Men took note of this important new datapoint: they softened their image, nodded along. Then, as the podcast charts show, secretly went back to listening to bodybuilding tips, insane stories of shark attacks, reasons why the pyramids were built by aliens, how fugitive Nazis founded actual colonies in South America, what it’s like to kill a moose, and what Tim Dillon thinks of twerking children. In short, they went back to what men’s magazines had always been about. Not connecting with a sort of soft Jeremy Corbyn vibe. Not trying to figure out complex relationships.

If Rogan is the pure Gen-X vision of masculinity — basically every self-educated stoner at a 1999 house party, who has that old-school vision of hating both the military-industrial complex and political correctness — then the second-most listened to podcast in Britain is his Zoomer cognate. Steve Bartlett is a marketing entrepreneur who flipped his social-media agency into big money ($660 million at its apex valuation) by the age of 25. This earned him a chair on Dragon’s Den. Now, in his twilight years (30), Diary of a CEO is solidly wedged at the top of younger listeners’ (17-34) playlists, as the Edison Research survey confirms.

First listens don’t immediately reveal its appeal. Like many other podcasts — The Lex Fridman Show, Sam Harris’s Making Sense, Hidden Forces — it takes the format of “slightly naive guy interviews top experts about big picture stuff”. Bartlett is obviously likeable. He comes across as humble, genuinely curious. He’s marketed the show well, and curated his guest list better. They all come with their A-game. Information, certainty, high performance. It’s not a giggly show for kicking ideas about: it’s an earnest attempt to mine their life’s experience for info nuggets. How to get your brain off porn. When to double-down on a job and when to quit. How to build resilience. Being consistent.

In DOAC’s world, almost every insight is usable; no part of the buffalo is wasted. The past decade has seen an explosion in media-savvy self-help gurus, whose profusion has sparked a quantum leap in just how well-adapted and productive the average person can be. Bartlett is at the forefront of that codifying impulse — the urge to absorb all of it. He has that kind of mind: the stone-cold work ethic of someone never truly at rest. The very first episode describes his entrepreneurial origin myth: aged 20, living in the worst area of Manchester, working every hour, so poor that he resorted to pinching food from empty tables in pubs.

Bartlett is unique in many aspects of his back story (he was born in Botswana to an illiterate mother, for a start), yet he also sums up a particular Geriatric Zoomer/Young Millennial way of engaging with the world. He’s the avatar of what they call hustle culture: the obsession with putting in the hours in your own business or scheme. Here, the ultimate aim is to achieve a kind of earthly perfection that previous generations might’ve looked at as square. This is the New Man. He’s neurotic but well-adjusted. He works hard. He does not play all that hard.

Bartlett’s “internet entrepreneur” origins speak to the core of that hustle culture identity. He’s literally on the board of Huel, the makers of a wildly popular Soylent-style meal replacement. The “complete nutritional shake” is fast becoming a lifestyle in itself to a certain kind of 20-something man, and for boys whose bedroom furniture comprises a single pair of dumbbells. They are the ones filing life down to a smooth nubbin, until it doesn’t contain anything that doesn’t add to some personal P&L account.

This, young men often mistakenly believe, is how you get girls. Being industrious. Having your shit together. Making it. In reality, this sort of monoculture is an instant turn-off. But the task of living fully can seem so daunting that it’s easy to double down on an internet grab-bag of tips and tactics and sheer Nietzschean will. Cannily, Diary of a CEO also styles itself as the antidote to the problems of this way of life. In his origin myth, Bartlett “thought he would figure it out” when he made his first million but he “quickly realised he knew nothing”. So it’s a show as much about how to sustain relationships, how to re-examine your old ways, how to work around the dreaded Mental Elf.

There are many overlaps between how Gen X men view the world, and how the younger generations do. Both Rogan and Bartlett believe religiously in self-improvement. Both think that life is a hackable system, and delight in finding the short-cuts. But Rogan’s top paradigm is still open-loop. It’s ultimately a shrug. Did the Mafia kill Kennedy? I dunno, but it’s fun to think about. Can the sulforaphane found in young Brussel sprouts reverse the aging process? Well that would be cool.

With Bartlett, there is a sense that he does still feel there is an ultimate answer out there. That you can clock life. It’s an almost spiritual impulse, a syncretic belief in something better. All this hustle, it’s just got to add up to something. And in the absence of greater meanings, many are working out at a gnostic temple of the perfectible self. Overall, it might be nice if the world knew what to do with its biggest audio show.

The idea that “we the people” condemned the “Nasty Noughties” and its toxic men to the trashcan of history is a top-down reading that doesn’t stack up. In truth, the bits of masculinity we’ve suppressed are just living in a thumb-necked mixed martial artist’s basement in Texas. And the bits of masculinity we can still tolerate are on Diary of a CEO. With the blizzard of entertainment options, “water cooler moments” in media are supposed to be over by now. But what the success of Rogan shows is that there is actually a giant water cooler out there, that is accessed by millions each week, who try not to talk to strangers about it. Somewhere, there is a fusion position.


Gavin Haynes is a journalist and former editor-at-large at Vice.

@gavhaynes

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Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago

The success of podcasts in general is down to the desire to hear genuine conversations and discussions. These last an hour or more and are not catered for the TV channels who assumed that attention spans had been reduced to a few minutes and needed interviews to slot into broadcast schedules. The success of both Bartlett and Rogan are down to the failures and dishonesty of the mainstream media channels.
Bartlett is thoughtful, well prepared and empathetic, everything most TV journalists think they are but are not. His best shows are with non-public figures with a story to tell. His weakness is that he is non-confrontational and doesn’t challenge his guests when they need challenging. He is the polar opposite of Cathy Newman. Being mixed race himself probably helps attract some of his guests.
Rogan’s success is down to his honesty. He says what he thinks and he is prepared to admit errors. His early podcasts were unstructured and largely with people he knew from his careers in comedy, wrestling and the media. People wanted to hear these conversations, which were similar to a chat down the pub. Rogan has a mind that is best summed up by his refusal to continue eating industrial meat. He decided he either had to become a vegetarian or else hunt his own meat. He was also openly pro-marijuana and got Musk to smoke his first joint on the JRE. Because he had become too big to cancel, he had the ability as well as the will to challenge the propaganda being broadcast by legacy media. He supported Bernie and Tulsi in their campaigns for the Democrat nomination in 2016 and 2020. He challenged the lies of the Covid vaccine makers and their political supporters. He stands for free speech when the corporate and political powers want to silence their critics.

Last edited 1 year ago by Christopher Barclay
Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago

Pretty much my thoughts entirely. In a funny sort of way I think the podcasts I listen to have replaced the pub conversations I used to enjoy. In days of yore one could express an opinion, loosely based on fact and jumpstart a lively conversation. Now, any contentious remark will be fact checked by someone on a smart phone and strangled at birth. Blokes talking b*llo*cks with other blokes is a (probably evolved) human need that a measure of people don’t understand. Including my ex wife. Anyway FWIW, I recommend Chris Williamson’s Modern Wisdom and the elephant in the room, Dark Horse.

Last edited 1 year ago by Simon Blanchard
Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
1 year ago

Absolutely, they were conspicuously left out. Interesting.

Susanne Schwameis
Susanne Schwameis
1 year ago

yup 100%

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
1 year ago

This response may just be better written and more concise than the article I just read. Also, women tend to like strong men who are honest and have a sense of humor, so I don’t see how “toxicity” has anything to do with this conversation. This seems way more like a Vice article than an Unherd one, honestly. Like, it almost gets there, and some of the writing is clever… but mostly it’sa disappointment

Marcus Leach
Marcus Leach
1 year ago

This piece is demonstrative of the reason why Rogan is popular. It is a snarky, patronising, one sided misrepresentation of its subject, rigidly framed from the author’s narrow political bias.
Rogan’s primary virtue is that, although he may have a provisional view on a subject, he is open to having his mind changed. If a guest comes on and they can provide good solid arguments and evidence as to why what Rogan thinks is incorrect, he is prepared to alter his opinions accordingly.
Rather than the author’s spurious characterisation of Rogan’s guests as cranks and knuckle draggers, his other virtue is that he has an enormous range in his guests: comedians, philosophers, politicians from all sides, ex-cons. MMA fighters. He offers genuine diversity of subject matter and opinion, and doesn’t kowtow to the liberal “progressive” class’s blacklist of people and opinions that should not permitted to be heard.
The open ended long show format and diverse subject matter allows viewers to get a good sense of who Rogan is as a person. My impression is that he is a curious, self-reflective , open minded and fair individual who is trying to get to the truth of things through normal, honest conversation with his guests.
It is highly encouraging to know that there are so many younger people in particular who are listening to Rogan. Open minded, questioning. people who understand how to interrogate arguments and ideas is what humanity needs as an antidote to the leftist “progressive indoctrinated drones that are coming off the production lines of our education institutions

Last edited 1 year ago by Marcus Leach
Fletcher Walton
Fletcher Walton
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Leach

“My impression is that he is a curious, self-reflective, open minded and fair individual who is trying to get to the truth of things through normal, honest conversation with his guests.”

Entirely accurate.

“Curious” and “open-minded”: arguably to a fault – Joe often sounds credulous to British ears, particularly concerning aliens, which he readily admits – but better to be open than closed, and better to be ready to learn than refuse to change.

“Self-reflective”: admirably so, and publicly, but without artifice and never close to maudlin.

“Fair”: one of his defining attributes. Almost every week he’ll opine, briefly or otherwise, with compassion and righteous dismay on the political inertia that has created misery across inner cities, on how his nation needs to do more to create more winners and fewer losers. Within his industry, he’s railed against joke thieves and bad practices, and he’s very clearly helpful, supportive, generous and fair.

Rogan is not a newscaster or an interviewer or a journalist. He’s a bloke having conversations with friends and with people whose lives and ideas and work he finds interesting. The surprising histrionics of the legacy media’s reaction to that serves mainly as an indictment of the legacy media’s own considerable failings.

Jonathan Nash
Jonathan Nash
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Leach

Quite. His conversation with Roger Penrose – yes, the Nobel prize winning physicist – was superb.

Ian S
Ian S
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Leach

Agree entirely. I would add to your comment: “It is a snarky, patronising, one sided misrepresentation…” the hyphenated words ‘turgidly-written‘. 

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Leach

You’re right. Rogan is one of the most appealing personalities in all English language media because he does not compete with his interlocutors. He collaborates. He is strong enough not to have to impose his personality on the discussion in the trivial, point-scoring way that weaker men — Bill Maher, say, or Nick Robinson on the BBC – feel compelled to.

Lucas
Lucas
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Leach

Very well put!

Sue Frisby
Sue Frisby
1 year ago

I’m female, in my sixties and I think Joe Rogan is great. I don’t listen to the fighting or comedy guests but the rest is always worth a listen and some are brilliant. Joe seems an authentic person and his show is important.

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
1 year ago
Reply to  Sue Frisby

I agree. I really like J.Rogan and I am neither generation X nor a man, lol.
I got to know and like his podcasts as he kept me sane during the whole insane Covid period. (Btw. Thank you Freddie and your interviews of Swedish scientists during the same period) Rogan interviewed all the so called controversial doctors and scientists, who were banned on most news outlets. I gained new perspectives, away from the constant onslaught of propaganda of gloom and doom by the MSM and politicians. Since then I really enjoy many of Rogan‘s podcasts, because he is not aggressive, but in his honest calm manner gets the best out of his interviewees.

Last edited 1 year ago by Stephanie Surface
Kate Martin
Kate Martin
1 year ago
Reply to  Sue Frisby

Totally. I’m in my sixties, too, and love him. When people want to piss on Joe Rogan, they’re usually spewing something someone told them to think. You know, “right think”. I usually ask them which episode they didn’t care for. Then they’re the deer in the headlights because they have never ever watched a JRE episode.

Zirrus VanDevere
Zirrus VanDevere
1 year ago
Reply to  Sue Frisby

Same! (Almost 60, anyhow). This was a really disappointing article… and the responses are generally more honest and thoughtful

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago

All sounds exhausting to me. What’s wrong with the well trodden path of going to work, earning the wages, getting pi**ed up at the weekend, trying (often failing) to pull some tart, eventually getting stuck with one, knocking out some kids and then watching your money disappear and the fun nights out becoming much less frequent, by which point you’re too old and knackered to care anyway? All this looking for meaning is just a distraction, just enjoy yourselves and deal with any problems that may arise. Life’s mostly chance anyway

0 0
0 0
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Leftist prudes struggling with the void left by the departure of Christianity. They are happy that Christianity is no longer influential, but the resent the fact that with it gone they no longer have a stool to use stand upon that they can use to tell people what to do. They don’t resent the fact that the morality is gone but resent the fact that the authority it offered no longer exist. So instead they invented a, twisted secularized derivative version of Christianity that suits their control freak impulses. Thus the rise I wokeness. They say that they’re doing this to get rid of evil in the world, but reality is just a means of catering to their pathological desire for power over others.

John Murray
John Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  0 0

Yeah. Particularly with some journalists and academic talking heads they seem to me to want to be “the priests.” As if they should given the social authority and capital the priesthood used to hold, while they’ve also burned down all the moral framework and structures that supported priestly authority. Then they rage about these awful people who don’t listen to them, the self-anointed righteous ones.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  John Murray

They have always been the gatekeepers of information. That privileged role is crumbling now and this is a reaction to that – similar to the scribes and church after the invention of the printing press.

Harry Child
Harry Child
1 year ago
Reply to  0 0

C.S.Lewis got it right when he wrote “but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” 1949

Alex Carnegie
Alex Carnegie
1 year ago
Reply to  Harry Child

Good quote. I am going to nick that.

Mike MacCormack
Mike MacCormack
1 year ago
Reply to  Alex Carnegie

CS Lewis believed in God, with a passion. Ergo he was a nutcase.

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago

Well played on the sarcasm.

S Wilkinson
S Wilkinson
1 year ago
Reply to  Harry Child

Brilliant! Sums up the entire Diversity, Equity and Inclusion takeover.

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago
Reply to  0 0

Think it’s Tom Holland (the historian one) who pointed out that with Christianity gone, the inheritors of Chrstianity’s finger-wagger tendency don’t have Jesus to compare their finger-waggees’ conduct with.

The way they get around that is to define’good’ as the opposite of what the Nazis did.

The result – because they are bored and no believes anything they say is anything other than trivial – is that they are very good at finding ‘Nazis’ . . . everywhere.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dumetrius
Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Well said.

Jim Haggerty
Jim Haggerty
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

I’m still chuckling at this one…well said and spot on

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

I enjoy listening to Joe Rogan. Don’t have much interest in MME or comedians so I don’t listen too often. He’s authentic.

McExpat M
McExpat M
1 year ago

Is this about Gen X masculinity or a total void of solid masculine role models full stop in the mainstream? I can’t think of one man of the Left that my teenage sons would think is worthwhile. The culture has done a fine job of denigrating everything on the masculine side of the spectrum. My sons are awash in racial and gender theories that all point to the patriarchy as the single boogeyman to be routed out to reach a utopian state of equity. When you are a young man and you are tacitly guilty of everything but conversely see all the victims around you doing quite well, it’s deranging. Basically they see right through the shit. Boys require strong role models to come of age. The lucky ones still have fathers in intact homes. Many do not. We can deconstruct Joe’s appeal all we want but his popularity is undeniable. Maybe it’s time the mainstream actually learned that authenticity matters, male preferences are an actual thing, no matter how much you attempt to neuter, and toxicity is a human trait not solely attributed to males.

Stuart Bennett
Stuart Bennett
1 year ago

A refreshingly positive take on the so called Manosphere. Thanks very much.

(I’ve noticed that with Joe Rogan, like Jordan Peterson the intensity of people’s disdain for them has a directly inverse relationship to the amount of time they’ve spent listening to them)

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago
Reply to  Stuart Bennett

But Zoe Williams in The Guardian says they’re Bad, so why do you need to listen to them?

Last edited 1 year ago by UnHerd Reader
Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

You don’t.
I can tell you every single thing they will say on any given topic.

Dylan Blackhurst
Dylan Blackhurst
1 year ago

I love a podcast and the two discussed above are top of my list.

Joe Rogan’s appeal is easy. He’s a guy. Pure and simple. His curiosity and willingness to listen to genuinely controversial people (eg Ted Nugent, Alex Jones etc) is to be applauded. I would rather be aware of what lurks at the loonier edge of society than not. The MMA stuff doesn’t interest me, but some of the comedians do have some interesting insights.

And Diary of a CEO is again is interesting. I would say there is something slightly irritating about Mr Bartlett. I can’t figure out if his earnestness is genuine or manufactured. His constant references to his relationship are also a bit wearing. But hey, once you get past that he has some fascinating guests.

I would add if these two interest you, then Chris Williamson’s Modern Wisdom is definitely worth a listen. A kind of half way point between the two above.

Maximus Decimus Merridius II
Maximus Decimus Merridius II
1 year ago

Definitely manufactured…. Maybe

Susanne Schwameis
Susanne Schwameis
1 year ago

I am a woman (!) AND I do enjoy listening to Joe Rogan’s podcast every now and then. less so to the MMA content and most comedians that are only popular overseas and not here in Europe but for the eclectic guest roster. And often I find that he invites people with all kinds of different viewpoints on a topic and doesn’t try to sell you one particular one. often also very eclectic mix of topics being discussed.
But I guess I’m the last of the Gen X generation or first year of the Millenials and in my former professional life was working in investmentbanking… so I might not be your average female lol.

Last edited 1 year ago by Susanne Schwameis
Sue Frisby
Sue Frisby
1 year ago

Same here. Also Joe is a great man – absolutely male in a traditional sense and also respectful to women and doesn’t seem on the defensive like a lot of man have, understandably I guess, gotten these days. The sort of male company I enjoy in real life.

Last edited 1 year ago by Sue Frisby
Paul Cree
Paul Cree
1 year ago

I thought this was a decent article, and a really good attempt at getting to the heart of why so many males are tuning-in to the likes of Rogan.

His use of the phrase ‘top-down’ really landed with me, especially as I’ve worked in the arts for many years, where many of these modern ideas about masculinity are prevalent.

It’s a sad of state of affairs, when geezers who aren’t abusers, or predators, or anything like that etc – and just want to lead a good, honest life, and have a laugh but still feel they have to suppress fundamental things about themselves.

I’ve had my own work labelled as ‘toxic masculinity’ before. It’s so frustrating, it’s a pejorative term that’s flung about so casually. The funny thing is is, most of my work is about slightly neurotic, sensitive males, with confidence issues, who just still happen to love football and getting tanked-up with their mates. Clearly, that’s not allowed.

Last edited 1 year ago by Paul Cree
Andy Rix
Andy Rix
1 year ago

I love the way journalists, not just in this piece, but across the board, seem horrified that JRE sometimes treats facts casually. The whole journalism industry is predicated on spinning, bending and omitting facts to generate an ‘angle’. Governments lie morning, noon and night. In short, the elites lie… a lot! JRE does not bill itself as a BBC-like, factual news show, but even if it did, it wouldn’t be any worse than the actual BBC which is STILL trying to pretend it’s neutral!

AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago

Perhaps people, men in particular, are finding that the dominant ‘theme’ of life has swung around to the old tradition of the women’s magazine, continued by other means?

The message of the new man was gynocentric: by 2013, the conversation among women had begun to guide what men’s interest media looked like.

As a generalisation women have tended to set what is acceptable behaviour… and they have now marched through the male institutions. But ordinary people can choose (still) to disengage. Hence JRE.

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago

One reason people migrate to these podcasters is stuff like the BBC just now, who, perhaps miffed that they didn’t get the scoop, are between gritted teeth, saying
‘Laurence Fox is speaking as a guest on Triggernometry, a self-described “free speech YouTube show and podcast.’
I suppose they at least acknowledged that Fox was speaking somewehere, but their condescension is all the marketing that guys like Rogan need.
Why wouldn’t you go somewhere that
a. gets scoops, and
b. doesn’t talk down to you?
In saying that, Francis and Kosta on Triggernometry are a cut or two above Rogan.
And several cold cuts above the average output of the BBC.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dumetrius
Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
1 year ago
Reply to  Dumetrius

Why would the BBC be saying anything about Laurence Fox other than to note that he has been suspended from some small time far right network for making comments that would have seemed immature amongst particularly stupid teenagers, never mind by a grown adults and father who considers himself to be someone important in politics.

DA Johnson
DA Johnson
1 year ago
Reply to  Dumetrius

Of all the podcasts discussed above, I enjoy Triggernometry the most. I don’t know that it is “a cut above” the others, but it has a range of interesting guests with a variety of viewpoints. Most importantly, the hosts (Francis Foster and Konstantin Kissin) are respectful of their guests and don’t interrupt them. They ask intelligent questions and allow their guests time to answer them. And their podcasts last about an hour, making it easier to get through the entire interview when you have time constraints.

Last edited 1 year ago by DA Johnson
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago

Masculinity never went away, shock horror! We aren’t all dressing up in frocks and bad wigs, and pretending to be women, you know?

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

You can be pretty confident that anyone who talks about “masculinity” is unlikely to display any genuine masculine characteristics.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago

Well, maybe, but it sure doesn’t include calling yourself Melanie or Raquel and donning fishnet stockings.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

Please define masculinity.

Jon Barrow
Jon Barrow
1 year ago

Like you’ve just done? Masculinity doesn’t preclude the trait of openness.

Allison Barrows
Allison Barrows
1 year ago

What on earth is a “thumb neck”? Is it preferable to or worse than the author’s pencil neck?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago

As an older woman who likes the JRE for the quality of his conversations with people who genuinely know their subjects, I find this article very odd.

Andrzej Wasniewski
Andrzej Wasniewski
1 year ago

Tis article is dripping with “sophistication”. Every every sentence is trying to put some “clever” progressive spin on the JRE blinding success. And it does not work. Because the author is incapable of admitting that in the world literally suffocated with lies, with hundreds of Gavin Haynes’es jockeying for the attention and approval of the elites, Joe Rogan is successful because he is honest, curious, and his opinions do not come to him in the morning email.

John Galt Was Correct
John Galt Was Correct
1 year ago

When paternity fraud becomes illegal I might will be willing to listen to women talk about ‘toxic masculinity’.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
1 year ago

Literally nobody cares about what you are wiling to listen to, sport.

Mike Michaels
Mike Michaels
1 year ago

Projecting much?

Nik Jewell
Nik Jewell
1 year ago

Never listened to Bartlett, but I enjoy listening to some of Rogan’s non-MMA and non-comedian guests. Rogan is simply a natural at what he does, a class above anybody else.
This crystallised it for me:

But Rogan’s top paradigm is still open-loop. It’s ultimately a shrug. Did the Mafia kill Kennedy? I dunno, but it’s fun to think about. Can the sulforaphane found in young Brussel sprouts reverse the aging process? Well that would be cool.

I won’t lie; the further ‘out there’ the guest’s views are, the more likely I am to listen. I can get more mainstream views in other outlets.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

It took the censorious thugs about five minutes to disappear a bunch of comments. I’m shocked I tell ya.

Cal R
Cal R
1 year ago

Interesting insight.

There are no basements in Texas. (Very few, due to the soil types)

Ana Cronin
Ana Cronin
1 year ago

I am female and I listen to Joe, Steve and Tim religiously (not in place of religion as I am a practising Catholic !) and I occasionally listen to Lex and Jordan but there are only so many hours in a week and I have a family to raise! I laugh out loud each Sunday at Tim and his wry but spot on commentary on our ‘mad’ world. I sometimes revisit the 2 or 3 podcasts of Joe interviewing Tim and visa versa and I still laugh out loud years later

Last edited 1 year ago by Ana Cronin
Karl Juhnke
Karl Juhnke
1 year ago

So you don’t like working class men. Join the party.

Jerry Carroll
Jerry Carroll
1 year ago

A lot of ironic tap dancing by the writer, but what does he make of it? We’re entitled to know whether he secretly thinks Joe Rogan is okay

Andrew Vanbarner
Andrew Vanbarner
1 year ago

The “fusion position” is for women to try to accept men, rather than look down on them as violent neanderthals, or bemoan their existence if they won’t buy women diamond rings and houses. The “noxious naughtiest” were often enjoyed by both sexes – we are desexed, and therefore neurotic and unhappy, today.

The reason hustle culture – endless sales schemes, questionable business plans, often fictitious levels of success, with the only respite some relaxing weight training and cardiovascular exercise – is so popular with some young men is because those traits are highly valued by women, or at least thought to be, by young men who’ve been given an incomprehensibly complex world to navigate. Without so much as a compass, when satellite positions and advanced sonar are probably required.

Material success, an almost narcissistic level of fitness, a trendy and falsely open sort of modern personality – these are traits that make many women swoon, nearly as much as above average height. My man works, they may think, because he loves me. And in truth, we don’t do very much without love of some sort, as either an end goal, or as a future possibility.

Rogan – his youthful looks long lost, his lack of erudition freely confessed, but his earnest and reassuring common sense on display – moreso appeals to men who don’t quite have “what it takes” for continual hustling. I don’t know who the other fellow is, but we have similar hustle wallahs like David Higgins here in the US. They have neither Rogan’s appealing good sense nor his genuine curiosity.

Richard Craven
Richard Craven
1 year ago

“The reason lads want Joe Rogan”
Because even if he’s not always right about absolutely everything, he’s basically reasonable.

Jimminy Timminy
Jimminy Timminy
1 year ago

In truth, the bits of masculinity we’ve suppressed are just living in a thumb-necked mixed martial artist’s basement in Texas.

This is a very surface-level, uninformed take on the Joe Rogan podcast. It comes from the same place as the snarky Ted Lasso joke at his expense, and the view (held by people who have never listened to the podcast) that Rogan is some sort of immature, intolerant gym bro. It seems to me that a large part of Rogan’s appeal is that he doesn’t tend to have an agenda with his guests – when it’s someone from outside of comedy or fighting he’s usually willing to concede that they are the expert, and allows them to steer the conversation towards whatever topic they prefer. He behaves very differently as a host depending on a number of factors: how well he knows the guest; their background / field of expertise; the seriousness of the topic of discussion. This lack of agenda can be frustrating at times (e.g. he talked to Zuckerberg for 2+ hours about watersports, bjj and VR gaming and didn’t ask many difficult questions about his role as the most powerful editor in the world) and it leaves him open to accusations of ‘misinformation’ because he lets blacklisted people (‘thought criminals’ in many cases) express their beliefs without the sort of interruptions and wilful misrepresentations that are common on most TV and radio interview programmes.
The impression that I get as a somewhat regular listener is that he’s an honest and curious person – he’s willing to admit when he makes a mistake, he doesn’t seem to be trying to convince his listeners to follow any particular political, religious or ideological belief system (apart from cold plunge, sauna, Elk meat, daily exercise and jiu jitsu of course…), and he’s genuinely interested in every guest that comes onto the podcast. The lack of financial pressure or sponsor influence means that he gets to pick his guests based on his personal preference, so we have unknown farmers or beekeepers alongside Hollywood A-listers. It’s not an easy product to categorise, which is partly why the mainstream media hates it so much, but I’m glad that it exists.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

I don’t watch them all but in general I quite enjoy JR’s Podcasts, his style, esp some of the guests he interviews and the fact he gives them time and space.
That doesn’t mean I agree with some of the Covid conspiracy twaddle he gave air time, but whilst there can be serious implications to the spread of ‘health’ misinformation I don’t think it warranted ‘cancelling’. What he should do is balance the views with different guests at another time, then audience can make up it’s own mind. He’s a big boy and am sure he can grasp that, even without Spotify hitting him in the wallet.
He’s apologised for the racial slurs he’d made in past. Not impressive Joe. Real men don’t need to be racist and in his apology he essentially said that. So he fessed up and we move on.
Whether it’s some Ressurrection of Masculine culture I think a bit of ‘stretch’, in part because Author not defining/describing what this ‘rose tinted’ culture was in the past. Nobody has suppressed good masculine traits. It’s a straw man argument.

Last edited 1 year ago by j watson
AC Harper
AC Harper
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

If you are going to talk about ‘Real Men’ you have to be clear what you mean. Is it an authentic image you have, or is it an image you have been ‘sold’.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  AC Harper

He used the phrase when fessing up ACH.
I kinda get what he meant I think. Real Men don’t bully, and have sufficient self confidence to not have to knock others down to build themselves up.
What do you think he meant in the context in which he said it i.e: an apology ?

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

He’s apologised for the racial slurs he’d made in past. 

Which were? I wasn’t aware of this.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

The well known are the number of times he used the n word and the comparison of a particular Black neighbourhood to something like ‘Planet of the Apes’.
For which he later said – ‘most regretful and shameful thing” he’d ever had to address publicly, adding “I know that to most people, there’s no context where a White person is ever allowed to say that, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that’.
There’s a YouTube vid where he addresses this.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

I responded earlier HB with the details but I think blocked because those details are pretty awful. Just google it – it’ll come up and probably with Joe making his apology – which is pretty heartfelt and v regretful.

Champagne Socialist
Champagne Socialist
1 year ago

Joe Rogan is the internet age proof that no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the public.
He’s a skilled communicator and has obviously struck a chord but let’s not ever pretend that his content is anything other than alt right garbage.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
1 year ago

Why do low-information knuckle draggers on the left insist that Joe Rogan is alt-right? He’s an old school lefty who didn’t get the memo that they no longer believe in free speech, bodily autonomy, biology and the working class.

Dumetrius
Dumetrius
1 year ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Clue is in the term skilled communicator and their lack of anything to

a. be skilful about or

b. to communicate.
These guys are just phoning it in now.
The compulsion to say it is there, but they have no expectation in anyone believing / engaging.

Last edited 1 year ago by Dumetrius
Albert McGloan
Albert McGloan
1 year ago
Reply to  Dumetrius

Are you referring to Rogan or the resident schizophrenic?

Stephanie Surface
Stephanie Surface
1 year ago

Seems everybody out side your socialist world seems to be alt right or a Nazi.

David L
David L
1 year ago

Unherd, like every village. Has its drooling idiot.

Julian Farrows
Julian Farrows
1 year ago

Why don’t you start your own podcast? If it’s anything like the quality commentary you post here I can’t imagine it being anything other than an unmitigated success.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
1 year ago

What is intelligence and how do you know what the public wants ? What is alt right ?

Maximus Decimus Merridius II
Maximus Decimus Merridius II
1 year ago

You are surely a parody?

Jon Barrow
Jon Barrow
1 year ago

Might well be, why else choose the handle, though I’ve come across similar types that were actually sincere.