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this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2026
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Leopards Ate My Face
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I used to listen to this prick - he's always been kind of dumb, but his show was fun and attracted a broad spectrum of guests under the assumed banner of free speech. Most of the show's subjects intersected with my own interests: food, health, tech, psychedelia, politics. Other episodes offered a peek behind the curtain of some of our culture's ugliest, most insane ideological backwaters. This was frankly irresistible to someone like me, like hate-watching trashy TV, but I was engaging with it critically.
There were endless threads debating whether it was right to give some of those guests such a platform, but in general, we were all so sure that Joe was a progressive hero just shining a light on these figures. He said just enough of the right things to keep the audience coming back, and his detached approach was rationalized away. We thought that if he pushed back on these guys in any meaningful way they wouldn't go on the show and show us who they were.
In hindsight, fans who weren't alt-right weirdos were naive and misinterpreted his aloofness. Of course, the arrival of Trump and maga laid everything bare. Still, the resultant chickens of social decay have come home to roost.
I'm looking forward to this asshole's fade into irrelevance, but I'm not sure it will ever come.
His detachment is a red flag. He's had a wealthy and comfortable life for a long time and it has protected him from whatever his guests are up to or the impact having them on his show causes. So long as Joe Rogan and his family as safe, he has no worries putting others in jeopardy. This is the fundamental right wing ideological stance that allows the cruelty. He should be able to do whatever he wants because his selfishness makes him blind to the harm he causes. He could be having these conversations in private if he was just curious and wanted to learn, instead he chooses to broadcast them to the world but refuses to even acknowledge any responsibility for the consequences.