When I started this blog in 2018, I knew I wanted to write, but I wasn’t entirely sure where I was going with it or what I wanted to get out of the whole thing.

Very quickly, some of my most popular content became my listicle-style posts about episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience. I wrote about my favorite episodes, the funniest episodes, and the conversations that I thought were particularly interesting or entertaining. Those articles brought a surprising amount of traffic to this website, and I remember how exciting it was to see people reading, sharing, and even commenting on something I had written.

At the time, I was also a huge Joe Rogan fan.

I started listening to his podcast around 2014, back when it still felt like something of an underground phenomenon. Sure, Rogan was already a successful comedian, television personality, and UFC commentator, but his podcast felt different. It wasn’t a polished television interview or a carefully managed media appearance. It was just a guy sitting down with interesting people for two or three hours, asking questions, telling stories, and occasionally getting really, really high.

And I loved it.

Some episodes were genuinely hilarious. Others introduced me to subjects I probably never would have explored otherwise. I learned about comedians, scientists, athletes, entrepreneurs, philosophers, and all sorts of eccentric people who seemed to exist somewhere outside the mainstream.

There was something refreshing about a format where conversations could go wherever they wanted. Guests weren’t necessarily promoting a book or delivering carefully rehearsed talking points. Sometimes they were just talking.

Rogan’s influence on me was undeniable. Not necessarily on a deeply personal or philosophical level, but certainly in terms of the things I became interested in trying, reading, or researching. I listened to conversations about productivity, exercise, meditation, nutrition, and countless other subjects. I even tried Alpha Brain, the supplement Rogan advertised constantly, because I was curious whether it actually worked.

Looking back, that last example is more important than I realized at the time.

When the Podcast Was Actually Fun

Part of what made the early Joe Rogan Experience so appealing was that it didn’t seem to belong to any particular political tribe.

I was introduced to Rogan by a very left-leaning college roommate, after all. That wasn’t particularly unusual at the time. Plenty of people across the political spectrum enjoyed his show, and politics was only one of many subjects that came up.

Rogan could have a comedian on one day, a scientist the next, and some guy who spent his life studying bears the day after that. Sometimes the conversations were brilliant. Sometimes they were ridiculous. Sometimes Rogan would spend an hour talking about something he clearly knew almost nothing about.

But that was part of the charm.

He wasn’t supposed to be an expert. He was supposed to be curious.

In retrospect, I think that distinction was the foundation of the podcast’s success. Rogan could ask questions that a professional interviewer might consider too obvious or embarrassing. He could admit he didn’t understand something. He could entertain an unconventional idea without necessarily endorsing it.

And because the conversations were so long, listeners could occasionally watch someone work through an idea in real time.

Of course, the show was never perfect. Rogan has always been susceptible to conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and people who confidently present questionable ideas as established facts. There were plenty of occasions when I found myself rolling my eyes at something he said.

But for the most part, those moments were surrounded by enough genuinely interesting conversation that I didn’t particularly care.

I wasn’t listening to Joe Rogan because I thought he had all the answers. I was listening because he seemed interested in finding them.

Then 2020 Happened

I don’t know if anyone remembers the rather significant global event that began in early 2020, but it changed quite a few things.

Among them, apparently, was the Joe Rogan Experience.

As COVID-19 became the dominant subject of public conversation, Rogan increasingly found himself at the center of controversies involving public health, vaccines, government restrictions, and the media.

Initially, I was defensive of him.

My position was essentially that nobody should be taking life-or-death medical advice from a comedian who hosts a podcast. If someone was making an important medical decision based on something Joe Rogan said between advertisements for supplements and conversations about mixed martial arts, wasn’t that ultimately their responsibility?

I still believe people have an obligation to think critically about the information they consume.

But over time, I began to recognize the hypocrisy in my own argument.

After all, I had listened to Rogan discuss supplements, health, fitness, and productivity for years. I had tried products because he recommended them. I had taken his guests seriously enough to research their ideas and sometimes incorporate them into my own life.

If I was willing to try Alpha Brain because Joe Rogan told me it might improve my cognitive performance, why was it so difficult to imagine someone else taking his medical opinions much more seriously?

The fact that I personally knew where to draw the line didn’t mean everyone else would draw it in the same place.

And perhaps more importantly, Rogan himself had spent years cultivating an audience that trusted him. That trust was enormously valuable. It was also a responsibility, whether he wanted it to be or not.

I don’t think a podcast host needs to become a medical professional before discussing health. Nor do I think controversial ideas should be prohibited from public conversation. But there is a meaningful difference between asking questions about an unfamiliar subject and repeatedly amplifying questionable claims to an audience of millions.

There is also a difference between being skeptical and being selectively skeptical.

That distinction became increasingly difficult for me to ignore.

The Endless COVID Conversation

For a while, I continued listening.

Rogan was still occasionally making reasonable points. People should take care of their health. Exercise is good for you. Obesity is a serious public health concern. Government officials and pharmaceutical companies should be subject to scrutiny.

None of those positions is particularly controversial on its own.

But increasingly, those observations were wrapped into conversations that seemed to return to the same grievances regardless of who was sitting across from him.

COVID. Lockdowns. Vaccines. California. The media. Censorship. Repeat.

It didn’t seem to matter whether the guest was a comedian, an athlete, or someone who had come on to discuss an entirely unrelated subject. Somehow, the conversation would find its way back to the same handful of topics.

And I was getting bored. That might sound like a trivial complaint given the seriousness of some of the issues involved, but boredom was actually a major part of my gradual disengagement.

I had started listening to the podcast because I wanted to hear interesting people discuss interesting things. I didn’t particularly want to hear Joe Rogan explain, for the hundredth time, why he thought California’s COVID restrictions were ridiculous.

Eventually, I realized I was skipping more episodes than I was listening to.

I was still nominally on Team Rogan, but the enthusiasm was disappearing.

From Curiosity to Conviction

Rogan’s move from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas, in 2020 seemed to mark another chapter in the podcast’s evolution.

I don’t begrudge anyone for moving somewhere that better suits their lifestyle, political preferences, or financial interests, but his move also became part of a broader narrative that increasingly dominated the show: California was broken, mainstream institutions couldn’t be trusted, and the people who disagreed with him were either dishonest, incompetent, or hopelessly captured by ideology.

The irony, of course, is that Rogan had built much of his appeal around being willing to question conventional wisdom. But questioning conventional wisdom is not the same thing as automatically embracing whatever contradicts it. And somewhere along the way, it seemed to me that Rogan’s skepticism had become remarkably predictable.

The very same guy who once seemed willing to entertain almost any perspective was increasingly confident about which institutions, politicians, journalists, and experts deserved his contempt.

Meanwhile, the guests and conversations that attracted my attention seemed to become less central to the show’s identity.

I don’t want to pretend that Rogan was ever some perfectly neutral, intellectually rigorous interviewer. He wasn’t. His willingness to entertain dubious ideas was always part of the package of what I appreciated.

There is a big difference, however, between a curious person occasionally believing something ridiculous and a person whose entire worldview seems organized around the same collection of grievances.

One is entertaining, even when it’s frustrating. The other gets old. And for me, it got old a long time ago.

The Political Transformation

By the time the 2024 presidential election rolled around, my relationship with the Joe Rogan Experience had changed almost completely. I wasn’t listening regularly anymore. Most of my exposure to Rogan came through clips circulating online, usually featuring some political commentary that made me cringe.

Watching his increasingly explicit alignment with the American right was strange, particularly because I remembered a time when he seemed almost impossible to categorize politically.

This was a guy who had expressed support for Bernie Sanders, advocated marijuana legalization, criticized organized religion, and entertained all sorts of ideas that didn’t fit neatly into conventional conservative politics.

Now, he was endorsing Donald Trump.

Of course, people are entitled to change their political opinions. I don’t think Rogan owes his audience any particular ideological consistency, and I certainly don’t think someone becomes unworthy of listening to simply because they vote differently than I do.

My disappointment runs deeper than that.

What bothered me was watching someone who built an enormous audience by appearing independent of political institutions become such an influential participant in the very political ecosystem he once seemed to stand outside.

The podcast was no longer simply a place where politicians might appear and face an unusually long interview. It had become an important political platform in its own right. And I think that distinction really matters.

There’s something almost absurd about watching comedians and podcasters become political kingmakers while simultaneously insisting that they’re just regular guys telling jokes and asking questions.

You can’t have it both ways forever.

If your audience is large enough to influence elections, your endorsements carry weight, and your opinions help shape how millions of people understand the world, you are no longer simply some guy having conversations with his friends.

You are a media institution.

And institutions deserve scrutiny.

When Comedians Stop Being Funny

One of the more frustrating developments has been watching how many comedians in Rogan’s orbit have embraced a similar style of political commentary.I don’t mind comedians discussing politics. Some of the greatest comedians of all time have built their careers around political and social criticism.

But I do find it strange how often people who make their living mocking others seem incapable of tolerating criticism themselves.

There’s an entire genre of comedy now that seems to consist of complaining about censorship, political correctness, cancel culture, and the supposed inability of modern audiences to take a joke.

And yet these same comedians sometimes appear extraordinarily sensitive to the suggestion that their own material might be unfunny, repetitive, or simply not particularly insightful.

At some point, complaining about how nobody is allowed to tell jokes anymore becomes a substitute for actually telling good jokes.

And if I have to listen to another comedian explain how brave it is to say something controversial into a microphone while earning millions of dollars, I might lose my mind.

I also find the transformation of people like Duncan Trussell disappointing. I used to enjoy his appearances precisely because they were weird, philosophical, and occasionally profound. Even when the conversations wandered into complete nonsense, there was something charming about their willingness to explore unusual ideas.

Now, when I encounter clips of that broader podcasting circle, I often find myself wondering how so many supposedly independent thinkers ended up sounding so similar.

Maybe that’s an unfair characterization of people whose full conversations I no longer regularly consume. I recognize that short clips aren’t necessarily representative of everything someone believes.

But it’s difficult to ignore the pattern.

The personalities who once seemed so interested in exploring the world increasingly seem interested in explaining why the same people and institutions are responsible for everything wrong with it.

And I just don’t find that particularly interesting.

Did Joe Rogan Change, or Did I?

I think this is the question I’ve struggled with most.

It’s easy to look back at something you loved ten years ago and assume that it must have changed because you no longer enjoy it.

But I’ve changed, too.

I was in my early twenties when I started listening to Rogan. I’m in my thirties now. I’ve finished law school, become an attorney, developed a career, and accumulated a decade’s worth of experiences that have inevitably shaped how I evaluate people and ideas.

I’m probably less impressed by someone confidently discussing a subject they only partially understand than I was at 22.

I’m also more conscious of the difference between having an interesting opinion and having a well-supported one.

Working as an attorney has certainly reinforced that distinction. In my professional life, I don’t get to substitute curiosity, confidence, or a compelling narrative for actual evidence. I have to examine the facts, evaluate competing arguments, and recognize when the available information doesn’t support the conclusion someone wants to reach.

That’s a useful habit outside the courtroom, too, but I don’t think my changing perspective explains everything.

The podcast itself has changed. Its audience has grown enormously. Its host has become extraordinarily wealthy and influential. The political and cultural environment surrounding it has changed.

And perhaps most importantly, the incentives have changed. When you’re hosting a relatively small podcast, there’s freedom in being curious, unconventional, and unpredictable.

When you’re hosting one of the biggest shows in the world, surrounded by people who reinforce your worldview and an audience that rewards certain opinions, maintaining that same curiosity may become considerably more difficult.

I don’t know Rogan personally, and I can’t pretend to know what motivates him. But I do wonder whether the success of the podcast ultimately undermined some of the qualities that made it successful in the first place.

Why I’m Writing About This Now

Part of the reason I wanted to revisit this subject is that the Joe Rogan Experience played a meaningful role in the early history of this website. Some of my first successful articles were about his podcast. They introduced readers to my writing and helped me understand what it felt like to create something people actually wanted to read.

I don’t regret writing those articles. I don’t regret the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of hours I spent listening to the show, either. There were genuinely wonderful conversations along the way.

I discovered interesting people, encountered unfamiliar ideas, laughed at ridiculous stories, and occasionally learned something useful. Those experiences don’t disappear simply because I no longer admire the direction the podcast has taken.

But I also don’t feel obligated to defend someone indefinitely because I enjoyed their work ten years ago. That’s probably the biggest change in my perspective.

For a long time, I viewed criticism of Rogan as criticism of something I enjoyed and, by extension, of my own judgment in enjoying it.

I don’t see it that way anymore. You can appreciate what something once meant to you without defending what it has become.

You can acknowledge that someone introduced you to valuable ideas while recognizing that some of their other ideas were misguided or harmful.

And you can change your mind without pretending you were never a fan in the first place.

Moving On

I don’t know what the future holds for Joe Rogan or his podcast.

Perhaps his political influence will continue growing. Perhaps audiences will eventually tire of the same conversations and controversies. Perhaps the show will rediscover some of the unpredictability that made it so enjoyable in the first place.

I’m less interested in predicting his downfall than I am in understanding why I stopped listening.

And ultimately, I think the answer is pretty simple.

I started listening to Joe Rogan because he introduced me to people and ideas I wouldn’t otherwise have encountered. I stopped listening because, increasingly, I felt like I already knew what he was going to say. That’s a shame.

The internet has no shortage of people who are absolutely convinced they’re right about everything. What made the early Joe Rogan Experience special, at least to me, was the sense that its host was genuinely interested in discovering something he didn’t already know.

Maybe that version of the podcast still exists somewhere beneath the politics, the controversies, and the endless conversations about how terrible California is.

But I’m not particularly interested in spending another three hours trying to find it. And frankly, there are too many interesting things left to learn.