Comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan is caught in a spiral of controversies.
Given the thousands of hours of content that Rogan has produced, the scrutiny is unlikely to stop there.
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Rogan is not just a purveyor of right-wing ideologies.
By 1987, conservative talk radio figures such asRush Limbaugh embraced fully partisan approachesto content creation and audience accumulation.
Rogan, by contrast, is prone to ideological whiplash.
Initially,he supported Bernie Sanders for president in 2020.
Thenhe flipped to Donald Trump.
There is no political commonality among these people.
But there is a demographic connection.
For one, they are all men,as are the vast majority of guestson The Joe Rogan Experience.
While Fox News sells politics to TV watchers, Rogan sells a sense of edgy authenticity to podcast listeners.
His blend of comedy and controversy certainly has political implications, but from his perspective, it isnt politics.
Rogan is, for worse and for better, a true outlier in the world of contemporary talk media.
The Joe Rogan Experience takes this idea and pulls it in multiple, contradictory directions.
Media figures left and right have until now, at least coveted opportunities to appear on the show.
For many Rogan fans, this breadth of discussion and freedom from norms is the heart of the show.
Rogan, however, is far from a neutral host of a new public sphere.
Rogan is the closest thing to a mass cultural product to be found in the podcast world.
He is also one of the only names in podcasting big enough to garner headlines, good or bad.
Rogans recent apologies, however, prove that he is not impervious to pressure.
