In an interesting interaction of culture and politics, Joe Rogan has undoubtedly come out on top. His podcast – ‘The Joe Rogan Show’ has an audience of 10’s of millions. With the demographic of male listens evenly split between the high-school goers and post-secondary students. This segment of the audience the Joe Rogan has has the potential to change the direction of US politics for decades to come. Never before, a common man conversing with his fellow people has been able to generate such cultural significance as Joe Rogan has.
To put things into perspective, Joe Rohan’s average podcast audience is 14 million which is 28 times more than CNN’s primetime. With this ginormous audience, Joe has been a force to recon with in all things cultural. What irked the democrats perhaps is his unwillingness to become ‘ally’ to the ever radicalising democratic party.
Joe Rogan & Alternative Co.:
In 2024, Joe made headlines when him and some other heavyweight alternative media giants put their weights behind Donald Trump and the republican Party. The results were shattering for Democrats. The defeat in 2024 has been culturally very significant for the left leaning party.
They have seen constant cultural decline and now their only cultural footprint is found in cringe youtube videos or perhaps at very select few corners of the country. The left has been washed out from the mass culture. With the majority , significant majority, that is refusing to acknowledge their culture as anything more than screams of a dying behemoth.
Realising their losing grip on reality as well as the collective conscience, the party has now started a huge hunt, I should really say fund, to find a DEI, Inclusive, preferably immersed in identity politics , version of him.
They’re not incorrect, either: it’s obvious that President Donald Trump’s podcast-based media campaign, which culminated in a much-anticipated Joe Rogan interview, helped the GOP achieve unprecedented wins with young people, especially young men.
Donald Trump’s appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast was watched by 100 million people — twice the viewership of the first CNN debate between Joe Biden and Trump.
The main reason why Gen Z is supporting Trump is that the alternative media landscape, which consists of independent podcasters, journalists, influencers, entertainers, and everything else in between, is far more compatible with the unconventional tenets of contemporary conservatism than the elite-consensus obeisance of contemporary liberalism.
Clone Joe Rogan: Democrat’s Frankenstein:
This may seem like a skit based out of an episode of Black mirror but no, this is the reality. The democrats want to clone his approach and create their version of ‘The Joe Rogan Show’. The attempt itself is a testament to the democratic party’s delusions regarding how culture and perception works.
The idea of culture and culture itself cannot be static. There is no proven formula but social trust and reliability. If you are making someone a millionaire for speaking your language, that person will never speak his or her own words. People are not dumb, they see through everything political parties do. The reason Joe Rogan has been so successful is that he behaves and talks like a human being. He does not pontificate and most of all, Joe Rogan admits when he doesn’t know something. All of which are missing from mainstream media.
Now, why did I say in the headline that India and Indian parties have a lesson here. The democrats equivalent here in India is the opposition. Always focusing on caste, identity and sub sectional nonsense.
Like the democrats they also like to splurge money on anyone who speaks their mind and mimics their moves. This practice is much like a pyramid scheme. Only people at the top three tiers benefit and they have an army of what The Time and some say Vladimir Lenin would call – ‘useful idiots’.
What India Can Learn:
Just like the Democrats in the USA, the congress here in India has completely lost their grip on reality. They also want to reclaim their way back to relevance using legacy media whose audience is diminishing alarmingly. The over reliance of cultural dinosaurs has been proven fatal time and time again for the USA and it is doing the same for the Rahul Gandhi led Congress party.
The pitfalls of such legacy media dependence includes but not limited to – The fall sense of Intellectual and Moral superiority, thinking that what they are being told is the reflection of the actual sentiment of the masses and the most delusional of all that ‘talking heads’ on a TV matter. One would think that The Congress would learn and avoid the same by learning from their US counterparts, but no. The delusion is too deep and too entrenched within that party for to actually consider evidence based outcomes.
The culture wars, as some would call it, would be won by alternative media and individual political commentators. The case has been the same in the US and it remains true in India as well. Indian political parties must realise that culture is fluid and the game of perception is won by relatability. No legacy media or men in suits will ever be able to convince the average Joe or Ramesh for that matter, that the man in the TV knows about his and his blocks’ problems better than him.
If we are to take one single learning from this entire DEI Joe Rogan fiasco by the Democrats, it is how blue-blooded gate keepers of information, still thinks that they can gatekeep form the masses. The rise of Joe Rogan and the alternate media is like the ‘cannery in the mine’, the poisonous spin offs and op-paid will not work anymore.
