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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.
You can't have a left-wing Joe Rogan because the next time he strays from the line on COVID or anything else, they'll get what Rogan got. Friedland has already had one brush with cancel culture for utterly inane reasons. He got past it because he was too small to be the priority target. Whoever sits in that spot will go down for something.
This whole discussion is a bunch of evangelicals sitting around trying to figure out why they can't make movies that appeal to outsiders while refusing to mention the mile-long faith statement and guidelines they need everyone working on the film to sign on to and the essential points of doctrine that must be squeezed in. There haven't been many good movies about Mohammed for a reason.
You can have a left-wing person who's at Joe's level. You can't have a left-wing Joe Rogan because Joe Rogan isn't a partisan warrior. That's how he got so big!
Even desiring a left-wing Rogan is telling on themselves. Not everyone sees their media consumption as a way to bring about the Kingdom. It's just more of the same: people need to be educated -> people resist and flee our spaces -> well, we should just colonize that outlet too so they have no escape. Doesn't work as well with new media.
That's the fault line in all of this. The outgroup is stupid cattle that needs to be herded.
I see a lot of the more liberal centrist aligned people huffing and scolding the 'left' over their inability to understand why Joe Rogan exists in the first place. How dumb the 'left' is for not recognizing that it's their own suffocating need to propagandize everything for the correct cause that creates the space Joe Rogan can occupy. But there's a small blind spot there as well.
To an extent the viewpoint that everything needs to be propaganda for the cause, and that everyone who isn't a true believe is just stupid cattle that needs to be herded and 'educated', has proven more correct than not. It's hard to find an intellectual hobby that has not been colonized or is in the process of being colonized by 'left' influence. Books, movies, TV, video and board games. For the past two decades practically every major hub and media outlet for these things has been taken over. And the stupid cattle still earnestly engage with it.
So who is really the odd one out here? The people who have managed to propagandize nigh every western institutional and intellectual space to deliver their message, or the people who periodically pop their heads out of the ocean of left wing propaganda to pissedly proclaim that you can't propagandize everything... Before diving back in.
I'm partial to "propaganda works", but clearly it has it's limits. Why else are they freaking out over Joe Rogan? If they conquered all spaces so thoroughly, shouldn't he be no threat to them?
The Joe Rogan problem for the 'left' is "We control everything except this one thing". I don't see how that is propaganda having its limits. Just that one side is not completely omnipotent. The propaganda still works well enough. We wouldn't be where we are today if it didn't.
And where did "this one thing" come from? It didn't fall out from the sky, it wasn't a preexisting institution that managed to resist takeover by happenstance, it was built from scratch. If progressive propaganda was limitlessly effective this wouldn't happen in the first place, and they wouldn't be pulling their hair out at their inability to reproduce it.
You're approaching this from an angle where propaganda is something I don't think it is.
Joe Rogan wasn't 'built'. It was an accidental fire that happened to be able to exist since it spawned from spheres that were very much not intellectual and not mainstream. Fighting sports, drugs and a clique of mildly failing comedians. On top of that it was a new and emerging medium. It did survive by chance. It was fringe enough that no one with money wanted to touch it until people figured out just how big it had gotten.
By that point Rogan, through his own personal conviction and other things, figured out he didn't need any money men. The technology to monetize was, by chance, there to be used. His ownership of this thing he had made was more important to him. You can swap Rogan out for a different person and that person could just as well have sold the whole thing out for a big paycheck as soon as he could. Let Spotify or whatever interested party dictate the guests or allow them some minimal control over what is allowed to be said about certain topics and whatever else. Really not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
Similar to how cries of cries of a lack of internet censorship were eventually heard, the calls for a left wing Joe Rogan will eventually be heard. This exact same game was played out with early internet culture. "What goes on the internet stays forever". Turns out this is not true. 'The Internet Hate Machine' was eventually neutered and killed off. Be that through direct action by the powers that be, or that people change, grow older, die, or whatever else. To that extent there is nothing that is lined up to replace Rogan. And like with other mediums, the slot Joe Rogan fills will either be subverted and controlled or bricked up.
Maybe. I think it's media created with the purpose of spreading and inculcating ideas and specific types of thinking, is that not what it is? What do you think it is?
His podcast is very much a result of deliberate human action, rather than a random accident. None of his story that you bring up contradicts my point, and none of what you said addresses it.
The left might one day decide to turn itself into something that can sustain a left-wing Joe Rogan, but it is currently incapable of doing so. They might succeed in taking him down, they might succeed in having him supplanted by slop they control, but unless they change themselves, they're not reproducing him or the effect he's having on the world.
Propaganda is what you say, just on a much larger timescale. With the addition of blocking certain ideas and types of thinking. You don't need to spread your message all the time. Just make sure it's the only message available.
As for Rogan, he was a mildly failed comedian with a small time career in TV. Nothing about his podcast was deliberate beyond what any other random podcast was. No one knew what could become of the medium. I'd say Rogan's success was about as deliberate as a person winning the lottery. If you want to say that you can deliberately win the lottery by buying a ticket, that's that. But that doesn't fit any conception I have of deliberate action.
The left did not need to change themselves to kill the internet. They won't need to change themselves to block the next Joe Rogan. It reminds me of an old video game reviewer called Total Biscuit. He managed to position himself as probably the biggest reviewer of video games. He passed away from cancer a few years ago and nothing has replaced him. People still play video games, people still fret about missing graphics options and bad games being sold for 60 dollars, but there's no central outlet for that like he provided. No public voice echoing their woes and reinforcing the validity of their wants and needs in the face of tone deaf developers and greedy publishers.
Around 50% of America is already not on board with the program regardless of Rogan existing or not. The question for the left is not 'how do we get them onboard'. The question is 'how do we keep them silent'. How do we keep their wants and impulses locked in a societal straightjacket so they don't threaten our power. Joe Rogan is bad for left wing propaganda since he exists as an outlet for the impulses 'non left' people already have.
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