Why there's no "Joe Rogan of the left"
Five reasons why there's no Leftie Joe.
The Dems need a "Joe Rogan of the left," eh?
It ain’t happening. Here are five reasons why:
1) He’s not actually about politics.
There isn’t a “Joe Rogan of the left” because he’s not for people interested in politics. The left would be wiser to go after people in nonpolitical spaces.
Ezra Klein explains:
I think it reflects Democrats still thinking that media is something that broadcasters and gatekeepers control. Media is something you get booked on. Attention is something you attract.
Liberal Joe Rogan discourse actually drives me insane. You can’t build Joe Rogan if you’re a political person, because the whole point of what is meaningful about him is fundamentally that he’s not for people interested in politics.
Democrats are obsessed with how The New York Times exactly words its headlines about Donald Trump. But Democrats win people who read New York Times headlines about Donald Trump. They lose people who don’t read politics at all.
And you can’t win them by being more and more political and be like: We’re going to create Joe Rogan but with perfect politics, who likes everything Democrats do. The whole point is that you have to go and compete in nonpolitical spaces.
(Source: Democrats Are Losing the War for Attention. Badly.)
2) He provides an antidote to loneliness.
He’s killer at parasocializing because he’s generating SO MUCH content.
Kyle Chayka:
Parasocial relationships are the name of the game. When people call for a Joe Rogan of the left, it seems like they don’t realize that one of the reasons he is so powerful is that he is many of his listeners’ best friend. People spend hours and hours a day with him; his show and its extended universe have become an on-demand loneliness killing service. The power (and value) of that relationship is unmatched.
(Source: The new rules of media)
3) He’s fun instead of a buzzkill.
A big problem Dems face: No one wants to hang out with a schoolmarm/tattletale/nanny stater/HR rep. People will always pick a party over a condemnation.
Basically: One side wants to lecture people about “the r-word.” The other thinks that’s retarded.
4) Building an audience takes time.
He started his podcast in 2009.
If you want to do what he’s done, you shoulda started 15 years ago.
5) No one likes people who hate them.
Dems: Men think you hate them. All they ever hear the left talk about re: their gender is how masculinity is toxic. It’s not a great invitation, y’know?
We have lived for decades in a culture that has normalized the denigration of traditional masculinity.
Belittling men is mainstream…Men have spent the past several decades being told that they benefit from male supremacy (particularly white male supremacy) even as they watch their educational opportunities and wages decline precipitously. They are chided for their “toxic masculinity” and told to “make space” for women, all while also being asked to apologize simply for being male.
(I discussed this at length in this interview fyi.) The challenge is to speak to men in a way that embraces them instead of dunks on them. Rogan does that.
Can anyone on the left come out and say they think masculinity is actually pretty great and that stuff dudes like (e.g. sports, cars, gadgets, and other things you woulda found in a lad mag in 2003) is cool?
Lefties can exist in a realm of moral superiority and lectures or they can try to, y’know, do some outreach, meet bros where they’re at, and actually try to win votes.
I won’t hold my breath on that.
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We all know that one- and five-star reviews are useless; those are just crackpots and bots. Three stars are for cowards, obviously; if you can’t be bothered to have a courageous opinion, I can’t be bothered to read it. And four stars are for liberal arts majors who had a three-star experience but grew up with grade inflation. But a two-star review, that’s a thing of beauty. Somebody who goes through the trouble of logging into an app and typing full sentences on a keyboard to give a place exactly two stars has a story to tell.
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[AI] doesn't consciously say, "Write a four chord progression in a melody in a mixolydian mode." No. Instead it creates a Jon Brion-esque track just how I would. It's listened to all of his music and then using neural networks, whatever those are, it has a fuzzy image of a Jon Brion vibe. I don't know exactly how it works, but I think it's just always guessing what the next sound's going to be…
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🍊’s internal monologue as Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde pleaded for mercy:
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