I won’t spend time debunking all of Rogan’s bunkum. Plenty of outlets have done that work—see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, etc. The fact that his podcast is rife with misinformation and falsehoods is not in question.
In the meantime, you can check out products from a health company he promotes called Onnit, which sells Alpha Brain Black Label vitamins for $124.95 per 80-count bottle. There’s also the $147.95 Quad Mace, which Onnit claims has origins in ancient Persia and represents the company’s embrace of various “training modalities.”
Really goes hard on gwyneth Paltrow and compares rogan to her.
But that’s always how this shit starts, right? Rogan was a dumb but harmless meathead when he was talking about MMA and Bigfoot. Trump was a dumb harmless oaf when he was a just a silly pop culture icon. Paltrow is a silly woo-woo celebrity until she goes anti-vax or runs for office.
We have a mass entertainment industry that bestows celebrity status upon people who appeal to the lowest common denominator, and we never think about how much political power that gives to extremely shitty people.
My thinking is that maybe we should stop pretending that our pop culture morons are just harmless goofs and start thinking of them as people who degrade our society and culture in ways that are potentially dangerous.
If the country had a functional government then they could also focus on fixing the level 1 problems and level 10 problems as they are. Like when someone sell dubious wellness products to unsuspecting consumers, ok not the end of the world but maybe lay on some discouraging fines or something using basic consumer protection law. When someone is amplifying deadly misinformation or undermining democracy or promoting hate speech (or all of the above) then respond proportionately with more serious enforcement action or even the Dreaded Censorship. Everyone wants to bleat about slippery slopes but what about the slippery slope of unfettered capitalism with no consumer or environmental protections? Or the slippery slope of increasingly anti science and anti democratic rhetoric and direct action. C’mon man!
Not knowing anything about her other than the fact that she’s I to vaginal eggs/crystals or whatever, I’d say the odds are heavily in favor of her being anti-vax
I think she’s actually more ruthless than that, she probably says just enough pro vaxx and anti vaxx stuff to satisfy everyone, but what is certain is that if you are pro vaxx or antivaxx she has a $400 product for you!
Oh she appears worse than I thought. Maybe not a 1. She doesn’t seem full anti vaxx but apparently she got long covid and wrote about her self treatment with oils and other alternative medicine voodoo.
Her hook has always been “this very expensive alternative is something only very special rich people can get”. And lots of rich people fall for that hook line and sinker every time because it preys on their psychological need to feel like their wealth makes them special. Since her products are all bullshit, its kind of inherently anti science. But I don’t think she’s 100% anti vaxx, if she could find a way to sell a limited edition special vaxx to rich idiots for $1,000 a pop she’d be pro vaxx (well, her vaxx anyway).
A few days ago I was driving my 10 year old son and 12 year old nephew somewhere while they listened to the local pop radio station and sang along to an extremely popular Travis Scott song glorifying opioid abuse. And I was actually a little surprised that despite it being in the middle of the day on a weekend, they didn’t even bother to beep out the names of the drugs.
Given what we absolutely know about the opioid epidemic, and how it is particularly devastating to the most vulnerable demographics, do you think there should be more thinking about this particular form of pop culture degradation? Or should we just focus on middle age comedians that no one under 30 years old has ever even heard of.
