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Is Joe Rogan the New Rush?
Looking at these numbers makes me wonder.
Rush Limbaugh more or less invented the medium of conservative talk radio. While podcasting existed prior to Joe Rogan, He seems to have taken the medium to a new level. Like Rush Limbaugh, he seems to have tapped into an underserved media market. A big part of his appeal is that Joe Rogan’s show is less about his own point of view than providing a forum for varied points of view. There seems to be an audience for that. And, like Rush Limbaugh, Rogan is absolutely hated by the corporate media for having a long-form forum to discuss ideas while they are limited to sound-bites and also his ratings are killing them.
A key differentiator is that Rush Limbaugh was unabashedly partisan. Rogan is not, but he has found an audience among people … especially younger people … who are alienated and contemptuous of both political parties. Like Rush, he has tapped into the zeitgeist.
The really weird part is how all of this was foretold. In a 1996 episode from Newsradio, Joe Rogan’s character (the station’s electrician) fills in for an on-air personality and causes dismay among the broadcast “professionals” because he is so much better at it than they are. His character is also notable for embracing “conspiracy theories” and having contempt for corporate product.
Published in Culture
The guy who voted for Bernie? No.
Alan Stock of KXNT Las Vegas used to call Rush Limbaugh “The Elvis Presley of Talk Radio.” I always liked that. Stock said that neither Rush nor Elvis truly invented their respective mediums but both reinvented them; taking each to the stratosphere!
Which probably lends him more credibility and authenticity than a one-note partisan to the audience he is seeking to reach.
As Rogan’s podcast has taken off, I’ve wondered how much of his character on Newsradio was written for him and how much he contributed to it. I’d forgotten about when he went on the air.
That looked like a fun show, lol
Rogan must be alarming the Left. Scott Adams says his show in its current form is a danger to our country.
He’s under no one’s control and beyond pressure. Even Rush had a gatekeeper in everyone of the station GMs that carried his show.
I was thinking the same thing just yesterday. 3 hours a day. >10 million listeners. That reach is in Rush territory. Rogan’s politics are not comparable, but his reach is and today’s market is much more fragmented.
I like the long form interview style that he and others put out nowadays.
His appeal is lost on me but he’s been able to open my 19 year old son’s to new and different viewpoints-I’ll take that.
Once one is open to argument or a different point of view, Conservatism wins.
Rogan is open minded; With the open minded, truth should prevail even if it starts with a handicap.
Rogan is the post Hegelian Limbaugh.
No. Rush was one of a kind, and no one, ever, will be his equal.
Between Rogan and PragerU, I’m feeling better about the future…
Rogan and podcast are long form media – the problem with the others in this list is the lack of depth people can go into on an issue. Cable TV is the worst at it
I cannot abide the “one last question because we are running out of time” followed by a long-winded question from the host. I was already a refugee from new programs on TV and pre-podcast was listening to Sean Hannity, who began to drive me insane for the reason cited and other reasons I won’t go into here. Rush was so much better, but not the commercials. I would tune in at 12;07 Eastern missing the lead-in but also missing the ads. Then I’d tune out after that longer segment which would go to about 12:25, and I’d tune back in for the second long segment , then tune back in at 1:07 etc.
I have a visceral aversion to commercials of any kind. Once I walled them off from my consciousness, I now have even less tolerance. It’s like stopping smoking and then hating the smell of cigarettes.
Now I am exclusively listening to podcasts and mostly on You Tube, where I pay $15 for premium membership with no commercials. I listen to segments of Rogan and often a whole 3 hour interview.
He rarely annoys me opinion-wise, and he asks good questions and listens to the answers.
In some ways, the Republicans and Democrats have diminished the effectiveness of being a partisan. Lord knows I have trouble defending ‘Republicans’ as an amorphous group. Rush was very good at helping us navigate through the GOP swamp.
Rogan is more a common-sense, real world guy who is not highly educated (or should I say miseducated) and a side-benefit to that is he is epistemologically humble (also psychedelics will help with that).
In fact the most interesting people doing podcasting are Adam Carolla who never went to college, who now sounds like a Republican from the Reagan Era, but I’ve seen him transform incrementally all based on common-sense observations and comparing and contrasting.
Tim Pool is another non-miseducated podcaster who also is long form.I have watched him morph from a fencesitter to a small ‘c’ conservative. The Democrats are alienating all thinking people. Unfortunately, the Republicans are too entrenched with their legacy representatives and issues they aren’t taking advantage.
There is a whole rebellion brewing against the Uniparty, whether these people are calling it that or not. It’s a reaction to global corporatism, America’s sad history of entering wars it can’t win and pouring money into military hardware, the failure of the welfare state (an issue which Republicans have traded away for other perks), uncontrolled immigration and a bastardization of our culture. If it weren’t so politically charged, these three would be pretty big fans of Trump with a few negative caveats.
Politically, I am much more aligned with these three than with, say, the mainstream of Ricochet podcasts. I do not trust legacy Republicans. I may agree with what they say, but I don’t trust them.
Although my 37-year-old son is a regular listener, I have difficulty with Rogan’s show due to the constant expletives. I don’t mind an occasional well placed four-letter word, but Rogan (at least to my ears) overdoes it. Having said that, I wonder if his appeal to men like my son is his very “grittiness” and lack of decorum. As regards politics, I would like to think that conservatives are more open to hearing opposing points of view than are liberals/leftists. Might Rogan’s high ratings be a reflection of that?
I can’t listen because of the language. What little I’ve heard, I’ve liked.
They have bigger umbrellas on what is considered valid opinion. There were times in the last 5 years where I could hear Rush and my local guy coming hard against a boundary they dare not cross. They always stopped at that threshold where going even a little further would have caused a Republican Party uproar.
Rubin has the same limitation. But with Rogan, you can tell it is free inquiry. I don’t care about MTG’s Jewish lasers. That she heard it somewhere and entertained the thought for a minute (and was open about it) tells me she doesn’t let others define the boundaries of acceptable inquiry to her. So many are stunted on that. Rush would never contradict the Diversity is our Strength mantra, no matter how strong the evidence. Rogan has no such compunction.
Unlike Rush, Rogan’s strength is not his political views, which can be standard leftish drivel at times. His strength is being an honest broker. In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
He reminds me of a less polished version of the late Tim Russert. When Russert was given the reins of Meet The Press, he went to Lawrence Spivak, the creator and first moderator of the show when it originated on NBC radio and asked for advice. “…he said the mission is simple: Learn as much as you can about your guest and his or her position on the issues–and then take the other side [laughter].
“He said be persistent but be civil, allow people to finish their thoughts, then ask the appropriate follow-up questions, and the audience will know whether they’re answering or ducking. It’s been excellent advice.”
It’s advice that Russert’s successors, David Gregory and Chuck Todd, have never bothered to adhere to.
Rogan’s expletives vary by the guest. He certainly isn’t foul mouthed around Malone or McCullough.
That was my first thought, too. But in this age of Trump, who, with his family, were all registered Democrats shortly before his run, Rogan might be the best guy to appeal to modern Republicans. A large chunk of Trump voters have been cross-over democrats. And I think most of those are the lower socio-economic democrats (nitty-gritty, like Rogan) as opposed to the elite democrats who drive Priuses and deride Wal-Mart and its shoppers.
So I take it you are not going to change your name to “JoeBabe?” LOL
I have those same exact pet peeves and I thrive on podcasts alone. After your positive detailed description of Rogan’s show, I’m going to give him a test drive!