Joe Rogan



Back when I was a kid you didn't need Joe Rogan. Your best friend had a 27-year-old brother who was a fucking loser who would smoke pot in a room with blacklight posters and tell you that the Mayans invented cell phones. I don't know why everyone hates this guy so much. He's a meathead who does DMT and and has enough money to say whatever he wants. We've probably all agreed with Joe Rogan about something at some point, which is to say everyone is a complete idiot in their own special way. Joseph James Rogan, known professionally as Joe Rogan, is an American comedian, podcaster, martial artist, and actor best known for hosting Fear Factor, being a commentator for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE), one of the most-listened-to podcasts in the world. The show features conversations with a wide variety of well-known people, with no set theme for topics discussed, nor an archetype for guests. People who have appeared on Rogan's show include weed-smoking CEOs, left-wing politicians, famous atheists, and the occasional madman. Although he has been described as 'libertarian-leaning' by CNN, with the exception of Bernie Sanders, Rogan has only supported right-wing libertarian candidates for president (Ron Paul, Gary Johnson and Jo Jorgensen).

Rogan is known for his fringe views, which include New Age ideas. Raised Catholic, his spiritual views are now derived from experiences he has had using psychedelic drugs. He has promoted numerous conspiracy theories and is notable, in part, because of it. One of his more prominent traits is his willingness to repeat anything he heard anyone say in the last five minutes and then adopt those beliefs for a time, often without any consideration of their validity, indicating that he is exceedingly credulous.

This doesn't mean that Rogan hasn't disagreed with (even to the point of getting pissed off at) some of his guests on rare occasions (five times out of hundreds), however, and some conspiracies such as flat earth are too out there for even him to believe. Nonetheless, Rogan frequently has regurgitated many hoaxes, fake news, false viral Internet bullshit, and similar on his show and on his social media feeds. Examples from 2022 alone include repeating a "rainbow colored being confused for Halloween candy" urban legend in a podcast with, repeating a bogus story on his podcast (that was circulating among extremist Republicans such as Lauren Boebert at the time) that schools were installing cat litter boxes in bathrooms to accommodate furries, repeating on his podcast a ridiculous online rumor that an Australian agricultural bill would't let you grow your own food, and spreading a false tweet on his social media (doctored to look like it came from CNN) that claimed that actor Steven Seagal had joined Russia special forces to fight Ukraine. In addition, Rogan's incredibly wide range of guests includes some conspiracy theorists, political oriented guests of questionable integrity, and even a few genuine oddballs and kooks.

To be fair, Rogan, unlike more obstinate conspiracy theorists, will actually sometimes apologize for spreading misinformation when corrected. Still, it is wise to double-check any information repeated on either Rogan's show or his social media accounts, given his susceptibility to misinformation.

Rogan is also a personal friend of Alex Jones, and has been featured several times on InfoWars together with Jones, also providing "InfoWars-exclusive interviews".

Some fundies think Rogan is a demon and/or an Illuminati member.

Joe Rogan Questions Everything
In 2013, Rogan hosted the show Joe Rogan Questions Everything, which aired on SyFy for only 6 episodes. The show debunked conspiracy theories such as a "bigfoot human hybrid" and HAARP-making chemtrails.

Mental health
Rogan has, on many different occasions, expressed doubt over well-established medical knowledge. He has expressed doubt over the existence of some kinds of autism, as well as ADHD as a "disease of the brain" ("Didn't someone just say that they invented that? And that it's not real?").

COVID-19 pandemic and anti-vaccination
I actually think he's a menace to public health because he speaks on things that have no scientific backing. There's so many wackos out there that think that vaccines are a scam or dangerous … there's so many people are paranoid and delusional, and they want it all to be a conspiracy…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Rogan became infamous for hosting multiple guests who spouted misinformation about COVID-19, as well as for making a few questionable statements of his own about face masks, vaccines, and other public health measures.

On May 7, 2020, Elon Musk appeared on Rogan's show in a two-hour journey filled with lies and misinformation about the pandemic. On May 22, he hosted David Pakman (from The David Pakman Show) for almost three hours in which he defended Trump's obvious lies comments about hydroxychloroquine and injecting disinfectant.

On June 12, 2020, comedian ribbed Rogan's broscience tendencies by joking about Rogan's previous promotion of vitamin D as a way to prevent COVID-19. Then, Burr slammed Rogan's brainless hyper-masculinity when Rogan called face masks something only "for bitches".

On April 23, 2021, Rogan encouraged healthy young people to not get a COVID-19 vaccine, citing more broscience and claiming that "if you're a healthy person, and you're exercising all the time, and you're young, and you’re eating well, like, I don't think you need to worry about this." Never mind that COVID has actually severely affected even young elite athletes, with effects ranging from reduced peak performance after recovering to long-haul symptoms that have ended careers. Rogan's statement prompted a sharp critical rebuttal from White House chief medical advisor a few days later, where he reminded people that — aside from the fact that young people are not completely immune from this virus — people "could do damage to somebody else" if they are infected, even if they have no symptoms at all, and that Rogan's position only made sense if one "worr[ied] about [themselves] and not society." Rogan has repeatedly invited antivaxxer Alex Berenson onto his show.

On September 1, 2021, Rogan announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19 and had embarked on treatment involving several drugs, including the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin, which is popular with conspiracy theorists and other idiots in fringe communities. In a weird bit of events, in spite of ivermectin being the 433rd most prescribed drug in America (pre-pandemic), the media went on a frenzy insisting that Rogan was taking "horse dewormer", and Rogan was widely mocked across numerous platforms and media. While technically true, this is incredibly misleading as medicines can have more than one use, e.g., nitroglycerin being both a chemical used in explosives and a heart medication. Rogan was far more bothered by people calling the drug that he took a "horse dewormer" than by the prospect of actual human beings dying because they took his anti-vaccine advice.

By the end of 2021, Joe Rogan's Twitter feed  had very little of the "stand up comic" and "mixed martial arts fanatic" content that his feed description promised. Instead, most of his retweets concerned doomsday conspiratorial content (largely centered around COVID-19) from such fearmongers as Glenn Greenwald and Max Blumenthal and support for spreaders of COVID misinformation, such as and

On January 3, 2022, Rogan invited Malone onto his show for a podcast episode that was widely criticized when Malone evoked Godwin's law by claiming that people were only flocking to COVID vaccines because of "mass formation psychosis", which, according to Malone, was a form of hypnosis similar to what led to the rise of Hitler in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. This led to an open letter from over 270 doctors calling for then the host of Rogan's podcast, to develop a comprehensive policy prohibiting misinformation.

Shortly after the Malone episode achieved widespread notoriety in the news, a few musicians (most notably which eventually led to a rare moment of unity when the rest of the members of the acrimonious 1970s supergroup  followed suit) removed their music catalogue from Spotify in protest of Rogan spreading anti-vaccination bullshit.

In June 2023, Rogan hosted Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his podcast. True to form, Kennedy spewed out a vast amount of bullshit conspiracy theories. As too typical with Rogan and conspiracy theories, there was little push-back from Rogan regarding this misinformation — in fact, Rogan agreed with much of it. This resulted in a feud on Twitter with vaccine scientist The feud started when Hotez shared a critical Vice article about the Kennedy Jr. episode. In response, Rogan challenged Hotez to a debate with Kennedy Jr. Hotez was willing to appear on the podcast (and had done so in April 2020), but he refused to appear with Kennedy Jr., feeling that such would not be productive and would only result in a type atmosphere due to Kennedy Jr.'s frequent use of debate fallacies (such as moving the goalposts). This resulted in not only the usual Twitter drama (including death threats against Hotez, as well as Nazi images being sent to him due to Hotez being Jewish), but anti-vaccination protesters actually accosting him outside his home. Elon Musk even weighed in on the matter with an tweet that implied that he supported Kennedy Jr.'s anti-vaccination bullshit.

The dog-piling from Rogan and his sycophants resulted in a scathing tweet directed at Rogan from who acknowledged that while there was "a lot of fucked up things about pharma", it was "disrespectful to all the doctors, researchers and  medical professionals that dedicate their lives to saving lives" to also not acknowledge the benefits of the pharmaceutical industry. He also strongly criticized Rogan for "trying to bully Dr Hotez" and slammed Rogan for, in effect, becoming "everything supposedly wrong with MSM", e.g. entirely driven by self-interest.

Supplements
Joe Rogan is Goop for men

Unsurprisingly for a person tied to mixed martial arts – a sport prone to some of the same dietary supplement and alternative medicine bullshit found in other athletic endeavors like bodybuilding – Rogan has long been an avid consumer and endorser of various dietary supplements, ranging from mostly harmless but generally (expensively) ineffective nootropics, to potentially problematic supplements like human growth hormone and  On occasion, Rogan has hosted those who market this sort of woo directly on his podcast, such as Andrew Weil.

Unsurprisingly, Rogan is a major business partner of the fitness/supplements company Onnit, whose products he frequently endorses on his podcast and on Twitter.

Meat-only diet
After hearing from grifters like Jordan Peterson, Rogan embarked on a meat-only diet, something that experts caution about in regards to health risks (since it can deprive the consumer of essential nutrients) and the environmental impact (due to meat production requiring farmland and emission of greenhouse gases by livestock).

Bro-esoteric authoritarianism concerns
…I'm an unreliable source, I'm a comedian… Ordinary End Times doomsday bullshit doesn't suit the mind of someone like Rogan. Instead, tying him to esoteric Nazis of the past like Savitri Devi, and echoing the modern nationalist fantasia of alt-right figureheads like Steve Bannon, Rogan prefers to completely misuse the -centric Hindu cosmology concept of to describe the gloom and doom of the modern world, using an American-style two-axis political compass chart, and masculine concepts of strength and weakness. In Rogan's view, the Kali Yuga stage of the world is filled with weak, left-wing men, and the next stage will be left-wing authoritarianism and "hard times".

While Rogan's Twitter feed is often very concerned about encroaching authoritarianism, Rogan's blend of esoteric politics, anti-corporate and anti-authority stances, and a habit of listening to everyone (no matter how crazy) and not doing a lot of fact-checking, leaves him vulnerable to repeating bullshit claims found in online rumor mills. For instance, in September 2020, he falsely repeated a fringe claim fostered online that antifa left-wing activists were responsible for the at that time. At the same time, Rogan has clear blind spots when it comes to recognizing actual authoritarian movements. For instance, when confronted with the news that the an actual fascist group, staged a bizarre rally in downtown Washington D.C. in early December 2021, Rogan refused to believe the story (calling the group "feds", implying he thought it was a false flag), simply because he said there were no fat people in the rally and "idiots are usually fat". In May 2023, Rogan repeated this bizarre conspiracy theory yet again after another Patriot Front rally in Washington DC, insisting that the Patriot Front were the feds because no one was fat and all the participants were wearing the same uniform.

Fortunately, Rogan has discovered the perfect tool for fighting fascism: magic mushrooms! Never mind that Atomwaffen Division, actual neo-Nazis, trafficked in LSD and magic mushrooms.

General conspiracy nuttiness
Over the course of his career, Rogan has promoted several conspiracy theories. For years, he was a prominent supporter of the moon landing hoax conspiracy, which led to him debating astronomer and skeptic Phil Plait on Penn Jillette's show. He has, however, since changed his mind. Today, he seems to be very sympathetic to the Roswell crash conspiracy and provided a platform for alien conspiracy theorist Bob Lazar to spout nonsense to millions of people. Over the years, Rogan has also been a consistent supporter of JFK assassination conspiracies.

"Transgenderism" with Kyle Kulinski
Rogan has many doubts about the transgender experience and has invited a couple of guests to speak about it, one of them being Kyle Kulinski. Specifically, he doesn't think that transitioning is effective, despite scientific evidence to the contrary, and claims that it "doesn't have an impact on suicide rates" — except that it does. It is true, however, that studies have found a similar suicide rate for post- and pre-transition gender dysphoric individuals, although these same studies typically explore what's behind the post-transition suicide rate, and the causes are never discussed. Increasing and improved studies further suggest that the rate decreases post-transition. All studies thus far agree that the causes of post-transition suicidality are familial nonacceptance, social rejection, harassment, discrimination (in employment and housing), lack of access to medical care, violence, etc.

Rogan also claims that transition is "elective" care and suggested that there was no difference between having gender dysphoria and feeling a need to transition to address it and "wanting bigger tits". It's no question that gender dysphoria is debilitating (causing physiological and psychological stress that may cause mental trauma). While it's not urgent for some transgender people to acquire some aspects of transitioning, wanting medical care to address debilitating conditions is not "elective".

Age of transitioning
There's a concern by Rogan that many transgender people are transitioning before the age of 25 and that too many are transitioning too young. Claims suggesting that transitioning before the brain stops developing entirely before the age of 25 will mess up your brain is entirely untrue when you consider that being a child who has not entered puberty does not automatically mean that one is cognitively "messed up". Endocrinologists suggest that children who reach puberty should only be put on hormone blockers to prevent undergoing changes under the wrong primary hormone, and the transition to the correct primary hormone should proceed safely at age 16. Tests of individuals starting the replacement therapy at age 12 reported normal progression, and the delay of hormone replacement therapy may lead to psychological and cognitive trauma. Puberty suppression causes no irreversible or harmful changes.

Misinforming about trans children in conversation with Adam Conover
Thinking that women are "hard-wired" to be attracted to athletic male bodies, Rogan decided to spring a conversation on Adam Conover, the host and program creator of TruTV's Adam Ruins Everything, about transgender athletes and children. Conover wasn't prepared but felt compelled to defend, and he later pinned a tweet linking to a website that already confirms what was speculated above in hopes that JRE fans would read and learn that which Rogan did not learn, alongside the Olympic history of trans athletes.

Transphobic rants to Fallon Fox
If all that wasn't enough, Rogan outright went on a transphobic rant over MMA fighter despite her having been post-transition for 7 years before that point. Consequently, according to health experts, she would have had no physical advantages over her competitors, given that so much time had passed.

"Transgenderism" with Blaire White
After years of trans lies, misinformation, fearmongering and general transphobia and spreading hate, Rogan finally decided to bring an actual trans person on for an honest discussion. However, that person was Blaire White, a known misinformation spreader and enabler of transphobia.

Stopped clock

 * After a guest on his show said that gay adoption is morally wrong and leaves the child "automatically fucked up", Rogan completely debunked his arguments before mocking him and laughing in his face. He is also a supporter of gay marriage.