Kit Knightly
Joe Rogan has simply been cancelled. Once again. It’s not about covid” misinformation
“this time.
No, now he’s a racist. Some resourceful young mind combed through 13 years and numerous episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience, and cut together around twenty circumstances of Rogan using “the n-word”.
This video was shared by acclaimed musician India Arie, and utilized to explain her pulling her music from Spotify’s platform in demonstration of Rogan’s ongoing presence there.
Rogan declares that these clips are all gotten of context in his recent apology video, and none were ever meant to be racist. This may well hold true … we can’t look for ourselves, due to the fact that Spotify removed all the episodes.
These crucial bits of context were, naturally, gotten rid of from the viral video. Besides, it has actually considering that been said that context does not even matter.
And you know what, they’re right. The context does not matter, perhaps the intention doesn’t even matter, what matters is “Why now?”
Some of these clips are over twelve years old, and yet there have never ever been any calls to boycott Spotify or cancel his program until simply the last number of days.
Were they not racist prior to? Or was everyone just OK with the bigotry? Could there be something else behind this?
… however why bother pausing the hate-fest to ask concerns, right?
The only message that matters is– Joe Rogan is a racist now, and streaming giant Spotify have pulled over seventy episodes of his show from their platform as a result.
Of course the cyber-torches and internet-pitchforks coming for Joe Rogan is absolutely nothing new. Having actually preached the tenets of a healthy way of life, promoted alternate Covid treatments, and welcomed dissenting specialists onto his program, Rogan has actually certainly been on the establishment’s hit list for a while.
This reached a peak in January when ageing rock royalty Neil Young provided Spotify a final notice: Get rid of Joe Rogan’s “false information”, or take my music down.
Despite adding a weasely disclaimer to the start of the podcast’s episodes, Spotify basically sided with Rogan, probably due to the fact that they could not be seen to acquiesce that type of pressure, and because they figured the majority of people had forgotten Neil Young was still alive.
In short, and in spite of other artists like Joni Mitchell including their voices to Young’s, the gambit failed and Rogan remained on the air.
Then, just last week, White Home Press Secretary Jen Psaki added fuel to the fire by announcing the President would like to see “more done” by tech business to “restrict the amount of misinformation” on their platforms.
Within days of that press conference, the viral video collection of racial slurs had actually appeared, and Rogan is now a racist in addition to an “anti-vax covidiot” or whatever they are calling us nowadays.
He’s also an object lesson in the entire function of cancel culture, and severe identity politics in general.
I do not understand the number of our readers are gamers, or keep in mind Half Life 2, but choose me here …
Around two-thirds of the way through the video game you encounter giant insect-like aliens called Ant Lions, and soon afterwards get an unique attack: The capability to “paint” enemies with pheromones which trigger an unending swarm of Ant Lions to assault them.
Obviously, the huge pests don’t understand WHY they are assaulting your enemies, they don’t sympathise with your objectives and are not capable of comprehending your strategies, all they know is the chemical signals driving them to fits of rage.
You most likely do not require me to describe the metaphor.
This is the function of rampant, hysterical identity politics. You can paint your opponents as a target and see the meaningless swarm do its work.
As much as “cancel culture” is represented as an absolutely natural process, with no top-down control, this is just not the case.
It is practically NEVER natural, and relatively ALWAYS contrived.
If you need to be convinced of that, merely take a look at who is unsusceptible to it.
Both Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau have actually got enough racist (or at least racist-seeming) scandals to get them cancelled if the procedure actually was anything but a covert tool of preserving the status quo. And yet still they stand.
To show how selective it is, we have examples of the very same specific behaviour generating total opposite reactions depending on the individual involved.
When Gina Carano compared the hatred of the unmasked and unvaccinated to the way Jews were treated in Nazi Germany, she lost her task and her representative.
When Margaret Hodge made similar comments about Corbyn’s Labour party, there was no rebuke at all.
It seems just individuals outside the establishment, or promoting the ‘incorrect’ viewpoints, are ever in genuine threat of falling victim to ‘organic’ cancellation.
Undoubtedly, one can be an absolutely white-bread member of the entertainment industry for years and be safe in the knowledge your racism/homophobia/misogyny and so on will never ever actually emerge, however step out of line on the incorrect topic at the incorrect time, and you will all of a sudden find yourself facing a tidal wave of past “sins” ready to clean over you.
Take A Look At Donald Trump, an expert to the bone when he was just a billionaire truth television host, but then he ran against Hillary and ended up being “literally Hitler” over night.
Rogan is an ideal examplar of this phenomenon. Spend ten years going on about legalising weed, taking DMT and discussing martial arts and you can say “the n-word” as much as you desire and nobody notices or cares. However the minute you even slightly question an essential media story, then the mob ‘organically’ remembers you were a racist the entire time.
The evidence of contrivance is obvious. Simply ask yourself: where did this video compilation of racial slurs really come from? Who made it?
Rogan’s usages of “the n-word” are not new. They are all several years of ages and from 23 separate episodes, all multiple hours long. And there are almost 1800 episodes of the show to till through if you choose to go browsing. So making this video is at least two days’ work of simply seeing the episodes– which’s assuming you understand where to start looking.
And that’s prior to editing or attempting to make it “go viral”.
Was all this done on an impulse by some tired pro-vaxxer?
Does that sound likely?
Much more likely is that it was created and deployed to challenge Rogan’s COVID-questioning without having to engage with the Covid sceptic evidence or arguments.
It’s even possible the video might even have actually currently existed prior to the present debate. After all, why develop this climate of stifling level of sensitivity if you do not have the tools to use it?
Possibly most authors, stars, comedians etc have a “tape” in the vault somewhere. A database of bigotry, homophobia or transphobia just waiting to be launched when needed. A collection of neo-kompromat that works best as a deterrent, but is constantly prepared to be loosed if required.
Those people who do step too far out of their box are removed, and serve as an example to others. Ensuring everybody on the general public stage is singing from the same hymn sheet.
Because that, it seems, is what cancel culture is for.