Our Correspondent Explains why the Sideshow isn’t the Problem
You are reveling in CultureWag, the best newsletter in the universe, edited by JD Heyman and created by The Avengers of Talent. We lead the conversation about culture—high, medium and deliciously low. Drop us a line about about any old thing, but especially about what you want more of, at jdheyman@culturewag.com. And now a little something from the intrepid T. Stockmann!
“After reading the Wag, I felt smart enough to discover radium chloride.”—Marie Curie
As the bible says, the wages of having a massive platform is backlash. In the case of Joe Rogan, we are now at Stage 3. of a classic media dustup, in which he who hath reaped the whirlwind vows to do better. We’re not going to rehash Stages 1. (Transgression) and 2. (Rain of Fire), because you already know what happened. Also, before we get too far into this, we want to reiterate that Rogan harbors no bitterness toward Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, who demanded their music be removed from Spotify because of Covid-19 misinformation on his podcast. He’s also cool with innocent bystander Rickie Lee Jones, whom he momentarily confused with Mitchell in a Jan. 30 video addressing the controversy. Finally, something that can truly bring America together: Chuck E’s in Love is indeed an awesome song.
Anyhow, this is the kind of big name scrum drearier outlets can’t resist pouncing on (all those clickable names). But it isn’t really about Joe vs. The League of Rock n Roll Legends. It’s about the nature of media, which we don’t so much consume anymore as inhabit, and why it makes people so angry in the first place. As a society, we are no longer are able to get on the same page about much. Our response to the Covid-19 pandemic reflects this pretty starkly. In a public health crisis, it should follow that informed citizens of a well-run democracy take what sober public health officials advise in good faith, not as a stalking horse for totalitarianism. That instead we prefer to fight endlessly about masks, or vaccines, or ivermectin says a lot about an unhealthy content ecosystem and the jaundiced culture that sustains it. If you are reading anything at all, you’ve read variations on this a thousand times: People have lost faith in institutions, and have gone shopping for answers that fit their views in peculiar places. Meanwhile, Russian troops are massing on the border of Ukraine.
Things are just getting interesting! If you want more Waggish insights, become a Deluxe Premium Subscriber. Wisdom will rain down upon you in a soothing yet tingly cascade.Subscribe
Because we lack a foundational media that brings all of us under the same tent, we have all become Cliff Clavins, spouting half-baked ideas from our barstools. More than anything, the internet has given us permission to dismiss anything we disagree with and arm ourselves with alternative facts. Nobody is supposed to tell anybody how to live, and yet everybody is also deputized to scream bloody murder at people who don’t think the way they do. Americans, always wary of expertise, are only too happy to engage in conspiracy mongering and shaming when a crisis hits. This isn’t new, and it isn’t particularly ideological. It is hardwired habit in a vast, diverse country with a history of resistance to centralized authority. Correction: it is a global habit, especially in societies with declining faith in their governments and unfettered access to digital media. Tin hats are now freely available to one and all.
When our big tent institutions were stronger, this congenital weakness for fantasy was manageable. But we are now an imbalanced society, of many little tents, pitched in various warring camps. When people moan about the media, they are still more or less talking about a rusting journalistic establishment and battered entertainment conglomerates, but these are small fry. The most powerful media in human history are the gigantic platforms that billions of us swim in all day long. These entities insist that they are not publishers, reined in by quaint rules meant to apply to old-fashioned originators of storytelling; they are simply neutral warehouses of user-generated content, ostensibly dedicated to freedom of expression. Members of the public, frequently outraged by digital controversies (or the banning of somebody they agree with) are wise to the dodge.
Spotify, of course, is not simply a music-streaming service. It is a global audio platform, intent on maintaining dominance in a competitive space. Its deal with Rogan, worth around $100 million, was a big play. His show has more than 11 million listeners an episode, accounting for nearly 5 percent of all podcast listens on Spotify. Seventy percent of this audience is male, a sought-after and very slippery media demographic. When Young gave his ultimatum (me or Joe), Spotify picked Rogan, and removed the rocker’s catalog from the platform. The fallout from that choice might have been unexpected, but the thinking behind it shouldn’t be.
We’ve been here before. Controversial content, broadly defined, is both wildly engaging and risky — companies crave big numbers and will absorb a little heat to get them, but are wary of getting too far over their skis. What played out in this case is a pretty typical cycle of outrage, pressure and correction, not unlike what recently befell Whoopi Goldberg, in a more minor key, on The View. What really changes after such episodes? Not much, actually.
Despite the efforts of many to paint Rogan as a culture warrior, it’s clearly not so simple. He is curious, and his interests include (but are hardly limited to) elk hunting, pot, hallucinogens, martial arts, the history of the Comanche people, working out, standup comedy and concerns about freedom of expression. His views are sometimes libertarian, sometimes contrarian, sometimes an expression of average guyness. He says what he thinks, as he thinks it. What comes out hardly mirrors one side of the spectrum or the other, but even if it did, that’s not really what’s at play here. His podcast became enormously popular because he invites an array of guests — public intellectuals, authors, MMA fighters, comics, eccentrics—that appeals to him. An audience similar to the one that made Howard Stern and Don Imus drive time stars in ancient times has responded. Part of the lure is to hear things that aren’t being said in those fusty establishment joints. To put it in technical terms, it’s mostly about shooting the shit. But as things have gotten ever more gigantic, it isn’t so simple anymore.
Rogan’s resistance to public health directives on Covid-19 is well documented. Frustration with the restrictions placed on peoples’ lives is universal, and they will find expression, even if these manifestations are supremely unhelpful. Without going into all that back and forth, the real issue isn’t that he or anybody else has a megaphone, but that traditional modes of getting reliable information to the public are simply no match for it. We have hollowed out the institutions created to give us the basic facts. That’s left us overly reliant on whomever we like to entertain us.
Scolding public figures, or slapping warning labels on content, is playing catchup in a world where the flow of information is mind-bogglingly huge and the truth is, at best, a moving target. This is not about personalities, but the dysfunctional information system we have constructed and all participate in. It may make some people very rich, but when it comes to grasping the real problems that plague us, it is a disaster. Until we find a meaningful way to reform it, we will churn through endless, empty cycles of outrage and retribution. — Thomas Stockmann
Questions for us at CultureWag? please ping intern@culturewag.com, and we’ll get back to you in a jiffy.
For Covid-safe hosted events, contact JDHeyman@culturewag.com.
CultureWag celebrates culture—high, medium, and deliciously low. It’s your essential guide, cutting through a cluttered American entertainment landscape and serving up smart, funny recommendations to the most hooked-in audience in the galaxy. If somebody forwarded you this issue, consider it a coveted invitation and RSVP “subscribe.” You’ll be part of the smartest club in Hollywood and far beyond.
“Scratch a Wag, find untold pearls of inspiration.”—Dorothy Parker
July 21, 2024
