Putting aside for a moment all the ****ed up **** that attracts people to Rogan. And I honestly think this should be the most important conversation. **** dude is peddling is dangerous
My take on this success...
Joe Rogan is talented. He had a successful media career before the podcast, was a successful stand-up, his work with the UFC. I when it comes to the skill of interviewing for the format he does, he is good at that. You don't get a lot of good long-form interviews, and the length Joe does them, that can stay entertaining throughout, from other podcasters. In some ways, he is driving in his own lane.
However, I think that luck, even when acknowledged, is underestimated.
-His built-in fame from MTV, NBC, the UFC, and stand-up specials. Being a celebrity launching a podcast is not the same as an "average joe/jane"
-Joe was putting a lot of media out there before his podcast, from like the early 2000s. He had a blog he used to post things to. He used to live stream on places like U-Stream too. I remember seeing some of that stuff, it was most definitely rough. Mans had years of practice for the podcast before it launched, even then the podcast was rough at the beginning.
-Joe started his official podcast in like what? 2008-2009? When the podcast market was much smaller and years of experience doing similar stuff for him to draw on.
-Joe is a celebrity and stand-up, he has celebrity friends and comedians. Them coming on the show talking wild, and providing entertaining content helped the podcast a ton. Joe didn't launch a long-form interview podcast from the jump
-The rise of the UFC helped a lot because he then became one of the few media places you would see MMA discussions. He was knowledgeable about the sport, how dudes trained, the grappling scene, behinds-the-scenes info on fighters from working in the UFC, etc. If you were an MMA fan during that time, his MMA content was a great listen
-Him having a live stream of his podcast helped him because the video would end up on YouTube. In a time when Youtube was not overflowing with creators. Then he started to officially put clips on there. Making the show more suitable for a video audience clearly affected the pod too.
All this helped him build an audience before he solidly committed to the long-form interview stuff with "interesting" guesses.
When people say they can't believe people are still fans of his, I can understand where they are coming from because unless you are there for the diet libertarian conspiratorial white grievance ****ery, the appeal of Joe Rogan in 2021 doesn't seem that great. Doing a long-form podcast with the guess he has wouldn't make someone the most popular podcast in the country. There is a market for it but got that big. So in a 2021 podcast landscape, people have better options than Rogan. And when folk don't explore them, you start to wonder why.
Telling a Rogan critic "hey I bet you couldn't do what he does" really doesn't seem like a strong pushback because it not only ignores the luck he has had. But also the amount of time and built-in advantages he has had to make, and get better at making content.
AND its with Tom Segura…I mess with Tom.
