Seems like a lot of the discourse is "We shouldn've have abandoned spaces like Joe Rogan's podcast" but also I absolutely feel like I have no choice but to abandon spaces like Elon Musk's Twitter.
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There's 117 comments on this, I'm sure someone said this already but.. nobody abandons a space like JRE... he doesn't sell to us. you abandon institutions. you can totally abandon social media. Conservatives abandoned higher education and it went farther left. JRE was always what it was and is.
I think how to engage with toxic and harmful spaces responsibly is a really hard question - especially for folks with lots of clout. I’m not sure of the answer…
i think it involves people talking irl. the internet is not effective at depolarization. real life is were that must happen.
we need people and organizations to be physically present in peoples lives. to show them why being socially minded and helpful is good. vs selfish uncaring individuality.
Twitter has always been overwhelmingly reactive and reductionist. My hot take is that whoever is left to have the loudest voice over there just ends up looking crazier to average everyday people.
I heard a great point made on the PEP Podcast; that this exact thing is why they chose Tim Walz for VP.
He's very personable and comes across well in interview settings like podcasts, and probably would've been a great ambassador for the campaign to places like JRE.
Also I highly recommend PEP with Chas and Dr Dave - it's ab offshoot podcast from ABC Australia's Planet America tv program which covers US political news from the outside.
It’s a tough choice. Do you stay there (right wing spaces) and fight it out with the bad actors or do you protect your sanity? I’m in the camp of not putting myself in situations that make me unhappy, but I do think we sometimes lose ground when we don’t debate the people publicly.
Truly, I actually cited your YT video about Twitter not being Elon's in a presentation about Technological Processes in an Org Comm class today. Twitter is a people, and we've found a new home.
I really don't understand the appeal of reaching out to Rogans audience. I think people constantly trying to do that is how he got so popular and how he legitimized himself. He's always just been mainstream Alex Jones.
But I also see your point from earlier that good creators on our side burnout.
I think the issue is reaching people who don't have a space at all.
I don't know anyone in my family that uses Twitter or listens to Joe Rogen, but they all sure as hell vote!
Joe Rogan is endlessly agreeable, and will basically platform anything anyone with some notoriety says on his podcast. Twitter on the other hand is a bigot breeding ground, and will essentially become a media arm for the Trump admin. Twitter is not going to save democracy.
I disagree, we should completely abandon these spaces.
This kind of extremism was less of a problem when it was still confined to obscure specialized websites.
YouTube and other Social Media allowing these people to spread their message is a big part of what lead to recent radicalizations.
Glad you said this, I am waiting for my archive to be ready and I put up the moves to Blue Sky sign. Just went and took it down. Don’t want to lose account until I get my info and then delete things.
Nobody is going to care about the user count unless they are filing disclosures in which case inactive accounts surely would be excluded in investor documents.
In some jurisdictions there is a legal "right to be forgotten" where companies have to tell you what data they have about you and provide a means to have it deleted. Could be worth looking into.
As much as I hate Joe Rogan (SO MUCH) it's certainly possible for sharp people on the left to do well on there. He's not big on pushback to ANYONE and is just as bamboozled by actual smart facts as he is by smart-sounding bullshit.
i mean most of the narratives about the "bro vote" or whatever weren't actually relevant anyway, that demographic broke amongst men for democrats and turnout was lower for both candidates than in 2020. it was mostly just a disaster in messaging and outreach
I don't think people who watch Joe Rogan would have voted differently no matter who showed up on the podcast. Neil deGrasse Tyson has been on there multiple times, and they're still largely conspiracy theorists
Elon Musk is turning twitter into the state media apparatus for the right. You can't outscream the guy with the megaphone. Joe Rogan just needs clicks and the money pours in. He doesn't care anymore.
We don't need to challenge them - we need to challenge the space they have taken in the media.
I think there’s an argument to be made that twitter and podcasts are different enough as communication mediums that there is a meaningful difference between abandoning one vs the other. Ceding one type of communication medium may be more justifiable than ceding another
The joke was that Rogan agrees with the last person he talked to but I think he's gone too far down the reactionary rabbit hole to be pulled out at this point
yes and i don't think we should discount the financial incentives that have grown in the last decade for reactionaries that has played a part in his rabbit holing
I wanted to stay in Texas so my vote would be blue, but focusing on my safety was a bigger priority. I also am now abandoning Twitter because I don’t want to actively give Donny’s right hand man my data.
4 years ago Joe Rogan was open to all sides, and loved Bernie Sanders. Then conservatives embraced him, and Liberals shunned him. Like Elon, he's not the brightest guy, so guess which way he went? All the purity tests, shaming people who don't share all your beliefs, it all has an obvious outcome.
No he wasn't. He had a mix of beliefs, like most of America. Like me. I am 90% progressive, but the Left shuns me for the other 10%. Because they don't tolerate dissent.
Genuinely, I'm considering nuking my twitter account purely for safety; the change to how blocking works means bigots could still talk my account if they wanted to.
I think it depends what you are doing there. If you want to do good faith anti-trump/anti-fascist work over there, godspeed. If you are there to better understand the modern American right, fair enough. If you are there for normal social media reasons, yea maybe time to bail.
I generally agree with your point, but I think those are kind of different things, since Rogan gives an immediate platform and somewhat normalized view from Rogan of his guest to his audience. whereas posting on Twitter, even with lots of followers, has practically zero impact.
I've been thinking about this a lot as well. We create "comfort silos" / "echo chambers" where we are treated well by each other, comforted, and have our beliefs reaffirmed.
When we attempt truly diverse communities with discussions, we end up with trolling and bad behavior...
Many people think Elon is basically just some kind of evil billionaire boogeyman. A monster who can't be changed. But the problem is that he's just as impressionable as some dumbass teenager or your tinfoil hat uncle. It's just that those people don't typically have billions of dollars.
There's a difference between Joe Rogan podcast and Twitter.
You're not faced with the most vile creatures on the internet when you listen to JRE, & if you feel like you are, you can just turn it off. You are not required to listen to JRE in order to listen to all your friend's/mutual's podcasts
I just can't imagine what good it can bring to try and exist in those actively hostile spaces. It seems like a lot of people still believe you can change peoples minds, but you almost never can. they have to be directly affected by something in order to learn, and we're about to see it first hand.
I abandon/deactivated X because all user data will probably be sent over to the Whitehouse. People are still on there clinging to 2013 twitter and this bot infested follower counts. The dream is dead, guys. And now it's really *really* dead.
I feel so much better since I deleted my account over there. Of course, it wasn’t nearly as consequential as your account, but it’s the nicest thing I’ve done for myself in a long time.
do we think we’ve overblown the importance of one interview? Do we not think the fundamentals of the narratives crafted by the candidates were far more important than the media in which they were expressed?
Yeah, it feels like a lot of credibility is still afforded to them so abandoning it to conspiracy theories and Elon Musk's misinformation is a bad thing.
For me, the main difference is that you can talk with Joe Rogan and have a real-life conversation— sure, a lot of people watch it, and that matters! But you are actually talking to a person. On Twitter? Not the case. Conversations directed by weighted algorithms that discourage genuine conversation.
Do you think there's anything to the idea that the former is not algorithmic and the latter is? I feel like going on Rogan's podcast, you're guaranteed an audience of however many million. On algorithm-choked, verified-choked Twitter, it's an uphill battle to be heard at all.
The effort/reward balance to 'fight' for Twitter is just not feasible. Better IMO to leave and no longer contribute to that toxic ecosystem. For accounts with significant follow-counts, how comfortable are you now with the idea of new fans joining Twitter to access your content?
That's because with Twitter we already lost, back when he bought it; those still there think themselves stalwart defenders holding the line but the castle is his and we only torture ourselves for his amusement. It is a torture chamber we are tricked into walking into, believing ourselves saviors
I keep on feverishly hating the take that somehow Joe Rogan influenced this in a meaningful way. Yes he had a platform to spew nonsense and hate but he’s had that same platform for years. People have had their minds made up for years, Rogan just gave them an excuse under the guise of “fair” debate.
Id guess .05% of "swing" voters are actually on twitter. But concerning Rogan, I remember like it was yesterday. Bernie made his appearance only to be scolded by the now defunct KHive
You can't engage in dialogue with people who don't do it in good faith. People like Rogan are interested in collecting their pay check, not changing minds and hearts. And they themselves will ALWAYS take the viewpoint that is most profitable for them.
With algorithms and moderation being as they are there is no point trying to use twitter to promote ideas which dont align with elons vision of the world.
Absolutely. After seeing you and @piratesoftware.live talk about the engagement difference here, I jumped over immediately. It's so much nicer here. It's like night and day.
i get what youre saying, but i think comparing elons twitter to rogan is a bit erroneous. for all his flaws, joe rogan would give a real platform to any of his guests in a human way that "we" should have taken advantage of but twitter right now is as detached from "human" as it gets.
How does this make sense? Doesn't the election show that these spaces are where average people are? If progressives shrink away from public space then what's the point of going on Rogan or any other "outreach" when you stay in a bubble?
In one or two years, we'll hear about how "We shouldn't have left Twitter" because for some bizarre reason, it's very easy to forget how bad it was living in the torment nexus.
I've been saying this for a while. A lot of my friends don't understand that being in a place as hateful and as misinformational is only benefiting those who want to keep us down.
I understand arguments about not giving up turf, keeping left/critical ideas in that marketplace etc. but we also need to get some basic thing out of a service we use, and at that fundamental level (seeing posts), Twitter became useless.
I think we'll have a good year or so on here before some of the more toxic users of Twitter start trying to harass users on here. Enjoy the positive space and hopefully there's some entertaining engagement for you on here 🖖🏻
You aren't going to change anyone's mind on any space unless the person is willing to learn and admit when they are wrong. Something I don't see it happening very often. So yes, leave X and other toxic spaces.
I think the key here is that going on Rogan was an opportunity, not a space. A space is where you spend extended, repeat time, and spending extended, repeat time putting money into the pockets of Nazis by scrolling Twitter is a bad thing
Yes, social media is only useful as ancillary support to movements and organizing. It's too easy to get sucked into the mindset that posting alone is making a difference.
This is so very, very true. I think some of us have been trying for years to win that unwinnable war. Time to stop trying. I only worry the abandonment of in-person is permanent :/
Especially when you have to buy a bluecheck to been seen in replies. The comments section of Twitter used to be good before Elon made it pay to be top comment.
Saw an interesting interview w/Obama a while back where he pointed out that meetup (which I’m shocked still exists) helped facilitate the in person engagement that helped him win. We should pursue something like that; use online spaces to facilitate in person meetings.
i think a good way to approach which spaces are worth engaging with/remaining on over the next handful of years might be just weighing who it helps and who it hurts. i think it probably helps to appear on the rogans of the world. i think it would absolutely hurt musk if everyone left his twitter.
I don't feel like those are the same thing. It seems like if we have a fixed number of fucks to give to changing people's minds Musk and X seem like way more of a lost cause than Rogan.
I had recently re-joined Twitter for silly reasons but was frustrated that despite not following anyone or having any interests or connections that were centrist (much less conservative), I keep being shown NFL and Trump ads and followed by strange ghosty profiles of not-real people. Sketchy.
On one hand it's tough, it feels like you need to be there to get your voice heard and make places like that less of an echo chamber. But don't forget those people are not willing to engage in any discussion (or they're a bot and can't). They infiltrate left-wing spaces and ruin them, every time.
I feel like you don't have to use that literal platform(twitter) we can still attempt to genuinely come to the table and engage with the discussion. You may be drawing a false equivalency, I'm not trying to loose my morals/values over their actions/decisions even though it feels tempting.
I deleted Twitter the day after the election, I’m not even American but I won’t be a part of Elon’s mind control tool, it’s hard, I had cured a good feed, but it’s not worth it. A good number of the accounts I followed there are now here, I can only hope that they stay…
As long as we're tanking X's active user numbers, it's a good thing. i.e: it's okay to keep your old account (especially if you don't want people taking your handle or impersonating you) provided you're not actually using the site.
I just kinda mentally pictured Tim Walz gentle parenting Rogan like a linebacker whose strayed into some weird shit and needs to get his head back in the game and I don't know how I feel about it lol
I don't think this gives Kamala enough credit. I think she proved time and again that she was very capable of holding her own against hard lines of questioning. That's not to say Rogan would have been fair to her, but I think she would have been fine.
I wasn’t clear. I greatly admired how she handled herself and I’m sure I would have found her amazing. How she would have been perceived by the other side wouldn’t have been positive at all, though, and could have made things worse. We don’t think like them.
Democrats love talking about "reaching across the aisle", and Republicans literally never even pretend to want that.
Ends up with both parties only ever trying to court and appease right wing voters, and clearly when faced with Republican or Diet Republican, RW voters always pick Republican
Gut feeling says, abandon both. They're not worth our attention or the space they take up. Twitter is a lost cause. Joe Rogan, I called him a wet paper towl hat dries and rehydrates. He takes up attention in a way that's not productive to "the discourse".
They are both partisan spaces, inherently hostile to our goals. Remembering Adam Conover's Rogan interview a few years ago where he was challenged (for some reason) to defend gender-affirming care & his factual response of "experts in child development agree it's not harmful" was mocked & derided.
At a certain point, the balance tips from "We have to fight for our space" to "We need a new space". Hopefully the new space stays pleasant for a while.
Some things have to be done if you want to be useful going forward. It's analogous to securing your own oxygen mask prior to that of your child's when the plane cabin loses pressure
They are fundamentally different platforms. Twitter is a media publisher with a (questionable) editorial policy. It is far worse under Musk but it has ever been thus. Joe Rogan is a media personality with a character driven talk show that has no editorial standards beyond Joe wants to talk to you.
Twitter (he dead named his kid, I'm going to deadname his platform) is definitely the bad place. This is better - especially because you can actually block people. Plus starter packs let you follow a bunch of people on a theme with one click.
There’s two sides of that; on one hand we should’ve absolutely abandoned spaces like Rogan/Twitter. The other is that we can’t abandon podcasts and social media in general–that’s where young people are, if we don’t engage with those spaces, how do we expect those listeners/viewers to engage with us?
I genuinely wonder how much of the population of early 1930s Deutschland would have been like 'They would have won against Hitler if they made some films with Goebbels.'
(It's not the same, but it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be similar enough to be deeply alarmed.)
I like reading on many to many site even if commenting/posting with a low follower account feels like shouting into the void.
But I don’t believe blue skies is a good place, I now can log on X without it feeling like a bad place.
(I called it twitter when I thought it still had redeemable qualities
I think it's also different when Joe Rogan seems like a "free speech" guy who is just uneducated in a right wing vacuum and Elon Musk is a "buy the town square in order to indoctrinate young people and fool them into giving me power"
Most frustrating thing about Rogan is that while his almost obsessive curiosity drives him to interview people who otherwise don’t get major platforms, that curiosity never leads anywhere. Like he only absorbs the most outlandish stuff (because it’s most interesting to him) and that becomes “truth.”
I want to push back a little on the "interviewing people who otherwise don't get major platforms" after scrolling through some of his recent episodes. I'd say 90% of his most recent guests are people who are famous or have money and power already.
I haven’t kept up in a while so that may very well be the case. And obviously he’s always had famous people on the show, but earlier on it was also about whatever he was into. Actual experts in their field who had interesting things to say about some relatively niche topic. Unfortunately he 1/2
Had some crackpots in the bunch of those, orc stretched the definition of “expert” and those are the ones he latched onto (Jordan Peterson, Graham Hancock).
There are also parts of this that make me laugh. When all of the tech leaders united with Trump it was because they had the data. They knew which way The wind was blowing. It's such a farce.
Engaging in a debate in bad faith does nothing anyways, and parsing a debate online for where that faith is aligned is next to impossible. We've basically just trolled each other for the last two to three years.
There's a difference, Joe Rogan used to be the Joe Rogan of the left. We tossed him out with purity tests. Joe Rogan is not part of the right but we gave him up to them. Twitter on the other hand is algorithm hell.
There's a difference between people seeking elected office not going to unfriendly spaces and individual people deciding that a certain platform no longer aligns with their values.
Maybe the real response should have been "we should create left-leaning alternatives for young men seeking entertainment and role models in the podcast space instead of demeaning those personality types and bolstering opposition just like Hilary did in 2016".
Why shouldn't we have abandoned Joe rogans podcast all he does is spread un check not factual information and cause people to make misinformed decisions based on bias
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Spaces like JRE may be frequently irrational and unreasonable, but it's still a one-to-many broadcast where alternative POVs can take center stage
Spaces like Twitter are so overcome with noise that alternative POVs are simply drowned out
we need people and organizations to be physically present in peoples lives. to show them why being socially minded and helpful is good. vs selfish uncaring individuality.
That could be possible in Joe Rogan's Podcast
and would be true for many/ some Twitter users if you meet them in real life
But you can't persuade people on Twitter while fighting the algorithm
The reason they knew, is because the MAJORITY of his audience already were.
What could she have won? Nothing.
He's very personable and comes across well in interview settings like podcasts, and probably would've been a great ambassador for the campaign to places like JRE.
But I also see your point from earlier that good creators on our side burnout.
I don't know anyone in my family that uses Twitter or listens to Joe Rogen, but they all sure as hell vote!
This kind of extremism was less of a problem when it was still confined to obscure specialized websites.
YouTube and other Social Media allowing these people to spread their message is a big part of what lead to recent radicalizations.
You'll be properly accounted for.
...or did places like that simply abandon US?
like, when was it not the way it is
Twitter is Truth Social now. It needs to die.
We don't need to challenge them - we need to challenge the space they have taken in the media.
It is pretty clear Twitter is being deliberately engineered to prevent this.
That's not 90 percent progressive.
Pete Buttigieg did amazing work in that regard, I sincerely hope he runs in 2028 if that's still allowed
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
When we attempt truly diverse communities with discussions, we end up with trolling and bad behavior...
What's the solution?
It's got the porn, and people saying inflammatory/deplorable things only difference a billionaire is running it
You're not faced with the most vile creatures on the internet when you listen to JRE, & if you feel like you are, you can just turn it off. You are not required to listen to JRE in order to listen to all your friend's/mutual's podcasts
And you can turn off Rogan and log off Twitter. Lol
It's all the same people.
Outside of that it’s pointless being on that app it’s so unbelievably crap now
in person conversation is needed. seeing similarities in each other is needed.
But staying in a place which house people who just want to hurt others isn't healthy.
They will be given a fair nod and good conversation?
Elon's takeover absolutely destroyed that site. He's allowed all the unhinged lunatics to run the asylum and it shows.
Have you tried using the moderators recently. 🤦♂️ It's brutal.
What happened with right wing domination of the online spaces can be countered with safe and good leftist places. It is inherently better.
I left Twitter as the acquisition was finalized and never looked back!
Elon though? Dude will slur his words asking me why I look a tiny little Cherokee compared to him. Fucking freakshow.
That being said, if I was her, and I had started with such an insane disadvantage, I would've been latching onto every platforming opportunity I had.
If you have not, _please_ watch Theo Von's conversation with Bernie, or Bassem Youssef. It exemplifies a crappy school system robbing us all.
Probably not any time soon though thanks to him poking his way into a seat in government. I don't wanna be a pawn in his stupid games anymore tbh
We shouldn’t have abandoned the exchange of ideas in-person for the web.
Then let Trump do what he does best: Fuck it all up.
Because clearly, you can't ARGUE yourself to a victory.
You need to stand on the ashes, before some people see it.
Why secede willingly when the option for at least mild resistance exists?
Ends up with both parties only ever trying to court and appease right wing voters, and clearly when faced with Republican or Diet Republican, RW voters always pick Republican
Every other time he's on the right.
And he would have instantly turned on bernie if he won the nomination.
Hint for those who may not know: you dont be far right constantly and just switch and then go back.
There isn't positive masculinity representation. It's engrained in them. So we have to meet them with good masculinity messaging.
The people exposed to it know it’s wrong, they don’t care. It’s entertaining to them.
They cannot survive without rational people and will always attempt to invade their spaces.
(It's not the same, but it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be similar enough to be deeply alarmed.)
But I don’t believe blue skies is a good place, I now can log on X without it feeling like a bad place.
(I called it twitter when I thought it still had redeemable qualities
I kept hoping Musky would get bored and move on, but guess not
I can't support anything he controls