Celebrity feuds are usually as soulless and manufactured as their pop song lyrics, but in the case of podcaster/comedian Joe Rogan and professional lunatic Alex Jones, the spat is genuine, and far too amusing not to follow.
The friendship between the two goes way back, as far as the late nineties, which explains why Rogan invited Jones on his podcast to spread his nonsense. This resulted in Jones going on a prolonged, incoherent rant about “interdimensional child molesters.”
Joe Rogan has always enjoyed chatting with pseudoscientists and eccentrics, but the explosive popularity of his podcast has become a bit of a burden; The Joe Rogan Experience currently boasts 4 million subscribers on YouTube and is a constant presence in the top ten most-downloaded podcasts on iTunes.
That massive audience places Rogan in a position of heavy responsibility, as his laid-back, smoke-filled recording room has evolved into a powerful platform, where unhinged individuals have the opportunity to spread their gospel.
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Remember, Alex Jones is the man who called the grieving parents of the Sandy Hook school shooting victims “crisis actors,” and is currently entangled in a defamation lawsuit over his repulsive comments.
After Jones was subsequently kicked off YouTube, Facebook, and eventually Twitter, Rogan was reluctant to have Jones back on the show. But when you fall out with an unhinged conspiracy theorist, eventually, you will become part of the conspiracy.
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Jones decided that Rogan’s reluctance to engage with him was clearly a result of Rogan being bought off by the “special interests,” i.e., right-wing boogeyman George Soros, who is essentially considered the Blofeld of the alt-right universe, a figure who is somehow at the center of every contrived conspiracy theory.
But when you watch Alex Jones accuse Rogan of repeating “George Soros talking points,” it’s obvious that Jones isn’t trying to spread the truth, or at least his version of it, but rather, seems deeply offended by the fact that his old friend laughs at his interdimensional child molester theories.
It all came to a climax when Joe Rogan had Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey on his podcast, and spent the interview essentially nodding along while Dorsey spewed meaningless corporate jargon. This was surprising to many of Rogan’s fans, because Rogan spends a lot of time heavily criticizing Twitter and their perceived bias/censorship.
But Rogan has always been a conversationalist rather than a journalist. He’s had several repugnant alt-right personalities and pseudoscientists on his show, and rarely asks difficult questions. This interview approach is controversial in itself, because it allows misinformation to spread unchallenged, but it does allow the guest to feel comfortable enough to reveal who they truly are. That is, if the listener is paying attention.
But the softball Jack Dorsey interview was viewed by some fans as proof that Alex Jones’ accusations were correct. The YouTube video currently sits at 11 thousand “likes” and 74 thousand “dislikes,” which offers a crystal clear metric of how the conversation was received.
This really strengthened Jones’ position, helped by the fact that Jack Dorsey owns Cash App, which sponsors The Joe Rogan Experience. Suddenly, the “sellout” accusation seemed a lot more plausible.
In response to the negative reception, Rogan acknowledged that maybe he’d been too lenient on Dorsey, and denied that he was a helpless puppet acting on behalf of imagined supervillain George Soros.
Rogan then addressed the Alex Jones feud with a mixture of humor, bewilderment, and sympathy, insinuating that Jones is perhaps experiencing some mental health issues, but offered Jones a formal apology for mocking him, stating, “My apologies… if you were hurt that I occasionally poke fun at you. I have to. You’re hilarious.”
Finally, Jones responded to Rogan by upping his accusations, claiming that Rogan was being used by Silicon Valley as a “power source,” a victim of his own success, used to spread propaganda. Jones also denied that he’d ever made his infamous Sandy Hook comments, while simultaneously asserting his right to say them.
Jones then used a poorly thought-out allegory in which Joe Rogan is a whale and Jones is a giant squid with a tentacle wrapped around the whale’s head. He then proceeded to squeeze his hand repeatedly in an oddly sexual manner, and confidently stated, “Jesus told me to destroy Joe Rogan.”
You should really take a minute to watch the footage yourself, because I simply can’t do it justice. Jones is certainly entertaining, I’ll give him that. Suddenly, I understand why people watch that show.
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