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I bear potentially strange tidings for a lighter episode in the Culture War.
CumTown at the Rubicon: Is Adam Friedland unironically gunning for the "Joe Rogan of the Left" title?
CumTown was a successful comedy podcast hosted by three sardonic New York stand-up comedians. The show's trio included leader Nick Mullen, who fans will call the best impromptu comedy riffer of all time. The show's second was a funny fat man that is often described as the show's laugh track. Then, every comedy trio needs the butt of the joke: the doormat, slapstick target, or the straight man. In this case the role was filled by Adam Friedland (un?)ironically described by fans as an unfunny "bug" that eats dust on top of various Jew-flavored jokes.
I didn't listen to CumTown. Mostly because I don't listen to comedy podcasts. At the time, I had an inkling of association with CumTown and the dirt-bag left. The ChapoTrapHouse-RedScare orbit wasn't to my taste, even if I were to listen to unserious political podcasts. I recall a friend, a huge fan of the show, that tried to impress upon me that no, CumTown was just a comedy podcast, and a really funny one at that. I think we were both right. At least some of the show's comedy tickles a Millennial, dirt-bag left adjacent funny bone. But, it also seems like it was genuinely funny as well as genuinely irreverent and offensive at a time when scolds were out in force. Allegedly, the hosts never did any media to avoid the Eye of Sauron. The show was extremely successful with its patreon raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars a month at its height.
The trio broke up, which left Nick, the best comedy riffer of all time, and Adam, the butt of all jokes, to start a new project with The Adam Friedland Show. The not so subtle joke behind the show is that Mullen, considered the mastermind and favorite of fans, aimed to shoot Adam into the spotlight as the star. Adam was to be the expert celebrity interviewer of the "Center-left" (tongue-in-cheek, derogatory) talk show. The same CumTown fan friend shared the Neil DeGrasse Tyson episode and I remember it as pretty entertaining. Other episodes I've seen include Chris Cuomo and rapper and son of Tom Hanks.
The talk show portion fell apart and Mullen left the show for some reason. Now Friedland was left alone to create a Season 2. Season 2 launched a few weeks ago with a small media campaign that includes a GQ profile titled "Adam Friedland Could Be the Millennial Jon Stewart. But Does He Want That?" The article is chock full of fan service, in-jokes and ironic humor which means it can't be taken too seriously. But, there was also coverage and an interview from Ben Smith's Semafor. As far as a serious, center-left New York media outlet goes, Semafor is fairly credible. Even if Adam's exposure is limited to its media critics.
The first two episodes in the second season of the show are credibly center-left coded. The first episode was with Anthony Weiner. Yes, that Anthony Weiner is apparently attempting to re-enter municipal politics in NYC again. The last one I haven't seen is an interview with sitting California representative Ro Khanna who, in addition to being a Bernie fan, has explicitly stated he is on board with the growing Abundance project and renewal of the Democratic party.
This is all occurring while the Democrats have loudly signaled, and been mocked relentlessly for, plans to find inroads into the minds of young men. On one hand, it's hard to fathom that Adam Friedland can be leveraged for political gain. From what I could gather fans seem to disbelieve, but also sense greatness in the irony. On the other hand, this is an established show that appeals to a nearly all-male audience with lefty coding and edgy street cred. It is pretty perfect for a Democratic messaging device. I don't know if Adam Friedland will seize the day to become the ironic Bill Maher for under-40s, or if this will conclude as a typical haha half joke, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it swung either way.
If I can quote Shoe on head -
"oh my God we need a liberal Joe Rogan" You had a liberal Joe Rogan his name was Joe Rogan but he was too edgy too problematic
Most ironically, he was too liberal. This was the characteristic of Joe Rogan that was damning to them and that elicted the reaction that was damning of them. He may never have been too immoderate for them in the modern sense of "liberal"=="leftist", but he was far too much for them in the older sense of "liberal"=="open minded". While the modern left was discovering the delicious joys of shunning and deplatforming, Rogan was still stubbornly letting any idiot with any wacky or problematic ideology come to him and make a case for it to him and his audience. The last straw for them in 2024 may have been that, when he offered to let their idiot take advantage of his liberalism, at a point where she clearly needed it, she simply chose not to accept!
It's possible that she was doomed either way, that she had good reason for insisting on an hour interview surrounded by her staff rather than multiple hours one-on-one in his studio like all his other interviewees, but if that's the case then what they needed instead wasn't a liberal version of Joe Rogan, it was a didn't-finish-at-the-bottom-of-the-Democratic-primaries version of Kamala Harris.
Kamala can't string a full sentence from start to end without reading a teleprompter, that's why they didn't let her get on Joe Rogan's podcast.
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He wasn't too liberal. He is a living fossil, him with his open mind and willingness to talk to people.
Today liberalism stands for western guilt, feelings and self expression over rationality, safety over openness, faith in solving social issues through social engineering, despite half a century of total failure of such efforts.
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