Why am I thinking about this? Everything is connected. There was a massacre at a mosque in New Zealand this weekend. At the time, I was gathering info about the Democratic primary nominees – all 50 of them or whatever – so that I can be an informed voter. A name came up that I did not expect: Joe Rogan. What? I have to hear about this guy all the time – in the gym (see photo) every day there's a mention, when my husband comes home from work after having listened to the Alex Jones segment for the 5th time, I hear about him. He's everywhere. And it doesn't make sense.
Some will frame this as me hating on Joe Rogan or men, and that's fine. I don't hate anyone. I know what fears and dangers I grew up with and still experience – and, further, know that women who are queer or black or disabled face far more dangers than I ever will. I'm concerned about continually giving a platform to the linked ideologies that disrespect and endanger women and minorities that manifest as things like mass shootings of schools to Orlando nightclubs to Charleston churches to Christchurch mosques to the synagogue in Pittsburgh.
In some ways I thought Joe Rogan might be the problem initially, but that's not exactly the case - though he's not blameless! He's a platform and - while he doesn't have an agenda - he definitely chooses guests not to challenge his worldview, but to reinforce it. He's no different than anyone else. He's not enlightened as many weed smoking psychedelic enthusiasts would like to believe. He's not free thinking or open minded or particularly curious. He's a libertarian guy who likes to talk and slip in some feminist bashing and trans denying when he can.
You'll see echoes of him in this episode of Scene On Radio on sexism and sports talk radio where it talks about the toxic masculinity and the way "winning" is used:
http://www.sceneonradio.org/episode-57-domination-men-part-11/
Related:
Related:
12 part series on sexism -
https://www.sceneonradio.org/men/
Additional work by the SceneOn hosts:
14 part series on race -
https://www.sceneonradio.org/seeing-white/
The Joe Rogan Experience isn't exactly the root of the bigger sexism and racism problems. However, his show provides quite a few brilliant examples of how these things fester in society. Whether by dog whistle or outright disdain for equality, he shows how letting these guests speak unchallenged provides a platform for poison to spread under the guise of curiosity or no holds barred first amendment rights. (Putting no limits there is kind of like the extreme free market capitalism described in Shock Doctrine that destroys entire countries... Speaking of Naomi Klein, would Joe Rogan ever have her on?)
Apparently he's had a few
presidential hopefuls on his show and obviously he did or used to do jiu-jitsu, so our interests converge some. I think of the typical guests on the JRE being mainly conspiracy theorists,
quack doctors, and fascists, so I'm not a regular listener or devotee. Joe is a talkative folksy guy and maybe
even funny sometimes, but his assessment of who is interesting to talk to is
less wide ranging and curious (as advertised) than niche.
Some of the people he considers
interesting are Tulsi Gabbard and Andrew Yang, serious (-ish)
contenders for a presidential candidate nomination. I paid attention
to Tulsi for a hot minute, but ended up seeing too much bigotry to
take her seriously. But let's look Mr. Yang, though, because all of
the problematic aspects kind of converge here in a special way. He's
a prime example of a typical Rogan guest - a guy not terribly
objectionable at first blush, but is very definitely nursing some
strong latent racism and/or sexism. The fan response is odd (read red flag) - people asking which women
candidate they like and a group of dudes says well, actually, they're really excited about
Andrew Yang. The fact that bitcoin (unintentional white nationalist dogwhistle?) and being against robots are
mentioned more than any real plank in a platform. UBI is mentioned,
but not seriously - a living wage or raising the minimum wage isn't in his plan.
And
then I saw it. Richard Spencer LOVES this guy. #YangGang. It all makes sense now.
Toxic masculinity and white supremacy working through the patriarchy.
All the recent school shootings, the PA synagogue, the black church
in SC, the mosque attacker in New Zealand recently who cited Trump's white
nationalism as inspiration. It's an old story, but one we all
experience in some way. We're just now putting the pieces together.
Admittedly, I made a big mistake and
went on Twitter to interact with a few of Rogan's more misogynistic
fans a while ago. Someone in my feed was saying sexist things in
connection with a link Rogan tweeted out with no context – “Women,
Not Men, Punish Sexualized Women! (With the usual MRA implication -
See? Women, not men, are responsible for sexism! Gotcha!). I broke my
rule of not looking through the equivalent of comment sections and
was made fun of for suggesting they read and wrongly told that I hate
men. But even if I had avoided this annoyance, I would still hear
about this guy in nearly every BJJ class or gym I've trained in and
my own husband bombards me and begs me to listen to this guest he
heard on the JRE. There is no avoiding it really and I'm not really
asking that you try.
I get that he's just a famous guy who
has the ability to get anyone he wants to talk to him live on his
show, and so he just has people on who he thinks are interesting or who are comic friends. He has thing for individual freedom, which would be good were it not for how it manifests. It's more of the type of nominal agreement with equality, but if it's racism or sexism that he doesn't experience, then these people are lobbying for special privileges that white men are being deprived of. He has a large platform and he could use it better to learn more about this wider concept of equality that he disagrees with, but instead he chooses the echo chamber. He'll have Jordan Peterson and Dr. Debra Soh on instead of, for example, this author or anyone involved in the new APA guidelines for men and boys that state that the patriarchy and rigid gender binary hurts men.
I suppose I don't expect him to be any sort of leader or moral compass. For some reason he has this reputation for being reasonable and curious with a wide range of interests and guests from all over the political spectrum. This part is extremely odd to me because I don't see the objectivity and reasonableness in Milo Yiannopoulos and Jordan Peterson talking about long debunked Clinton conspiracy theories and all beef diets. He has a lot of comics on and that could be part of the problem – that's almost a subculturethat's as sexist as the fighting scene.
I suppose I don't expect him to be any sort of leader or moral compass. For some reason he has this reputation for being reasonable and curious with a wide range of interests and guests from all over the political spectrum. This part is extremely odd to me because I don't see the objectivity and reasonableness in Milo Yiannopoulos and Jordan Peterson talking about long debunked Clinton conspiracy theories and all beef diets. He has a lot of comics on and that could be part of the problem – that's almost a subculturethat's as sexist as the fighting scene.
From the guests I've heard of and the
lack of certain voices, it gives him a sort of younger, cooler Rush
Limbaugh vibe. Not saying he's that bad. I haven't tabulated all the Joe Rogan guests,
but I get a certain vibe from Twitter barrages of his fans and even
sometimes people I know who listen. My husband loves the guy and I
know he's not a crazy sexist jerk – I'm not saying all Joe Rogan
fans are this or that. He doesn't listen to the Jordan Peterson or trans bashing ones, for instance. It seems other fans I've spoken to aren't so selective.
It feels like sexism and racism are too
often given a well loved unchallenged platform (I realize he's not a
journalist, but it feels irresponsible) on his show. Having racist
and sexist guests - even to make fun of them - kind of treats these
subjects as a huge joke that everyone knows they don't have to deal
with and so the targets of racism and sexism feel a little like our
problems are being diminished and made fun of too. Humor can be a
helpful tool to deal with bigots and even tragedy, I'll give you
that, but handing them a huge platform to let them humiliate
themselves sometimes just serves to amplify their message as with
Andrew Yang and the boost it gave him.
What is my objective exactly? I don't want to yell or hate or demand you cancel Joe Rogan or boycott anything. I guess all I want is for you to listen. And maybe if you are so moved, I'd further ask the guys who listen to his show to think critically and speak out against racism and sexism even though it's tough in the gym where toxic masculinity (locker room talk) often prevails. Please take a minute for introspection and think about my (and others') humanity for a minute.
All I ask is that you stop and think. Hopefully you'll be an ally against the hate of white supremacy and misogyny, but I won't demand it. I don't care if you like or listen to Joe Rogan or sexist comedians or crazy Alex Jones; I'll still be your friend. I'm just asking you to think a little about where that leads and what they're connected to and how that affects half of the population or commonly targeted groups.
Note for those concerned or defensive about "all men": There is in the larger culture and martial arts community, especially if we are to include MMA, a certain tough guy locker room culture, if you want to call it that. Some women join in it and some women ignore it and do what they love despite it, but if you ask women if it exists, they'll absolutely know what you're talking about. None of that takes away from love of the sport or our male training partners, but it's something women grow up with and have to navigate continually, on the mat and off, so I think you might want to hear this even if it makes you uncomfortable.
Some days I want to insist on my humanity and demand
equal rights. Some days I just hope you have a mother, daughter, or
wife you care about because I don't know how to generate empathy enough to to extend to the whole world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update today, March 21, 2019 - Slate had a great article that dives deep on this where I just looked at a little part of it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update: I found this from exactly a year ago today that explains it quite well:
Sample interaction:
Some responses unrelated to mine, but that give you an idea of the listeners:
I came across your post from searching "Joe Rogan Toxic Masculinity." It's a relief to read your post because I feel ambivalent about him after a few listens to his podcasts. In some ways, he can be progressive, and in other ways, backwards and missing-the-point. It's hard for me to reconcile how people are like this, but I suppose it's what it is to be human. I agree it is very important to think/listen/read critically, but unfortunately, it seems like the majority of his listeners just wanna eat that shit up.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, thank you for posting
- Tanyi