Joe Rogan responded to the latest controversy surrounding him by clarifying his comments about “woke culture.” Rogan sparked backlash after saying he thinks straight white men are being canceled and silenced. He addressed the response to his comments during a conversation with Whitney Cummings on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast on May 19, 2021.
“And here’s the thing about cancel culture and/or woke culture. And maybe I didn’t express this the best the other day when I did the podcast with Joe List. The point is, it doesn’t end. People have this idea in their head that they’re reaching for this new, better reality that’s potentially available if they just do the right things and call out the right people and cancel the right people,” Rogan said. ” But it’s not. It’s going to keep going. This was my point. It wasn’t well expressed. If you keep going, it will come for you. No one is ever woke enough. It will never end.”
The controversy began after Rogan talked to List on May 13, a fellow standup comedian, during a JRE podcast episode earlier in May. Rogan said, “Can you make a good comedy movie anymore, or have they made it so dangerous in terms of being canceled that comedy movies are no longer something you can do? You can never be woke enough, that’s the problem. It keeps going further and further and further down the line, and if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it’ll eventually get to straight white men are not allowed to talk.”
Rogan added, “We just gotta be nice to each other, man. And there’s a lot of people that are taking advantage of this weirdness in our culture, and then that becomes their thing. Their thing is calling people out for their privilege, calling people out for their position.”
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Rogan Said ‘Everybody’ Is Going to Be Targeted by ‘Woke Culture’
During the conversation with Cummings, Rogan said, “I was talking about white, straight male people. But it’s everybody. It’s everybody. It’s if you grew up with two parents. It’s if you didn’t grow up poor. Whatever it is. Whatever advantages that you have, without any fault of your own, randomly. Nobody asks to be whoever it is. Nobody asks to be Chris Evans, Captain America. He’s just Captain America. Boom. There he is. Beautiful man. He got lucky. That’s who he is. It’s not his fault. And to be angrier at him because of that is ridiculous.”
Cummings added, “I know what it’s like when I’m angry at people. I know what that means. I think I’ve spent enough time trying to analyze myself, not in a narcissistic way, just to be able to sort of deactivate a lot of the either ancestral trauma or unconscious bulls*** inner child behavior as to not punish people for something someone else did to me when I was a kid. It’s not your fault. I’m finally in a super healthy relationship because I take responsibility for my s***. I’m upset but it’s not your f***** fault.”
She continued, “I know what it means when I’m mad at someone. It means I’m jealous. It means I have imposter syndrome. It means if I just attack and judge them, I’m perfect, I don’t have to look at my own s***. So when people do that on the internet, I just go, ‘Bless your heart. You’re insecure. You’re jealous.'”
Rogan Also Said He Understands the Criticism of Him: ‘It Doesn’t Bother Me’
Rogan has found himself in the spotlight on social media and in the news cycle frequently over the past two months. He has been accused of being transphobic by former MMA athlete Fallon Fox, he was accused of spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation and he most recently faced backlash over his “woke culture” comments. But in addressing the controversies, Rogan has said he understands why people criticize him and pick apart his podcasts.
Rogan told Cummings, “when you’re a person like myself and you’ve had a disproportionate amount of success and you do that very thing where you mock things and make fun of things and give your opinions, I understand what’s happening. I’m 100% OK with it. It’s 100% natural for people to even have disproportionate takes on me. That doesn’t bother me. You know why? Because everyone I meet is nice. Everyone. I meet people all over the place. When they meet me, they’re always nice. I understand that some people maybe don’t like me or if they met me they’d be hesitant. But I guarantee if you meet me and you’re nice, I’ll be nice too. I’m a nice person.”
Rogan added, “It doesn’t bother me. It’s OK. It really is OK. I get it. And I don’t know why I get it, but I get it. I understand where I’m at. … It also makes you recognize what is making people upset. Like why they are upset about you do. Maybe you’re expressing yourself in an inefficient way. Maybe you’re doing it wrong. But I get just positionally, I really do. … I get the criticism of me. It doesn’t bother me.”
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Joe Rogan Responds to Backlash: ‘No One Is Ever Woke Enough’