Former US President and businessman, Donald Trump has extended his support to Joe Rogan amid international backlash. Recently, a compilation of Joe Rogan’s podcasts were making round on social media in which he was using racial slurs. The world’s biggest music streaming service, Spotify bought the rights for The Joe Rogan Experience podcast in 2020 for more than 100 million USD. Spotify’s boss Daniel Ek said that although he condemned the racially insensitive comments, he will not remove Joe from the platform and give into “cancel culture”. EK also informed that Rogan chose to remove 70 episodes of the podcast after his “own reflection”. The controversial host apologized for using the N-word and comparing the black neighbourhood to “Planet of the Apes”. However, Trump did not like that Joe was sorry for his behaviour. Therefore, he invited Joe to his own video hosting platform, Rumble, famous among right-leaning users.
Donald Trump Offers Joe Rogan to Join Rumble
The Trump Media and Technology Group (TMGT) made a partnership agreement with Rumble in December 2021. Both companies are reportedly working on launching TMGT+, a subscription streaming service. TMGT has also proposed a new social media platform called TRUTH Social, which it will reportedly launch in February 2022. As per Trump, Rumble had already provided cloud services to the beta version of this social website, which was only for “invited guests only”. After learning the news of The Joe Rogan Experience episodes removed from Spotify, Rumble offered the host 100 million USD for his podcast for 4 years.
Rumble’s CEO praised Rogan for having “real conversations” and promised not to censor him. Donald Trump also encouraged him to carry on doing what he did best. Ex-POTUS called him an interesting guy who should not care about what “fake media” and “left lunatics” were saying.
Musicians Leave Spotify
The controversy surrounding Joe Rogan is not limited to racism. Many musicians, including Neil Young, opted to remove their music from Spotify due to COVID-19 vaccine misinformation being spread through Rogan’s podcast. Young said that he pulled his music from Spotify because such misinformation could potentially lead to someone’s death. Music streamer’s market capitalization fell by 2.1 billion USD within 3 days after Young left. About 300 medical professionals and educators also requested Spotify to remove Rogan’s podcast in an open letter due to vaccine misinformation.
Rogan stopped talking about the COVID-19 vaccine for a while and started weighing in on the race. It led other artists, including India Arie, Joni Mitchell, and Donald Trump’s niece Mary Trump to leave Spotify as well. Many joined the movement #DeleteSpotify started by India Arie, to call for the removal of Rogan’s podcast. However, the supporters of Rogan wished to keep listening to his controversial podcasts for the sake of “free speech”.
This is What Happens on Rogan’s Show
Critics were shocked to see an alarming number of supporters behind Joe Rogan. They shared videos on social media to show that this was not the first time Rogan had done something offensive. The host had used the N-word multiple times, even when a conversation like that was not even necessary.
It did not stop at racial slurs. Some also resurfaced some older podcasts where speakers vehemently disrespected women. A comedian guest Joey “Coco” Diaz, was making misogynist remarks, and Rogan laughed his heart out. Coco said he coerced young women aspiring to become comedians to perform oral sex on him because it was a “door to Hollywood”. Rogan asked him how many times he did that, to which he said 20. The host kept laughing constantly. Such content was highly disturbing and even more disturbing to see some viewers support that kind of show.
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