Breaking the Attention Economy

The gang discusses the danger of feeding attention economy in an attempt to stop the people who benefit from it

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
It's Oregon. You don't get to consent, and that's how
you open up the podcast. That's right, baby, look up
one party consent laws for recording recording. Um, this is
it could happen here a podcast about when you can
legally record people without their consent. Hint always in the

(00:26):
state of Oregon. Um. I'm Robert Evans. We're talking about
bad things, good things, things that are good and bad,
all that stuff. Who what do we you know what?
You know what we should talk about? You know what
no one has talked about ever on the internet lately.

(00:47):
Josephine Robinette Rogan. Oh, I've never heard of him. What
does he do? Well? He has a podcast. If you
heard a podcast, Garrison, I'm unfamiliar, but just I'll just
go with it. Yeah. Well, it's like the radio, but
easier to spread disinformation. Um and also sexier for reasons

(01:08):
that are hard to explain. Uh. And Joe Rogan gets
on his podcast and he says a lot of stuff
that people think is bad, and then everybody gets angry
at him, and then he makes more money. And today
we're going to talk about how maybe we could handle
this problem differently. Maybe we could not do the same
thing over and over. There'spech a different results. Yeah, and upfront,

(01:30):
obviously we're talking about him, We're trying to talk less
about specifically what he's said and more about kind of
the problem he represents in the ways in which the
responses people have aren't having the results they desire. We're
gonna avoid using his name in the title of the
episode or the description because that doesn't feed into the
algorithm kind of in the same way. But yeah, Garrison,
you want to kick us off here. Yeah, I've been

(01:52):
watching the Rogan thing online be getting kind of frustrated
because of the way the discourse is going, and it's
just repeating the same loops we see every few months
and nothing really changes and Realgan just gets more popular.
So earlier this month or like a middle of I
guess it was closer to like January. UM, there was
like a group of like two d seventy doctors, healthcare workers, UM,

(02:16):
and scientists who are campaigning for Spotify to adopt a
miss information policy. UM. This was prompted by a few
episodes of the Joe Rogan podcast that we've already actually
talked about. UM about Dr Robert Malone and someone else
who said some stupid things about the pandemic. Um, So

(02:36):
I write what when when I when we talked about
these episodes this last time, I tried to actually talk
about what these doctors were doing, and let not focus
on Rogan himself, but specifically what these doctors were doing
and their ideology, because I didn't want to add to
the whole Rogan side of the discourse. Um and you know,
for for this, for this, like a letter that that

(02:56):
these doctors sent to Spotify if they were not really
advocating Rogan to be removed from the platform, um or
even for episodes to be removed, just to have Spotify
clarify their guidelines regarding medical misinformation, because you know, and
it's important to note that Joe Rogan has a exclusivity
contract with Spotify. He does not work for them, but

(03:18):
Rogan gets paid a lot of money to get his
podcast only published on Spotify's feed. So it's it's not
it's it's it's it's like a it's a it's a
weird kind of set up, and it can give a
lot of like gray area for like does Spotify count
that's as publisher or not? You're like, well, not really
because they could. He could also just end that contract
and post his podcast everywhere. Um, I mean I think

(03:41):
it would take there. There's probably some sort of exclusive
time limit on the exclusivity agreement, etcetera. Um, because it
it is, it is mixed, because they did recently when
it came out that he said the N word a
whole bunch of times, Spotify removed those episodes. So there's
a degree to which they have acted as a publisher. Yeah,
there's a whole of stuff to kind of talk about

(04:01):
this on the So the letter gwent kind of viral
and it prompted this whole kind of thing in the
middle of January, but like deleting your Spotify subscription, and
then we had musicians, most uh, most popularly Neil Young
decided to remove all their music from the Spotify platform,
um as like a performative thing, being like, Okay, if

(04:22):
Spotify is gonna host all this medical misinformation, we're going
to remove this as protest. Now. Of course, Neil Young
then just signed an exclusivity deal with Amazon, so oh great, cool.
We yes, Amazon, the bastion of moral purity. Yeah, and
they're not I mean I think they are probably pay
a better rate because Spotify is pretty much at the

(04:42):
bottom to musicians. But I don't think it's good. Um,
I think Napster actually has the best rate, doesn't the
best rate, which I mean also like if you want
to be actually moral, just just just use band camp.
But I mean I use Spotify because it's really easy.
And that's why Spotify works. It's because it's super it
is it is a well made product. That does not
mean it's an ethical product, but it does. It does

(05:03):
the thing that it's supposed to do quite well. So
so yeah, it basically we've had endless discourse since then
about Joe Rogan about Spotify is the platform, talking about
how bad Spotify is, which yes, it is bad, talking
about how you know how bad Joe Rogan is, and
you know, the thing is, Joe Rogan already had the
most popular podcast in the world his exclusivity deal with Spotify,

(05:24):
and he's currently estimated to bring in eleven million listeners
per episode of his podcast. Yeah. For for some reference, um,
Behind the Bastards is one of the largest podcasts out there. Um,
and he's on average something like ten times our traffic. Uh,
like it's and it's not He's not He's not just
the most popular podcast. He helped invent what podcasting is.

(05:45):
Podcast He was one of the first, and like he
had a foundational role in how the entire industry works.
Since this letter and since the's episodes, there's been a
whole lot of discourse around if Spotify should remove Joe

(06:07):
Rogan from the platform, um, if they should cancel his deal.
You know, a lot of people calling on Spotify to
do that, a lot of people calling on Spotify to
remove certain episodes, and Spotify has not been keen to so. Like,
but let's and I know, Joe Rogan himself did actually
authorize the removal of a certain amount of episodes, which
for reasons we'll talk about later. Um, but what's all
this discourse and outrage and articles and tweets actually doing

(06:29):
to Spotify into Rogan? Okay? In my opinion, kind of
the end result is actually very similar to all of
the free advertising that companies get whenever they make awoke
statement that infuriate, that infuriates the actionary right, you know,
resulting in throwing your kel out your window, flushing your
Gillette blade down the toilet, and burning your nikes. Um.
And it's even widely speculated and kind of like a

(06:50):
known fact that companies will use progressive statements and policies
to drum up this outrage um to give their company
and product tons of free advertising and just to get
a brand name itself inside consumers heads. And this is
definitely happening. Was was Roken and Spotify in terms of
outrage being used as advertising. It may not be intentional,

(07:11):
but that is what the result is. Yeah, and it's
I mean, it's very uh, it's it's both sides like
to make fun of the other for doing this, like
folks on the left like to make funt of their
right when they're when they're breaking their carriggs or whatever. Um.
But you know, it happens. It's equally profitable for both sides.
You just do the opposite. You know, you have someone

(07:32):
come on and talk about how they're a truth teller
being canceled, and they get a bunch of attention money,
and and it works equally well both ways. Pretty much. Yeah,
So with Spotify and Rogan in the news every day
for the past like three weeks, the the the end
is that like the fact that it's just that people
are hearing these names in their head more often, and

(07:54):
they're probably subconsciously going to use Spotify more often because
you know, despite a few people that might canceled their subscriptions,
the net effect will be more listeners who seemed to
Spotify because there because the name is in my subconscious
it's it's it's in there. And all the effect that's
going to have on Rogan is giving him away more
publicity to attract new listeners, and and it's listeners who
themselves are like attracted to unconventional ideas outside the mainstream,

(08:17):
and his more passive listeners are gonna like double down
on him because there's gonna be like the backfire effect,
so they will like feel defensive and then become more
of a fan of his because he's seen as a
cultural outsider, even though he's not an outsider. He is
the mainstream, he's the biggest podcaster in the world, but
he's seen as a cultural outsider. So you know, he
like brings on guests who say things that they're not

(08:38):
supposed to say. You know, so who's actually going to
be convinced by all this outrage to not listen to
Rogan via pointing out all the wrong things he's said
and all the slurs he's used, Like, is that really
going to stop fans from listening to Joe Rogan's time?
Really pointing out that Donald Trump illegally took classified documents,
It's like, yeah, I mean that's fucked up and ship,

(08:58):
but like he's never gonna get charged with crimes and
none of his supporters care. You're the only people who
are angry about this, and it doesn't matter because the
people you vote for aren't going to punish him. So
like just yeah, you know, chill out a little bit.
It's like all of the outrage is simply inflating the
importance of Jarrogan on like an entire cultural level. It's

(09:19):
that he's becoming He's becoming more important to his fans,
more important to his haters, and more important to himself
and Spotify as an asset because he generates a lot
of exclusive listeners and news coverage and buzz around the
Spotify brand. And it's important to talk about. Like, so
you have, broadly speaking within the field of entertainment, like

(09:40):
digital entertainment in particular, you have like two ways that
you can grow your audience. One of them is organic growth,
which is you know, I listened to Garrison's podcast. I
like it. I tell a friend about Garrison's podcast. They
like it. They tell a friend about Garrett that that's
like organic, you know, it's very natural. That's purely the
kind of quality of the content UM reaching people. And

(10:02):
then there is in organic growth, which is can be
the result of like ad campaigns can be the result
of UM an algorithm. Often in today we're talking about
like oh, Twitter or Facebook prioritizes this kind of content.
So like something article on bright Barred about black on
white crime that would have been read ten thousand times
ten years ago gets read a million times because it
spreads well on this platform for reasons that aren't organic.

(10:25):
UM And with Joe Rogan, one of the reasons why
because we can talk about like d platforming. If you
want to talk about like Alex Jones for example, or Meloianopolis,
good case that D platforming really reduced both of their reaches. Now,
Milo uh pretty much wiped out as a person who
mattered in terms of the discourse, thank christ. Alex Jones

(10:45):
less so. UM it definitely hurt his business and it
reduced his reach. But by the time Facebook and Twitter
and whatnot started throttling him, he'd he had already inorganically
increased his reach enough that like he's able to he
had he had a large a large enough audios to
stay somewhat relevant and keep going. The thing about Joe
Rogan is he did not get famous and popular and organically.

(11:07):
I'm sure there was some degree of that on like
social media, but most of his growth before that, Like
people like him, Like whatever you think of him, he's
a good broadcaster. That's that's the thing. Even though, like
you know, for all this research, I don't like him.
He says horrible things, but you know, I was watching
I watched all of like Rogan's like, um, like Instagram
videos he made like a few ten minute things talking

(11:28):
about the outrage, and it's it sucks because when you
listen to him, he's like a really good talker. He's
very good at what he does. He's very good at
like generating sympathy and generating like good Like it's it
sucks because yeah, I wanted to like hate this person,
but I'm like listening to him talking about this issue
like oh wow, yeah, like you actually have a decent
grasp on what's going on here. Um, And that's that's horrible.

(11:50):
He is not part of He gets some of his
money from playing like a dumb, chill, stoner dude, but
he's not dumb. He's definitely a stoner. He's not a
dumb man. He's very intell. He's very good at what
he does. UM. One of the things we don't kind
of talk about enough when we talk about media that
I think is important to note is that UM being

(12:11):
likable in a professional sense is a skill. And it's
a skill like any technical skill. It's like knowing how
to how to how to farm or weld. UM. It
is a thing that you build on over time. It
is a thing that UM takes a lot of trial
and error and a lot of education to get right. Uh.
It is a thing that Joe Rogan has been doing

(12:32):
for longer than a significant chunk of the people on
this show, including Garrison, have been alive. Uh. It's like
like I've been like this is this is more or
less been my job for like thirteen or fourteen years.
And it is like a skill that you build. And
the thing that he is really good at is making
people want to listen to him. And so if you
were to say kick him out of Spotify, tomorrow. It's

(12:54):
it's entirely possible that his that that would increase the
number of people who who listen to the podcast. There's
there's a case to be made that Spotify has limited
his maximum adi and limiting him to Spotify as opposed
to if he was just any app he wanted to
be on, maybe it'd be twenty million you know, listening
to every exactly. Yes, Like even if did even a
Spotify did drop him because of all these you know,

(13:15):
outrage you know, and all the tweets and they're all
of the petitions, even if they did drop him, he
would probably not only gain more listeners due to the
outrage porn and and free speech advocates, but also with
his exclusivity ending help his podcast will just be available
in more platforms and more people who will to listen
to him, like really easily. So yeah, he's only going
to grow if people get what they want. And like

(13:38):
that makes you think, like this, this outrage isn't actually
meant to get the Joe Rogan Joe Rogan problem taking
care of it, Like it's this, this actually isn't about
stopping misinformation. It's this this isn't actually about having they're
being less fans of Joe Rogan. All of his outrage
is about making you feel better because you feel like
you're doing something right, Like bad thing is happening in

(14:01):
the world, and it's easier to pretend like your actions
are hurting it than it is to accept that, like
maybe there's nothing I can do about this right now. Yeah,
it would be a really nice world if the Tarrogan
problem could be solved so easily by Spotify dropping his
exclusivity deal, right that would that would be great, But
that's not the world we live in. And tricking yourself

(14:21):
into thinking that is just kind of delusional. Um, and
like yeah, it makes you feel better, but like that's
not actually helping because like, yeah, we can obviously compare
this to other like D platform and campaigns with people
for like Alex Jones, but you know, Jones was way
more niche and way more extreme around the time of
his like D platforming campaign, and his campaign wasn't about
ending exclusivity deals. It was about getting him off of

(14:43):
popular platforms altogether. And that's not happening with Joe Rogan
because Joe Rogan isn't saying the things that are going
to get him booted from platforms. He's smart, he knows
what he can and cannot say. He's not He's not
dumb enough to get banned from these platforms, right, and also,
you know, he's a giant financial asset, so they wouldn't
ben him anyway. But like he's he's What he's doing
is it's bringing on people who say horrible things to

(15:06):
continue a cultural conversation, which gives him in the headlines
and gives a platform like Spotify a whole bunch of
room to cry free speech and get away with it.
Removing Alex Jones could be seen as like a monetary
decision in and of itself, because it is actually removing liability.
But this is this isn't really the case for Rogan. Yeah,
and he's um, yeah, it's just not. One of the

(15:28):
problems is that this kind of does fly in the
face of a lot of what people want to think.
And I don't want to be making the case that
it's as black and white as it is, because, for example,
I'm not saying that it was bad for someone to
go through the effort of finding and pointing out, Hey,
there's like seventy episodes where Joe Rogan drops the N
word um and getting those pulls. I don't think that

(15:48):
I think that that was broadly speaking, a productive thing.
But keeping Joe Rogan at the forefront of the outrage
cycle is doing nothing but printing money for the guy.
And that's that's not an easy thing to deal with
because it's like, do you want me to just like
stay quiet in the face of injustice? And it's like, no,
that's not what I want you to do. But I

(16:09):
do want you to recognize that there are times in
ways of speaking up that are just yes, putting putting
gasoline on an injustice fire. It's it's important to remember
that d platform ng is just a tactic and and
single tactics aren't always effective in every situation. That's what
makes them a tactic, right, Like, in order for a
tactic to work, you need to understand the scenario that's

(16:31):
are applying the tactic to and seeing if that tactic
achieves the goal. And if it doesn't, great, but if
it doesn't, you need to choose other tactic and stop
doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
a new result. And this is one of those situations
where like when you bring up, hey, maybe nothing might
be the best thing, at least for for most people
specifically to do. Like, the thing that gets brought up

(16:51):
is like, well do you not want me to uh?
Or like, well, what do you suggest I do? Like
you know, you're saying I shouldn't do this, but you're
not telling me what to do. It's like, well, it's
like if somebody gets shot in the leg and one
person has a tourniquet and the other person has a
bunch of razor blades that they want to throw in
their eyes, and it's like, well, what do you want
me to do? All I have is these razor blades.

(17:12):
This is the only other thing I can do? Then
just stand by and do nothing. And it's like, well,
in this case, doing nothing is the best thing to do,
because it's it's not that's not going to help the problem.
Boycotts of this scale kind of only tend to benefit
brands and businesses right like, because if if if the
brand of business is a person is smaller in more
niche like and say like Alex Jones or Richard Spencer,

(17:33):
right then yes, these tactics about boycotts can really work
to push things out of the cultural like market and
also in some cases in terms of businesses like the
literal market, but when you're dealing with things like Target, Nike,
and Joe Rogan, that's not the case because those brands
are way too big. Any any you know, any conservative
boycott against Target isn't going to have that effect. It

(17:54):
will probably make weird liberals be like, Oh, I'm gonna
go to Target now because the conservative still want me to.
It's so like it's I don't it's not it's it's like,
it's the problem is. It's like Joe Rogan himself isn't
really the problem either. You know. A lot of the
problem can be seen more as like content algorithms that
boost and reward misinformation and disinformation and conspiracism. And that's

(18:16):
more of like an actual issue at hand here. Joe
Rogan is just a business. That's how he hears about
a lot of these people. Yeah, I go viral somewhere else.
And in a lot of cases, it's an inorganic thing
that brings them in front of them. It's some fucking
algorithm that and and that is a case where you
can target and work on deep exacting and it can
be more productive that that. That was That was what
that was what I was getting at. It's like Joe

(18:37):
Joe Rogan himself was just a visible outgrowth of the
core problem. And the core problem is these things getting
onto his show in the first place. So yeah, we
can't stop his show, but maybe we should do more
work to prevent to like figure out ways to do
you know, start using these tactics to prevent algorithms from
boosting these things so that Joe Roken sees them and
then and then invites them on. And yeah, that's a

(18:58):
lot more work than just being angry at Spotify. And
yet maybe it will actually do something. And one thing
that can do something is with spot and it won't
work if it's just Spotify. But I am one of
those people who thinks that maybe it's not the worst
thing if things like Spotify are seen as publishers and
thus when they spread misinformation that leads to disaster as

(19:19):
health consequences, um, they can be held liable. Right. Uh,
that's not the worst possible change, although it is a
problematic one. I don't want to like boil that down
to a simple question, but I think that's an avenue
that should be explored because I don't see that there's
a lot of difference in Spotify choosing to let something
go to air or the New York Times printing misinformation. UM.

(19:43):
And in fact, Spotify is going to reach more people
because nobody cares what the New York Times says anymore. Yeah,
so Spotify. The Spotify CEO did kind of address the
ongoing controversy around the you know, internal publishing stuff and
how they view medical misinformation. UM. They do adopt a
clarified policy that prohibits content that promotes dangerous, false, or

(20:04):
dangerous deceptive medical information which may cause offline harm or
pose a direct threat to public health. UM. And then
the Post also announced that the Spotify would add content
advisories to any content related to COVID on the platform,
Twitter and Instagram have no, it's not, it's not, it's
not actually it's but but if you have the operation,

(20:26):
if you can again, if there is like an actual
dollar consequence to companies that aired massive disinformation, UM, then
you're not without sort of making Joe Rogan the focus.
You can make it so that the people that he
actually is accountable to, which is the people who make
him give him the money that he gets. UH, have

(20:48):
a vested interest in tamping down on the worst excesses
that he's responsible for, Like that might have an impact.
I don't know, Like part of the problem is that
and one thing we should acknowledge here when we're talking
about like what would work better than what's being done.
This is a pretty new problem. Versions of it have
existed before, but without the Internet and without podcasts being

(21:09):
what they are, this is a pretty new thing to
be dealing with. And I'm not I don't I'm not
saying like this is here's the obvious solution to this,
but I think we are trying to point out, like
what folks are doing doesn't work. The tactics being applied
are not effective, and we should be exploring other opportunities
to mitigate this harm that are not well. I guess
it's time to delete another app and post about it

(21:32):
on Twitter. Yeah. I think I think this is especially
a thing with like it's like one of the other
things that that's been popping up as broken's like weapons
grade transphobia. Yes, oh yeah, jeez, yeah, and that's that
stuff us is horrifying. Like the racism is also like
really bad. He's extremely sexist. But it's like I think misogynist, racist,

(21:53):
all there's a lot of money and being that dude. Yeah, well,
and I think this is sort of you know, this,
this is you know, this is an inherent problem for
the left because fighting like this, this kind of sort
of like shock jockey information stuff works better like that
that rage economy works better for the right thing does

(22:15):
for the left. And I think in some ways that
means like you have to fight them in other spaces,
you like, you know, you you you can't just like
keep throwing yourself. It's the same thing with like so
why why why you don't have just like one line
where you just run into a bunch of cops over
and over again in one spot, right, like, but we try. Yeah. Yeah,
it's like some folks gave that one the old College,

(22:37):
the old College. Yeah, it's like you know, like in
some in some sense, yeah, like it's it's it's it's
it's hard to be too hard on these on people
who doing this. And it's like if I think they're
doing the right thing, but it's like you have to
you have to pick your battles. And you know, if
if you're taking a fight that's fair, like that's a
that's a bad fight that is a bad fight for you.

(22:58):
You you need you need to be finding them in
different spheres. You need to be you know, I mean,
working for example, on stuff like tech regulation, like you
like working on you know, unionizing these places, right like
fighting purely finding them in information space, we will lose
every time. The advantage that we have is that we
also do other things, and it's it's you know, we're

(23:20):
we're going to keep losing hearing if you know, if
we keep fighting them in exactly the same way here,
we're going to keep losing. So we have to you know,
like we we we we we have to fight in
other places. And that's hard and it sucks because you know,
this is such a mispart of just what reality is
now is you know, yelling at people online. But like

(23:43):
you have to stop doing that because the problem is
that we've all gotten fucking caught for quite some time
in this escalating culture war. And it's not it's not
a battle ground that can be entirely ignored because when
you kind of seed ground them, they create conspiracy theories

(24:03):
about trans people attacking kids that lead to them murdering
people in the streets, or they spread conspiracy theories about
masks that lead to them occupying Ottawa. Um. So it can't.
The culture war battleground cannot be ignored. But at the
end of the day, what we should rather than just
like seeking new ways to engage with it, because the
more you engage with it, and it is sometimes necessary

(24:23):
to engage with but the more you engage with it,
the stronger you make this whole thing and the heavier
it lies on all of us like a cloud. And
in the only real way to actually win in the
long run is to find a way to get off
of that, to get out of this, like this fucking
treadmill of bullshit that has become everything all consuming, and

(24:46):
it's it's in a lot of people's best interest for
it to stay all consuming. Um And I there's a
there's a lot that's going on here because it's not
I think sometimes when you criticize people for the actions
they take in situation is like this, they kind of
interpreted as you saying, well, like you're stupid and you
fucked up and you never should have liked done this,

(25:07):
And and the way I think of it is more
like this is a we have found ourselves trapped in
a really messy situation and no one has figured out
how to get out. So it's not a situation of like,
people are are dumb for having done something that's not effective.
It's a situation of we are all trying to figure
out what works in this new world we have kind

(25:28):
of somewhat accidentally somewhat purposefully built for ourselves, and it
is important to have humility and be willing to accept it, like,
you know what, that's not working and we have to
stop doing the thing that's not working, rather than you know,
treat it as if it's sort of a moral failing
that something we we we tried was not effective. The

(25:58):
last thing is it's like, really, it's not just the
non effectiveness, but also so the idea that the fact
that this outrage is said just a constant is just
a constant free bannerad for Spotify every everywhere online is
like also not great. So it's not it's not even
not not even just not effective, but you're just giving
a corporation tons of free press. And maybe we can

(26:21):
reframe the way we approach these things so that we
don't do that, because in the end, that's just kind
of adding to promoting the misinformation that's kind of that's
all that's kind of really doing. And it's not that's
not nearly as you know, impactful, as you know, just
Rogan doing it himself, but it's still is it still
is a contributing factor and and and it it does
contribute to the backfire effect of people who listen to

(26:43):
his podcast. Maybe people who like don't even but they're
still gonna get defensive over him because they're seeing this
attack on him. And even though he's even though he
is a huge figure, he's seen as an outsider. So
that that really does contribute to that back backfire effect
thing of getting people more and more vested in him
as a content creator. But yeah, it's really dumb. But

(27:04):
the thing we need to deal with it, it's it's
a version of the lesson people still didn't learn with Trump,
which is that like, you can't you can't beat these
people by dunking on them. It doesn't matter that Joe
rogan said something dumb. It doesn't matter that Joe Rogan's inconsistent,
It doesn't matter that like Joe Rogan has tell tells
lies or whatever. That's not going to change anybody's mind

(27:27):
about the dude, because it's not about Joe Rogan. They
don't support him because they love They support him as
much as any of the people who are at least
engaging primarily online about it. Most of his fans are
just don't think about any of this because they're not
as online as the rest of us. But the people
who are kind of engaging with this and helping to
fuel the culture war side of this thing, they don't care.

(27:49):
There this This isn't about his inherent characteristics. This is
about it's a chance to dunk on the enemy. Um so,
like you, you're not going to convince them of anything. Ever.
That's all I had to say on this. Yeah, I
don't know. Yeah, because I again, I really I really
resisted writing this episode for a long time because I

(28:10):
didn't want to add to the Rogan discourse. But after
a while, the Rogan discourse itself became worth talking about.
How we talk so because it is more of a
meta angle, like okay, that is actually worth talking about.
But yeah, I am so tired of hearing, watching, and
seeing the words still Rogan. Yeah, I'm exhausted by it.

(28:31):
I hate that, Like it's a bigger story in the
United States than the gigantic war that might break out
in Eastern Europe. Um, it's it's just just a very
frustrating time and the only way to win this particular
game is not to play um. So that's that's why
we're doing this. We're not going to stick his name

(28:51):
in the description or the episode title. Um yeah it is.
You know, the title we were working with this under
that we're not going to use so as to not
feed into the algorithm was Joe Rogan the Egregor. And
that is really how I think about it. If you
if you haven't listened to our episode on the book
about the Flat Earth, book on Behind the Bastards that

(29:12):
talks about as Um and eggs, it's basically a god
that is made up by the kind of directed thoughts
of a population of people. Yeah, it's like a distalt
deity that exists like this thought form that if people
put energy into it, it almost gains its own it's
it's own like um um independence from the people that

(29:36):
that like burst it, even though it is just like
a thought form and it because it was just an
idea or presence, and now it basically is its own
god that's self sustaining and it can impact the world. Yeah,
global capital is an egregor And and the more that
people kind of feed into the discourse around Joe Rogan,
the more he turns into one kind of outside of

(29:56):
his own actions, he this idea of him has an
influence on everything around us. And boy, we don't need that,
do we certainly did not just said we just put
that one down, right, try something else. Yeah, let's throw
a brick at your sheriff instead. This will go better

(30:16):
for you. I mean sure, sure, Chris, Yeah, Chris, Chris
said it, not me. Yeah, I mean obviously in Minecraft
he said bricks. It's fine. Robert Robert, Robert Robert. It's
not Minecraft anymore. It's a roadblocks the feds cracked in Minecraft. Yeah,
you're right. It's going to take peks for them, for
them to their computers to realize what roadblocks is them.

(30:41):
Was a story I think I saw on Twitter about
like like some yeah, so some some kids who actually
legitimately got arrested in Brushford, like blowing up a building
in Minecraft, so like like literally so we uh yeah,
and instead again again it's roadblocks where nothing bad happens,
nothing bad happens, all right, Everybody get on Roadblocks, um

(31:04):
and don't talk about Joe Rogan and don't talk about
Joe Rogan. It Could Happen Here is a production of
cool Zone Media. Or more podcasts from cool Zone Media,
visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check
us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources
for It Could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone

(31:27):
Media dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.