I’m old enough to remember the sitcom News Radio. That was one of Joe Rogan’s first gigs! He starred on that sitcom with Dave Foley, Maura Tierney, Phil Hartmann and Andy Dick. After that, he hosted reality shows and announced UFC shows. I think the UFC gigs are what shifted everything for Rogan – he became a relatable, muscle-bound bro beloved by a certain toxic male demographic. I just find it useful to go back to the start of everything to see where everything went off the rails. How one f–knut actor became the North Star for incels and douchebags. Rogan currently has a very lucrative and popular Spotify show, but he’s also decided to dip his toe back in the entertainment world. Not acting, but stand-up. Netflix gave Rogan a “comedy special.” It went poorly. The special is called Burn the Boats and it’s his first “special” since 2018. He basically stood up there and ranted about vaccines and transgender folks.
Joe Rogan’s latest special, named “Burn the Boats,” debuted live on Netflix on Saturday night and amplified some of the controversial views he has discussed on his podcast before. Yet he was also self-deprecating about his perceived impact on culture. “That might be misinformation,” he said, as the tag of a joke early on. “Don’t say you heard it from me, because I am known for that sh-t.”
Rogan discussed his skepticism of COVID vaccines early in the special.
“COVID was just so strange,” he said. “And we lost a lot of people during COVID, and most of them are still alive. There’s a lot of people that I don’t f–k with anymore. Before COVID, I would have told you that vaccines are the most important invention in human history. After COVID, I’m like, ‘I don’t think we went to the moon. I think Michelle Obama’s got a d-ck. I think Pizzagate is real. I think there’s direct energy weapons in Antarctica.’ I’m just kidding — I don’t think Michelle Obama’s got a d-ck, but I believe all of that other sh-t.”
Later, he skewered the blowback about COVID discussions on his podcast, saying, “If you’re getting your vaccine information from me, is that really my fault?”
Elsewhere in the special, he followed in the footsteps of comedians like Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais, who have been criticized for jokes about trans people in their specials. Rogan started his similar batch of material with a run of jokes about “pregnant men” and then broadened it to his viewpoint that trans acceptance has been happening too quickly in American culture.
“I’m open-minded,” he said. “I just want to know what happened. It’s almost like a pervert wizard waved a magic spell on the whole world. ‘With a wave of this wand, you can walk into the women’s locker room with a hard c-ck, and anybody who complains is a Nazi. Abracadabra!’ And it just works! And everyone just accepts this new reality, and it’s f–king weird. I just think we need standards. You can’t just put lipstick on and now you can sh-t in the women’s room!”
Later on, he turned his attention to gay men, saying, “I don’t hate anybody. I love everyone. And I love gay men. But I think about gay men the same way I think about mountain lions: I’m happy they’re real, but I don’t want to be surrounded by them. They’re a bunch of dudes who f–k dudes. I don’t like my chances, OK? They’re not unicorns — they’re just men who f–k men. And every man who’s ever lived is a shifty c-m salesman, OK? 100%. Especially the ones who say they’re not.”
I need a shower after reading all of that. What has always struck me about the “trans panic” and the selective obsession with bathrooms is that all of their supposed concerns are confessions. They’re always talking about what THEY would do if they went into women’s bathrooms (rape), what they would do if they were gay (rape) and what they want to do in their vision of a perfect society (rape without consequences). The anti-vaxx stuff is so… exhausting. We’re apparently still doing it in the year of our lord Beyonce 2024. I have one subtle agreement with Rogan, which is that “vaccine conspiracies” are sort of the gateway-conspiracy for all of the other bullsh-t. If you’re gullible and stupid enough to believe that vaccines are a government conspiracy to implant 5G in your brain, you’re more susceptible to believe that IKEA and Pizza Hut coordinate a trafficking ring.
Sidenote: all of the people screaming about trafficking conspiracies are always so f–king silent about Donald Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Photos courtesy of Netflix.