Joe Rogan's Netflix special 'Burn the Boats' was comedy for one specific audience

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Joe Rogan, the podcast superstar who’s come under fire at times for slinging racial slurs and spreading conspiracy theories, performed a live one-hour Netflix comedy special Saturday night. Looking like a jacked-up Uncle Fester of The Adams Family, the insanely popular Rogan delivered exactly the comedic content that his many fans (and critics) assumed he would. Little that transpired in “Joe Rogan: Burn the Boats” pushed artistic boundaries. Let’s put it this way: Little that transpired in “Joe Rogan: Burn the Boats” pushed artistic boundaries. Nor did much happen that might increase its star’s crossover appeal. The Chinese-American accents, the gags about pregnant men, the shout-outs to Alex Jones and Elon Musk, the use of the R-word, F-word (and strategic avoidance of the N-word), alongside a lot of LGBTQ-themed barbs — all of that might grow his massive fan base, but it certainly won’t diversify it. Presumably, that wasn’t the aim. It’s the immensity of that fan base that I find most interesting about Rogan. In fact, the sociologist in me finds it more interesting than Rogan himself. During one of his bits about gay people, he sermonized: “Listen folks, if you want equal love, you have to have equal jokes cause that’s how we find out if you’re annoying. If we can’t joke around about you, we know you take yourself too fucking seriously.” My first question here: Who’s “we”? A clue emerged at set’s end when Rogan exchanged high fives with the entire front row, as best I could tell, a representative sample of his own audience. According to the data, 71% of his viewership is male, 64% is white, (a quarter, interestingly, is Hispanic) and its average age is 24. Single and unmarried men flock to him in droves. Rogan’s commercial genius has been to solicit, grow and migrate this lucrative cohort back and forth across platforms, ranging from UFC to reality television to podcasting, and stand-up. Making sense of a cultural phenomenon as gargantuan as Joe Rogan is not easy (this essay by Aja Romano provides a thoughtful premier about the challenges). One way to think about it is to flip perspectives. Instead of approaching his jokes as reflecting Rogan’s obsessions, what if they actually reflect those of his fans? There’s a sociological theory about prophets which might be helpful here. It holds that prophets are figures who may actually be saying, quite unconsciously, what their listeners want them to say. I’ll spare the reader a disquisition on Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu, but their writings raised the possibility that prophesies emerge from the passions of the prophet’s audience, not from the prophet. The prophet unknowingly gives voice to their desires (and mistakes them as personal revelations from God). If Rogan is a mouthpiece for his fan’s interests, then what did his special teach us about those who adore him? For starters, Roganites love “boys will be boys” humor. The comedian wondered why only male executives — and never female executives — couldn’t resist pleasuring themselves during Covid-era Zoom calls. More material about men behaving badly emerged in a riff about a cradle-robbing, 102-year-old grandpa freebasing Viagra so as to hook up with 75-year-old women down at the nursing home. Judging by Rogan’s content, his fans certainly want to hear their comedian/prophet expound on the gender and sexuality issues of the day. Heterosexual men, the comic quipped (to considerable applause), are about to go extinct. Rogan recounts how he was randomly selected for additional screening at an airport security line. He bristled at a female TSA agent who asked for a “male assist” to pat him down. “Did you just assume my gender?,” he accused with mock outrage. The trolling continued as Rogan reviewed his track record around Covid misinformation. “I’m a professional shitalker,” he confessed, “Don’t take my advice.” Boys just want to have fun — even when misleading millions of other boys in the process! There were more conspiracy theories. The moon landing never happened. Aliens are real and well versed with anal probe technology. Alex Jones, Rogan informed the crowd, was only wrong about one thing. In spite of all this, Rogan claims he doesn’t want to be perceived as a racist, ableist, homophobe, transphobe, etc. The comedian repeatedly affirmed he has nothing against people who are unlike him. Then he would claw the disclaimer back. Like Dave Chappelle, who has mastered this technique, Rogan started a bit by signaling how much he likes/respects “others.” Uh oh! That almost always signals something bad is coming; sure enough, by the punchline, those others were the butt of the joke. “I’m not remotely homophobic,” Rogan assured us. But then: “I wish I was gay. If I was gay I’d get to use the F-word again. Oh, how I miss it so!” Rogan doesn’t want to be perceived as a hater, he tells us. He then proceeds to make jokes that many would find hateful. The same move is made when Rogan exclaims: “I believe in trans people because I think the world is strange and nature is strange and I think nature can throw you a curveball and you believe you’re in the wrong body and I fully support your right as an adult to do whatever you want that makes you happy. I believe in freedom and I believe in love.” The comedian pauses dramatically and then exhales: “But I also believe in crazy people.” Rogan doesn’t want to be perceived as a hater, he tells us. He then proceeds to make jokes that many would find hateful. He’s playfully aware of this tension and can plausibly riposte he’s “just kidding around.” Perhaps his fans — who don’t have his millions of followers or dollars — navigate the same tensions at work and in their personal relationships. Perhaps they’re constantly accused of being “inappropriate” or “insensitive.” If so, Rogan is their proxy, their release and their vindication. Stand-up is really difficult and Rogan is a competent, skillful practitioner of the craft. But “Burn the Boats” isn’t cutting-edge art. It’s not disruptive like the interventions of Jerrod Carmichael, or Hannah Gadsby, or Bo Burhham. Rather, Rogan’s humor caresses a mass constituency, a ginormous “we.” If his jokes reflect the sensitivities and anxieties of a huge swath of American men, then that’s a gloomy prophecy.