Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Let’s finish the job.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

This fight is for everything.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Second rate reporter says what?

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / C.R.E.A.M. Open Thread: The Wilful Blindness of Splat-ify

C.R.E.A.M. Open Thread: The Wilful Blindness of Splat-ify

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I’d never listened to Rogan before (I know, you’re stunned), but here’s a guy who spends five minutes explaining how he hopes his problems are a ‘teachable moment’ because now he understands — which he never did in his previous twelve years of podcasting — that ‘people’ are just really, really sensitive about ‘who gets to use That Word.’

And by people, I get the impression, he means the guys who write my $100 million dollar paychecks. People who matter! He just wants to be an example, to the youths.

Dude’s going nowhere, at least in the short term. Rogan and Spotify are both holding their breath, hoping that social media’s mayfly attention will be distracted by some new, less derivative public outrage…


From the reports I’ve seen — even the ones from people who sympathize with Rogan — he made his reputation as a ‘great interviewer’ by doing absolutely no advance prep. Anyone (for certain values of ‘anyone’) could show up in the studio, and Rogan would sit slack-jawed, occasionally chipping in the sort of lazy ‘just my opinion, maaan’ blather usually confined to the guy at the end of the bar everyone tries not to sit near.

What could be more attractive, to people looking to promote ‘dangerous knowledge’ on which any half-serious host would promptly cut the mic?

Reader Interactions

170Comments

  1. 1.

    Urza

    I hate that I have what would be relatively intelligent coworkers who just like his style and listen to him. That ruined lunch time with them before the pandemic. I don’t even want to know how crazy its gotten now.
    How are people dealing with office mates you can no longer respect? Obviously still doing the job but its hard to come out and say its cause of something like Joe Rogan/pandemic etc and other people you still like don’t understand.

  2. 2.

    mrmoshpotato

    Well, Dinesh D’Felon is still a dumbass. Glad we can rely on some things in this world.

  4. 4.

    eclare

    @Urza:   I used to work for a person who I suspect was very careful to keep his political opinions to himself.  We talked a lot about sports, movies, etc.  One of the best bosses I ever had as far as management skills go.

  5. 5.

    Yarrow

    I am not advocating for Spotify to drop Rogan. I am not convinced it would do anything to help slow the spread of vaccine misinformation. It might accelerate it.

    But how did this guy ever get paid $100 million?

    Spotify should think about that.

    Lol. As if they don’t know.

    Through DST Global, Milner is an investor in Byju’s, Facebook, Zynga, Stripe, Twitter, Flipkart, Spotify, Zocdoc, Groupon, JD.com, Xiaomi, OlaCabs, Alibaba, Airbnb, WhatsApp, Nubank, Wish, and many others.

    “Milner” is Yuri Milner. Russian money funds Spotify. Joe Rogan is a willing stooge. They wanted what he was selling.

  6. 6.

    brendancalling

    I don’t get paid anywhere NEAR $100 million to produces the same kind of content as Joe Rogan. Instead my housemate reminds me to flush.

  7. 7.

    Cathie from Canada

    Inch by inch, the social media giants are being dragged kicking and screaming into the reality that people will persist in holding them responsible for the content they are hosting — just like the “old” media of newspapers and publishers.
    They hate it – monitoring content takes philosophy and dignity, consultation and a lot of work.

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    I would have more sympathy to the argument that deplatforming violates the spirit of free speech in the public square, if those making that argument weren’t thrilled to deplatform and discriminate and ban books when they had the power to do so due to their social status and number. If they really wanted politics to stay out of business, they should have baked those gay wedding cakes and left the (Dixie) Chicks alone.

    But since they aren’t really arguing for more free speech, more diversity of viewpoint, more access to ideas…. I will just sit back like the Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif and let them enjoy losing the culture war that they started.

  12. 12.

    Suzanne

    Can I also note that the grooves on the sides of Joe Rogan’s head make me think that he is taking a lot of steroids?

  13. 13.

    Yarrow

    @Yarrow:  I mean, seriously. From 2017:

    A new trove of documents called the Paradise Papers confirm Yuri Milner’s connections to the Russian government-controlled companies for the first time. Milner’s firm DST Global acquired a stake in Facebook and Twitter with funding from Kremlin-owned firms VTB Bank and Gazprom, these documents reveal.

    Put a bunch of money into companies that push propaganda directly into people’s homes and on devices people have with them at all time. Sounds like a great idea if you want to disrupt American society.

  14. 14.

    MattF

    Those quotes… from the likes of Sullivan, D’Souza, Cruz… Where’s Glenn? This is actually pushing me to sign up for Apple Music.

  15. 15.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    For some reason, the outrageous compensation really bothers me. I’m having trouble articulating why. It feels of a piece with how unevenly workers are rewarded. It’s like the market is distorted and it’s distorted in favor of people who are already rich and powerful, and also in favor of celebrities. And some people become celebrities by being outrageous and vile.

  16. 16.

    eclare

    @Suzanne:  I was a fan of NewsRadio back in the day (it aired in the late 90’s).  Joe Rogan was in the cast and did an OK job as the radio station handy man.  His head, both the shape and size, has changed a *lot* since then.

  18. 18.

    trollhattan

    My instant reaction on hearing this Rogan fuck got a hundred mil is that the money should instead have gone to Marc Maron. Or ten Marc Marons in case Marc Maron isn’t greedy. And Rogan should have been given zero.

    Madness.

  19. 19.

    Yarrow

    @Suzanne:  I thought of what you frequently say, that conservatives have lost the culture wars, when I saw this tweet with images of a letter from Ginni Thomas. This bit: “The Left has all the cultural institutions now and seem to be weaponizing them against conservatives and basic freedoms.” Wondered if you’d seen it.

    Image is in this tweet:

    Emails we obtained, reported on by @politico, suggest that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is in regular contact with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.In a June 2021, Ginni Thomas said DeSantis should be familiar with her because “my husband has been in contact with him[.]” pic.twitter.com/R8Sj3thLgC— American Oversight (@weareoversight) February 4, 2022

  20. 20.

    Betty

    The show is much worse than just using the N word. They have pulled well over a hundred episodes so far. Racism and anti-vax are only two of the problems.

  22. 22.

    trollhattan

    @Yarrow: 
    Oh goodie. Is there some concentration of human trash at which a runaway trash meltdown occurs? Thinking that crew must get close.

  23. 23.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Greenfraud (and his adjacent asshole buddies) insist that the correct response to asshole speech is more and better speech. Of course, when guys like Milner and Ek pay shitheads like Rogan NFL superstar money to promote Milo, Gavin MacInnes/Proud Boys, Chuck Johnson and the like, and promote their investment in him via their boosting algorithms, then there is a big problem with countering it.

  24. 24.

    TriassicSands

    I couldn’t make it through 5 minutes of Rogan. What a POS. Using that word was “shameful,” – he sees that now — but spreading misinformation about a potentially deadly virus was, I guess, just business as usual. A little over two minutes of Rogan made me wonder why anyone would want to waste their time listening to him. That level of discourse is available everywhere across America and no one is edified by it.

    Personally, I’d be happy if two things¹ disappeared entirely — Rogan and that word.

    ¹ OK, the list is a lot longer than two…

  25. 25.

    Baud

    @TriassicSands:

    Using that word was “shameful,” – he sees that now

    For the last four decades, using that word is literally the only thing conservatives will recognize as racism.

  27. 27.

    MelissaM

    Kick Rogan to the curb, whatever. He’s already got his money, and no doubt he’ll get more from some right wing douchebags who want to keep hearing the garbage coming from Rogan’s mouth.

    WTF does anyone need $100million for a fucking podcast?? You know who deserves being paid more? The teachers, nurses, etc. who are getting us through this damn pandemic. Fucking tool Rogan.

  29. 29.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    I didn’t like that word when my maternal grandfather (who I loved regardless) used it freely around me 55 years ago.

  31. 31.

    Tony Jay

    It’s as if they live in another universe where Joe Rogan is a bigot, rather than the best interviewer in America

    Hard to get a view out of that window with your head up your arse, eh, you has-been Toryboy slapdick?

  32. 32.

    Suzanne

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You know why it bothers me? Warning: fairly long-winded response ahead.

    So before I went back to graduate school in 2006, I worked as a graphic designer at an advertising agency. I worked there long enough to realize that marketing is pretty gross, but I learned a lot about why things in our consumer society are the way they are. During the time I worked there, there was a lot of buzz about the supposedly untapped market of men age roughly 18-27. Supposedly this was some subclass of consumer that wasn’t spending much money because brands weren’t speaking to them. (Has anyone ever met men 18-27 who had much money to spend? Really? I dated a lot and never found any.) But it was thought that getting those guys to align themselves with brands would make them align when they were older. Kind of like how political identity ensures, brand loyalty also has been found to endure.

    So anyway. Heaps of money were spent trying to appeal to this subset of dudes. And, not coincidentally, around this time (early to mid- 2000s)  was when Fear Factor (hosted by Rogan) and other similarly bro-y entertainment got really popular. And all of it was made as vehicles for advertising to this demographic.

    Well, surprise. That cohort never turned out to be the big spenders that advertisers were hoping for. They didn’t have the liquidity, and they grew up to be the Struggling Millennial Men we all hear about now, who can’t buy houses or cars. So advertisers turned to other cohorts on behalf of their clients. That means that a lot of that media that caters to their tastes also went away. But now this is a cohort used to having their tastes catered to, and there was resentment when that diminished. And that is a really powerful thing. Seeing yourself represented in media is a really big thing. It’s really the only tangible way we have, in this market society, of understanding that we matter, that our opinions and tastes and folkways are mainstream and merit consideration and attention. And that our lives are respectable and praiseworthy, that someone tells our stories and someone wants my money enough to try to understand my life.

    So Rogan getting $100M stings, because it’s really a way of saying to these loser men who increasingly don’t have educations but do have drug problems, that their opinions and tastes matter. That sucks to me. As someone who is not a big spender and has typically had fairly niche tastes, I never had that expectation. But gosh, when I think about someone being paid just a horrifying sum of money who is such a fucking pile of mashed potatoes of a person, and who is paid all that money just to talk to other piles of mashed potatoes…. it really does make me feel like those piles of mashed potatoes matter more than I do. And that sucks.

  33. 33.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @MelissaM:

    100M is crazy money for the marginal product of a stupid podcast, considering what they’re paying the musicians on who backs the platform was built.

    The last thing information space needs is yet more opinion outlets. I’m rethinking the entire utility of the First Amendment, given what Americans are doing with it.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    Honestly, as a purely business matter, I don’t know if Spotify made a good deal paying Rogan $100 million.  Judge Judy consistently made bank with her show because she brought in eyeballs.

  36. 36.

    MattF

    @Suzanne: The one edifying thing about this affair is that it reveals Spotify to be a tech-bro brand. I had no idea. Was that reveal worth $100 M? Um, no— but I’m glad to know it.

  37. 37.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    And for those who haven’t seen it – if your music does a million distinct streams a month, you get about $3000 to play with from Spotify each month. Given most record contracts, that may mean about $500 for the artist that created product that generated that much attention on the platform.

  38. 38.

    Yarrow

    @Betty:  Yep. There’s also the horrific misogyny. Like in this clip. WARNING – It’s bad.

    Can we also talk about the misogyny? Here Joe Rogan laughs as his guest talks about forcing women to perform oral sex on him in order to get stage time at his comedy club. pic.twitter.com/oT0DLSbYA5— Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) February 6, 2022

  39. 39.

    Baud

    I think Spotify and Rogan aren’t too concerned about losing that many musicians or subscribers.  However, if the stank sticks to Rogan, the quality of the guests he can get to interview may go down.  It sounds like that’s his strength. (I don’t do podcasts much less Rogan).

  40. 40.

    The Dangerman

    Rogan, $100M. Trump, President (even though I doubt he could spell Ukraine even if you spotted him the kraine). A whole pile of people that feel they are smarter than their Doctors (they do have Doctors, right?). I’ll sign up for the Rip Van Winkle pill right now; 2030 should be about right.

  41. 41.

    Suzanne

    @MattF: Yeah, I didn’t know it, either. Mr. Suzanne and I are Amazon Prime members (yes, I am aware that we suck) and we have Amazon Music and I actually use it a lot. I think we got a discount because we’re Prime members or something. We were considering switching to Spotify because we both WFH and like podcasts a lot, but now we’re not going to do that.

    Seriously, Spotify has irreparably soiled their brand for me now.

  43. 43.

    Suzanne

    @Yarrow: Oh dude. Think back to the era when Rogan got famous, mid-90s through mid-2000s. That was the era of The Man Show and Loveline and just all sorts of gross dude behavior toward women. Like I said: bro entertainment.

  46. 46.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    When they signed him, he may have had 11M fairly regular listeners, and was metered at 100M clicks per month. Estimates were about 3M per day, at various levels of engagement.

    Reality, though, is I don’t think a podcast is as sticky with listeners as music (nor does it inspire listener loyalty), and not the only reason those users are there. Rogan listeners will also be listing to insipid, smarmy praise music (along with gun-truck-eagle Country and Rock formats).  Was the contract worth 20M? Probably. 50M? No. And definitely not 100M.

  47. 47.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: The challenge for Spotify will be getting other talent. I have no doubt that there are other people who will sign deals with different content distribution channels because they won’t want to be on the dudebro streaming service.

  50. 50.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Suzanne:

    We do Amazon Music (I’m unashamed of my Prime love) as well as Apple music (ease on my iPhone, and I only picked up Amazon so I could use it on my Echo).  I really like it.

  51. 51.

    Suzanne

    @Yarrow: Who were the women of that era? Jenny McCarthy and Pamela Anderson and Carmen Electra.

    The Kardashians look like intellectuals and moguls in comparison.

  53. 53.

    Brachiator

    I’d never listened to Rogan before (I know, you’re stunned)…

    I had never heard his show before watching a couple of YouTube clips. I had only known of him as the host of a dumb reality TV game show from years ago, where people ate bugs and tried dumb stunts.

    But I guess he is the meathead heir of Howard Stern.

    but here’s a guy who spends five minutes explaining how he hopes his problems are a ‘teachable moment’ because now he understands — which he never did in his previous twelve years of podcasting — that ‘people’ are just really, really sensitive about ‘who gets to use That Word.’

    The people who listen to Joe Rogan don’t care about this. The people who pay him don’t care about this. It’s not relevant to his peddling of misinformation and actually gives him a chance to look good by performing acts of contrition.

  54. 54.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    My Apple Music has worked everywhere, including Greece, Mexico and the Caribbean.

    Can’t say the same for Pandora when I had it.

  56. 56.

    debbie

    @laura:

    Disagree. He won’t disappear because you don’t talk about him. Expose him for what he is. Like turning on the light in a roach-infested kitchen.

  57. 57.

    zhena gogolia

    @Urza: I hate that I overheard my P/T guy, whom I otherwise like and who’s helping me, telling another patient (before the recent controversy) that Rogan is “brilliant.”

    I could only watch a few seconds of the Rogan “apology.” He claims that Redd Foxx said the n- word on TV in the 1970s. I call BS. He also seemed to claim that Lenny Bruce used it. That also sounds a bit BS-y but I’m not sure.

  59. 59.

    Suzanne

    @debbie: There is a dudebro market. As long as that exists, someone will make and fund and distribute media to that market. Whether or not it’s worth $100M is entirely debatable.

    But markets shift. Like, 25 years ago, having a college degree was not such a cohort marker. Now it is, and there are observable differences in the spending (and voting) habits of those with degrees vs. those who don’t. Other things shift, too.

  60. 60.

    Brachiator

    @MelissaM:

    WTF does anyone need $100million for a fucking podcast?? You know who deserves being paid more? The teachers, nurses, etc. who are getting us through this damn pandemic. Fucking tool Rogan.

    Microsoft recently paid $65 billion in cash for videogame company Activision. Anyone complain? Anyone stop playing games in protest?

    Anyway, we can pay nurses and teachers and still have lots of dumb shit.

  62. 62.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @zhena gogolia:

    Red Foxx’ standup was legendarily raw (he was an older black guy speaking from the perspective and vernacular of HIS life), but not the stuff that was on TV.

    As for Lenny Bruce, the dude was a substance abusing dick. He very easily could have used it, but that didn’t make it OK.

  63. 63.

    SpaceUnit

    So I hate to bring this up, but how long until Rogan leverages his white toxic man-baby act into a bid for the country’s highest office?  I believe there’s a model for this sort of thing.

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    @zhena gogolia:

    He claims that Redd Foxx said the n- word on TV in the 1970s.

    Redd Foxx was gloriously beyond filthy in his night club act, but that was never the same as TV.

    Rogan is a dumb guy. His defense of whatever he has said before will also be dumb.

  65. 65.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud: Out of curiousity, why the Apple Music hate? I find that it works perfectly for me in terms of what I can run while listening to tunes.

  68. 68.

    Urza

    @Brachiator: Not the same thing as paying Rogan.  Also Activision/Blizzard are the negative portion of the deal with all their problems.  Microsoft has every intention of cleaning that up once its finalized.  Only truly bad part is Kotick is probably getting a golden parachute on the way out, he’s been the root of many problems during his tenure.  Nearly impossible to avoid that golden parachute unless the Activision board does something about it before the merger is finalized or he does something egregiously stupid in the 5 minutes it takes to kick him out after.

  69. 69.

    schrodingers_cat

    I am still listening to Lata Didi.  This is from the 70s

    Naam goom jayega                (Name will be lost)

    Chehra yeh badal jayega        (Face will change)

    Meri awaaz hi pechan hai    (My voice is my identity)

    Gar yaad rahe                         (will be remembered)

  70. 70.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    Thread:

    1/ I’m super tired of the whole Joe Rogan thing. But because I listened to the episodes in question I feel the need to push back against this “he’s just an inquiring mind” argument. Because if you see someone making it, my guess is that either they haven’t listened to the episodes …
    pic.twitter.com/PkREyYVdyg

    — Schrödinger's Sneetch Belly (@RTodKelly) February 6, 2022

  71. 71.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    I know that different streaming services pay different amounts, and that Spotify is on the low end, but I have no way to know how to calculate a fair compensation.

    Someone posted various companies and rates not too long ago. It was all pretty low.

    Thing is, people want tons of music for free or nearly free. ASCAP used to pay something like .41 cents per pressed CD, I think. Royalties for radio play was also low, but higher than streaming services. But practically no one buys CDs or listens to the radio for pop music.

  79. 79.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Suzanne:

    Just the (changed) size of his head makes you think. I believe Adam Silverman mentioned this a few days ago. (Cf. Barry Bonds.)

  80. 80.

    dmsilev

    Margaret Sullivan at WaPo:

    I’m disgusted by Joe Rogan’s weak apology. My former colleague’s death at 47 makes it worse.

    In a 10-minute Instagram video, the erstwhile TV comic turned professional provocateur told his employers at Spotify that he was sorry for causing them trouble. Rogan also assured Neil Young that he was still a fan, even after the rock legend yanked his music off the streaming service in protest, leading a number of other musicians to do the same. And Rogan acknowledged that he gets stuff wrong sometimes and will try to provide more balance in the future.

    But to everyone else, he offered the worst kind of non-apology: “If I pissed you off, I’m sorry.”

    To my ears, Rogan sounded glib, narcissistic and clueless. And Spotify — the platform that enables him by insisting it would be wrong to restrain what he does on his podcast — is even worse. Its failure to take any meaningful responsibility, other than adding a few disclaimers, is all too reminiscent of the way Facebook, for years, has dodged accountability for spreading so many harmful lies.

    Rogan’s non-apology made me furious. Probably because I’ve been spending a lot of time this week thinking about Miguel Rodriguez, a former colleague of mine, who died of covid last week.

  81. 81.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    @Suzanne:

    Steroids? Ha! Rolling Stone had an article several years ago where Rogan is quoted as injecting himself regularly with testosterone and taking human growth hormone.

    He’s not a good argument for any of that bullshit.

  82. 82.

    Brachiator

    @gene108:

    I doubt his night club humor would go over well with most people on this blog

    Humor and a public health message. What’s not to love?

  83. 83.

    hueyplong

    Not sure what makes people hope that the vast audience of a-holes will get on board with a good person if the a-hole du jour goes away.

    This undeserving a-hole will eventually be replaced by another undeserving a-hole. There is a limitless demand for a-holes.

  84. 84.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    For some reason, the outrageous compensation really bothers me. I’m having trouble articulating why. 

    It’s an obscene amount of money – especially for crap.

  85. 85.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia: He also seemed to claim that Lenny Bruce used it. That also sounds a bit BS-y but I’m not sure.

    Dustin Hoffman used the n-word in the movie biopic “Lenny” but I doubt the real Lenny ever used it.  He did have a bit “How to Relax Your Colored Friends at Parties” which was a parody of racists pretending not to be racists.

    I’ve heard every Lenny Bruce album as well as a lot of concert and club footage.  Never heard the n-word.

  88. 88.

    cain

    @Brachiator: I do remember the N word being used in The Jeffersons – although it could have been n word with the ‘a’ at the end. That was in the 80s.

  92. 92.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @eclare: His head, both the shape and size, has changed a *lot* since then.

    is this a reference to steroids? cause he’s all ‘roided up, right? I mean….

  93. 93.

    Brachiator

    @cain:

    I do remember the N word being used in The Jeffersons – although it could have been n word with the ‘a’ at the end. That was in the 80s.

    Did Redd Foxx ever appear on The Jeffersons?

    In any case, this is all a tiresome distraction.

  94. 94.

    RSA

    Rogan also platformed unhinged conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and misrepresented the dangers of COVID vaccines.

    Today I realized that Joe Rogan and Alex Jones are not the same person. I mean, fine, different names, but if you did a find/replace of the two names in a news story, I wouldn’t have known the difference. Clueless me.

    On the other hand… Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas, as the saying goes.

  95. 95.

    schrodingers_cat

    @cain: Indeed. Voice of a nation for over 70 years. There will be no one like her again.

    Her first hit was 1949 (Aayega aanewala  from Mahal) and the last hit was 2006

    (Luka Chupi from Rang De Basanti)

  101. 101.

    cain

    @zhena gogolia: I remember it, because it shocked me. The episode was some old friend had come back and cheating them. George kicked him out and he said “Whats the matter with you, N-word! You flipped!”  – Google also showed me this:

    https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/TheJeffersons

    Towards the bottom it has “N-word privileges”

    That scene I just described was right there – but there apparently has been used multiple times that I did not remember.

  103. 103.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    Dustin Hoffman used the n-word in the movie biopic “Lenny” but I doubt the real Lenny ever used it.

    I am sure that I have heard clips of Bruce using the word. A while back, there was a story about the BBC getting into some controversy because of a Lenny Bruce clip in their audio archives.

    The BBC has become involved in another N-word controversy after it emerged the racial slur can still be heard on one of its popular Radio 4 programmes, despite action being promised months ago.

    During the clip, Bruce says: ‘By the way are there any n****** in here? If President Kennedy went on telly every day and said “I want to introduce all of the n****** in my cabinet, and all the n****** call each other n******,” the word would lose its impact.’

    Maybe his records were cleaner than his stage act.

  107. 107.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Brachiator:

    Redd Foxx was gloriously beyond filthy in his night club act, but that was never the same as TV.

    There were a few performers in the early ‘60s whose albums I listened to again and again, including Oscar brand (Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads), Pearl Bailey (For Adults Only), and of course the memorable Rusty Warren (Knockers Up!). They all seemed giggly-snickery blue to me then, although if I listened to them now — including Redd Foxx — I suspect I’d find them rather tame. Suggestive rather than overtly obscene.

  113. 113.

    Brachiator

    A brief news clip about Lenny Bruce from the NY Times.

    Lenny Bruce, the potty-mouthed wit who turned stand-up comedy into social commentary, was posthumously pardoned yesterday by Gov.George E.Pataki, 39 years after being convicted of obscenity for using bad words in a Greenwich Village nightclub act. — Dec 24, 2003

    I wouldn’t be surprised to see conservatives try to bring back these stupid laws.

  118. 118.

    Brachiator

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I suspect I’d find them rather tame. Suggestive rather than overtly obscene.

    I don’t know whether there were milder versions of some of these albums. Some of the stuff I’ve heard was pretty raw. Also, as I noted, their club acts were noteworthy for being dirty, although this is not the same as being obscene.

  120. 120.

    evodevo

    @Brachiator: Yes, Redd Fox DID use the n-word, with an ‘a’ at the end, frequently in Sanford and Son.  But then, he was black, and it’s totally different than Rogan or some other racist POS using it…as we all know…

  122. 122.

    catothedog

    @cain:

    @schrodingers_cat: He’s an idiot – and he doesn’t have much to say anyways other than “Jai Hind” type of tropes.

    All the same, Lata Mangeshkar, the lady doyen of singers had a Hindutva streak, and was an ardent RSS supporter, and had close ties to Savarkar, the father of the movement that is the current inheritor of Nazi ideology.

    (Before you argue with me, please check out the receipts. )

    Clay feet and all.

  123. 123.

    Yarrow

    @Suzanne:  Thanks for this, Suzanne.

    I kind of feel like the guys listening to Joe Rogan would be the same guys who listened to Rush Limbaugh in an earlier era. Middle-aged white guy grievance puke funnels and echo chambers. I think they each have (had) a slightly different focus but they both connected with a similar demographic and made them feel smart, heard and validated.

  124. 124.

    Suzanne

    @laura: I’m…. glad?
    Honestly, looking at Our Social Situation through the lens of marketing and visual culture has been really illuminating for me.

    We are mostly nerds here, many with a science background. So we are used to looking at things that are measurable. And polls, and economic data, and all of that is helpful sometimes. But it also misses a lot, I think. The biggest oversight is the idea that inputs will always or at least usually result in outputs. Policy will produce good or bad outcomes, votes will recognize that, and reward or deny policy makers accordingly. Marketing and viscult does more to recognize that status and aspiration are huge drivers of self-concept, and that to some extent, they are zero-sum. If everyone’s life improves, then there’s not as much of an advantage for some over others. And if your self-concept is based on a specific social status, it is likely that you will want to preserve that.

  125. 125.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Suzanne: I will admit that the big issue with marketing for me is that it seems so crass and grubby.  I am an arrogant and condescending snob.  Sue me.

  126. 126.

    Suzanne

    @Yarrow: Slightly different white guys. Rush’s white guys have a strong self-concept of themselves in alignment with the Republican Party brand. Rogan’s white guys have a strong self-concept of themselves as Too Smart for Party Politics. Of course this is bullshit. The difference is generational, educational, and probably somewhat geographic, i.e. that “Scots-Irish” lowercase-L libertarianism vs. WASP social conservatism.

  129. 129.

    boatboy_srq

    @Suzanne: That is shockingly believable.

    For your social metrics, I’d also add in any GenXers or Boomers whose futures went up in Great Recession smoke. There’s a lot of resentment in that cohort from having done (or at least tried to do) the right thing and having been scr3w3d by the MOTUs for their trouble. They need someone to blame, and people like Rogan serve up culprits for them that are as easily digestible as they are demonstrably wrong if you dig just a little deeper.

  132. 132.

    Suzanne

    @boatboy_srq:

    There’s a lot of resentment in that cohort from having done (or at least tried to do) the right thing and having been scr3w3d by the MOTUs for their trouble. 

    Oh absolutely. There is a huge amount of white dude grievance that the world didn’t turn out as they expected. Some of that grievance seems reasonable, IMO, but that isn’t really the point. It’s there and Rogan exists as a media figure to condense it and talk to it. Why is an uneducated roided-up not-very-funny-or-insightful dude so aspirational to this cohort? That’s the more penetrating question.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    Peter Baker
    @peterbakernyt
    ·8h
    Trump got elected in part by attacking Clinton for deleting emails that she deemed personal, then spent four years destroying official documents despite federal law

    They could still cover this. They could parly redeem the lousy, biased work they did in 2016 by covering Trump illegally destroying documents. Find out which documents he destroyed. Some of them were taped back together by the low quality hires- print photos of those. Cover it for weeks and weeks, like they did Clintons emails.

  135. 135.

    Suzanne

    @Spanky: Right, I know. But the implications of it are gross. Like, Joe Rogan is kind of a condensed symbol for a not-exceptional white dude who makes a lot of money gleefully being dumb and shitty to women and black people. The fact that his fanbase aspires to that instead of aspiring to being better, smarter, kinder….. is fucking depressing.

  137. 137.

    Lyrebird

    @Suzanne: Hi hi.  Similar generation.  I find a sliver of hope in the change from the days when Rush ruled the airwaves.  I don’t mean the prog rock band.

     

    @Urza: Are you in the greater DC area?  No matter, sympathy going out to you wherever.  I hope you come across one or two sympatico coworkers you didn’t realize you had to balance out the Rogan fans.

  138. 138.

    Yarrow

    @Suzanne:  Slightly different yes, but some of it I think was different eras. The guys who loved Rush would, if they were younger now, be the same guys who love Rogan.

    Agree on the marketing. It’s baffling to me that Democrats don’t seem to hire good marketers or understand that they’re marketing a brand. Right now Dems have the good cultural stuff so they could market all sorts of aspirational goals and lifestyles.

  139. 139.

    Yarrow

    @Suzanne:  Isn’t listening to Rogan more soothing their egos: “guys like me are super successful.” It’s less aspirational than “I’m okay just the way I am” ego balm.

  140. 140.

    Miss Bianca

    @Suzanne:

    we would win more elections if we were better at it.

    Well, then…with your insights into the field, how would you decide to “market” the Democrats?

    (not snarking, btw, at least not entirely – genuinely curious).

  141. 141.

    Suzanne

    @Yarrow: I KNOW. The Dems could easily make themselves the brand of people who are in the H&M ads: young, multiracial, accepting of difference, educated and those who want to be, ambitious, worldly. But they’re still chasing the Rogan cohort, too, and they should fucking stop. White men are used to having social influence, and they’re adjusting poorly to losing it.

    That’s not to say that the Dems shouldn’t pursue policy that improves the lives of white dudes. But they should direct their messages and create a different kind of aspirational message in their brand.

    Fetterman has been pissing me off with his line about “the Union way of life is sacred!”. Fuck you, dude. No one is calling my way of life sacred. I might still vote for him, but it is abundantly fucking clear that my concerns are not top of mind and that he doesn’t really want my vote.

    Oddly, I think the state Roll Call at the virtual convention went a long way in this regard. DO MORE OF THAT.

  142. 142.

    AWOL

    @cain: That was an episode when the Jeffersons save a white supremacist in their building who is dying or choking, He gets up, and says to them that they’re “still n_____rs.” I haven’t seen that ep in 45 years, but it was effective.

  143. 143.

    jonas

    @zhena gogolia: back in the 70s and 80s you could hear it on TV or in comedy clubs, sure. Not a lot, but it was there. I’m thinking in particular of the job interview “word association” routine between Chevy Chase and Richard Pryor on SNL.

    “Dead honky!”

  144. 144.

    Miss Bianca

    @Suzanne: OK, I think you’ve answered my question…and yeah – you’ve got me thinking about Benneton ads now. Not in a bad way! I think there’s a great deal to be said for a marketing campaign the way you’ve laid it out. Now if we could just get the Powers That Be to do it…

  145. 145.

    Suzanne

    @Miss Bianca: Well, the Democratic base seems to have five main cohorts (per Nate Silver). I said four, but meh, roughly the same. Here were Nate’s five:

      1. Party Loyalists
      2. The Left
      3. Millennials and Friends
      4. Black voters
      5. Hispanic voters (sometimes in combination with Asian voters)

    I would also note that we are learning that educational attainment and urbanity are strong alignments in a way that used to not be the case for the Dems. So honestly, I would seriously lean into this coalition. The Left and the Millennials want climate change legislation, student loan forgiveness, and policy to add more housing that they can afford in urban areas where they live. I would take their young stars (Cori Bush, AOC, Ted Lieu, Ro Khanna, etc) and get them out there on every damn show and podcast every week to build support for this. Be the Party of these people without apology. The young don’t really vote as much as we want them to, but they do age and start voting, and the goal should be to make it gross to be Republican. And we should stop chasing races like Amy McGrath in Kentucky even though Mitch McConnell sucks. Stop giving her money.

  146. 146.

    Suzanne

    @Miss Bianca: I honestly think we have to get past Schumer and Pelosi and Clyburn and Hoyer, too. They’re too old. I love Pelosi, but FFS we need to be growing the next generation. I hope we find ways to grow the careers of Buttigieg and O’Rourke and the Castro brothers and Val Demings and have them every-damn-where.

  147. 147.

    Starfish

    @Suzanne: The Fetterman campaign feels very online as opposed to having deep support from people who live in Pennsylvania.

    I agree with you. The Democrats should be solidifying their support with a younger voting base than they are.

    Right now, I am watching centrist Democrats drag some white male journalists and lefties.

    The reason that these journalists are whining is that Nancy Pelosi’s daughter is rightfully dragging them for agreeing with each other that Trump was staking out positions to the left of Clinton.

    They are saying they supported Clinton and thought she would win, but Pelosi’s pointing out that “It would have been nice if we were not on the verge of repealing Roe because you thought what you were doing was edgy.”

    A lot of self-involved men have A LOT to answer for on how they have let down everyone, but they are still being very self-involved man-babies about it.

    Here is the Twitter thread.

  148. 148.

    TriassicSands

    There was a podcaster on ATC this evening — she focuses on misinformation — who pointed out that in addition to racism and COVID-19 misinformation, Rogan has been a climate change denier for years. The question is, Can Rogan produce any content that isn’t highly objectionable or worse simply untrue? I’ll never be able to discuss Rogan from a position of authoritative knowledge because I will never waste my life listening to him. The podcaster made the point that there is no reason for podcasts not to be under FCC rules.

  149. 149.

    Suzanne

    @Starfish: It feels like a very Democrat thing to do to see that their cohort is increasingly college-educated, urban, and multi-racial, and so they immediately go trying to recover the working-class union white dudes they lost in Real America. Like, fuck, staaaaaaaahp.

  150. 150.

    Suzanne

    Let Republicans be the party of resentful mediocre losers who have never left Pigsknuckle County. Let them have that brand.

  151. 151.

    Yarrow

    @Suzanne: I’m not sure I would lean heavily into the young people brand because young people don’t vote and going too much in that direction could turn off the people who do vote. But your general take is good. Especially this:

    the goal should be to make it gross to be Republican.

    This is essential and it doesn’t just apply to young people.

  152. 152.

    TriassicSands

    @Suzanne: Schumer and Pelosi and Clyburn and Hoyer, too. They’re too old.

    As an old-timer who believes that experience is critical, I couldn’t agree more. I had really hoped that Pelosi would have spent the last two-four years grooming younger, but experienced representatives to take over House leadership roles¹. She wouldn’t necessarily have to retire as long as she could relinquish control, which would be hard for her to do. Politicians (including judges) and athletes stay too long.

    For practical reasons, leadership positions have to be filled by people in safe seats, but that’s easy in the House.roles¹

    ¹ That doesn’t mean only her own hand-selected personnel. House elections could accomplish that. Media figures, like AOC, are still too young and inexperienced to qualify, in my mind.

  153. 153.

    Starfish

    @Suzanne: There is a chance that unionization may be reviving. However, what is reviving is not the older unions with an all white male leadership. It is going to be the Starbucks union, the Amazon union (which hasn’t worked out yet), and the various graduate student unions.

    To get better at actually organizing unions, they absolutely have to understand that in the South, corporations pour salt into the wounds of racial hatred that have never healed, to kill all attempts at unionizing.

    This is a large part why the Democratic Party never works out either. The Democratic Party is mostly Black in the South, and any white folks who try to join are treated with suspicion for very valid reasons.

  155. 155.

    planetjanet

    @TriassicSands: Maybe you have not noticed her lieutenant, Hakeem Jeffries.  She is developing talent, but there is not an official title of Speaker-in-waiting.  It is an elected position.

  157. 157.

    Suzanne

    @Starfish: I totally support unions! I just think the rhetoric of them as “sacred” when, like, no one’s saying that getting a college degree in America is a sacred thing….. it indicates who you really care about.

    Like, for example, the retail apocalypse that was happening even before the pandemic was incredibly impactful to working-class women. It used to be possible to be a saleswoman in a department store and that was a middle-class job. But malls die and big boxes close, and yet all the rhetoric is about manufacturing affecting the ability of men to get middle-class jobs. Now it’s all about “let’s have more trade school programs!!!”. Like, when we only talk about some people’s lives and some people’s problems, it creates the impression that those are the some things that matter.

  159. 159.

    geg6

    @germy:

    I saw a clip of Lenny Bruce in a documentary totally unrelated to Rogan and his shit where he definitely said it.  Bruce was an equal opportunity asshole, but taking into account when he said it, the context was actually not meant to be derogatory.  Even though, to our ears, it sounds like it was.  It’s actually W. Kamau Bell’s multi part doc on Showtime, We Need to Talk About Cosby, which has been excellent through the first episode that I saw.  Speaking of assholes…

  160. 160.

    Starfish

    @Suzanne: I didn’t take what you said as being opposed to unions!

    You are right that we should not treat the white man as if he is some sacred object.

    I meant to take the theme you had before about hugging the diversified base and take that to parts of the base that have not been seen as diverse.

    I just saw that Billy Bragg posted this song, and I would like to see Democrats move in that direction with their work with unions.

  161. 161.

    boatboy_srq

    @Yarrow: The guys who loved Rush had the benefit of a mostly-functional education system. They persuaded themselves that the rotund blowhard had some genius they could relate to. The Rogan-worshiping generation is the product of the first two of four decades’ worth of GQP systematic destruction of public ed, and revere the Big Loud Dude because he addresses their fears in the only language they were taught (side note, it’s telling that both Grammarly and Microsoft Word target “ideal business communications” at the 8th-10th grade comprehension level), and they’re not equipped to handle anything more complex.

  162. 162.

    boatboy_srq

    @Suzanne: Some of that grievance seems reasonable, IMO

    Indeed. Count me among the aggrieved. But I’m not trying to take it out on Immygrunts and Others™ as the perps of my misfortune simply from their merely existing. I know more than a few that are.

    Not disagreeing with you at all here, just confirming we align on this.

    Not disagreeing with anything you say in the slightest – just pointing out that the same mindset that reveres the Big Obnoxious Outwardly-Successful Loudmouth also aligns with the set that can be persuaded that They™ Did This To Us™, and it doesn’t require advanced years to make that particular leap.

  163. 163.

    Starfish

    @boatboy_srq: I think that we have written to those grade levels for a long time.

    A lot of magazines that had a more educated target audience have dumbed themselves down as well.

    I think Scientific American is a lot less science-y than it once was. I could have sworn that IEEE Spectrum used to be written on a higher reading level than it is now.

  165. 165.

    Suzanne

    @Starfish:

    You are right that we should not treat the white man as if he is some sacred object.

     

    I have joked that I won’t feel represented until Bruce Springsteen writes a song about the travails of middle-aged over-educated white women with desk jobs.
    But, in all seriousness, these types of things matter. Art and imagery kind of helps us locate ourselves in a milieu, and in that way it helps crystallize identity. That why it really matters to have a diversity of stories and representations. And that kind of dudebro white dude has had sooooo much representation.

  167. 167.

    Dopey-o

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: For some reason, the outrageous compensation really bothers me.

    Aw c’mon, man. You’re just whining cause you sit for hours and hours, writing ackshull content aimed at (young) people with developing brains. With the intent of molding ackshull human beings who don’t plan on destroying society.

    And you expect anything more than pocket change?

    [/snark]

    Dopey-s Law of Inverted Compensation: people who run large soulless corporations / etc lead empty meaningless lives with absolutely no spiritual compensation. We give them all the money to make up for that.

  170. 170.

    schrodingers_cat

    @catodthedog: You are presumptuous in assuming that I don’t know about the Mangeshkar family’s relationship with Savarkar.

    संघाचे स्वयंसेवक इतरांना मूर्ख समजतात.

    I disagree with Lata Didi about Savarkar, but I get where she is coming from. Savarkar is revered in Maharashtra even by those who are not in the Hindutva brigade for his role as a freedom fighter before his hard right turn following his incarceration at the Andamans. And for his literary output prior to his Hindutva phase. His poems and his book commemorating the 50th First War on Indian Independence, a term he popularized.

    Savarkar became  a family friend of the Mangeshkars when he was under house arrest after being released from Andaman. She first met him when he was 5. He was a father figure to the Mangehkar siblings.She called him tatya (affectionate term for an older brother or father figure). Her father who was an actor and a musician also performed in some plays written by Savarkar during this period.

    She lost her father when she was 11. She shouldered the burden of her family since she was a teen.  Several of her siblings went on to have distinguished careers of their own. Despite being in the film industry she maintained her dignity and simplicity.  I have never seen her dressed in anything but a cream or white saree with a colorful border. Hair in a braid and hardly any makeup.

    Savarkar was a link to her past, to her father.

    Hridaynath, her youngest brother set to music Savarkar’s poems, one of which is my favorite. Its about the yearning of a young man for his country which he misses dearly when he is away from home. It is addressed to the ocean that separates him from his motherland.

    ne majasi ne parat matrubhoomila (take me back to my motherland)

    Sagara pran talmalala (Oh ocean my heart hurts)

    People are complicated, even Savarkar.

    His arrest, torture and incarceration in the Andamans broke him. The British were able to turn two men  who were erudite British trained lawyers (Jinnah and Savarkar) and who had worked for Hindu-Muslim unity prior to the 1920s into hard right ideologues who demanded separate nations for both Hindus and the Muslims. Coincidence? I will leave to BJers to decide.

    As for you, you are a class A troll trying to appropriate Lata Didi who is dear to all, one of the few Indians who transcends all our divisions of caste, region, religion and language into an exclusive Hindutva icon.

    Mangeshkars interviewed on Mumbai Doordarshan in 1980s recount their relationship with Savarkar here.

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