Joe Rogan is a clueless buffoon, and admits such, and leans libertarian. He also thinks he’s a neutral philosopher and doesn’t recognize his subjectivity.

A lot of uneducated people think they’re enlightened by listening to him but most of the time the show’s material is not really based in reality.

I don’t know but if someone told me they listened to Joe Rogan, I would assume, the best case scenario is they are Libertarian. Worst case is Qanon nut job.

I immediately assume that once someone brings up Joe Rogan they are easily susceptible to authoritarian propaganda and should be avoided.

Rogan brings on guests who argue in bad faith for topics which they are unqualified to comment upon. They provide no evidence and Joe immediately agrees with whatever random bullshit they spew out. Doing this creates the image of credibility (big podcast man agreed with psycho, maybe I should agree with psycho), and since perception is reality that image has value.

He is a right wing extremism gateway. Also an antivaxxer, but I repeat myself.

Joe Rogan is a bigot. If your friend subscribes to bigot content, they probably harbor some bigoted beliefs. Any sane, non-bigoted person would recognize the fucked up shit that gets platformed on Joe Rogan content, and promptly unsubscribe.

The connotation is that Rogan is an idiot who might be a decent guy, but he will say and do anything to prevent his guests from being pissed at him. This includes, but is not limited to, agreeing with some of the most toxic, misogynist, people you probably know.

Joe Rogan is in the business of making reactionary content for people who respond (regardless of whether that response is good or bad) to reactionary content. A bit more advanced that YouTube videos of prank fake bank robberies or filling a car with cement. But still in the same vein. He says things about hot button issues that I don’t necessarily think he believes just to be controversial. He also tries to legitimise those opinions (even ones he doesn’t believe in), and his fans believe him and therefore hold him in high esteem.

There is the potential for the person you know to like him or his show because it’s absurdist in content. However it’s more likely that they like it because it feeds certain biases of theirs. A world view that they embrace that doesn’t necessarily match reality. The politics in your country may not be the same. But the politics in the US definitely have an effect on just about every other country in the world. Not all of Rogan’s takes are political. He spreads a lot of general misinformation. I wouldn’t be surprised if your acquaintance was just looking for validation in his content.

Well first his show is one of the biggest podcasts in existence and spent a lot of time at the #1 spot - it’s not just a new thing.

Compared to other career interlocutors we might name from old media like Barbara Walters or Michael Krasny, Joe Rogan is a major step down on intellect. He doesn’t really prepare for interviews - reading the subjects book or whatever. He just wings it and spends a lot of time nodding and saying “wow.”

This is a problem when he invites on guests who spew misinformation. Joe doesn’t know it’s misinformation because he doesn’t research. And in fact he seems to think he’s a rebel journalist who hosts people that others want to silence. And he himself falls for many conspiracy tropes, frequently throwing out phrases like “they don’t want anyone to know this.”

So you’ve got a big dumb show full of misinformation that reaches a lot of young people. This is a problem for a lot of folks.

Others love Joe and find his lack of intellect relatable. He’s just a “regular Joe” to them. Maybe they don’t want a fancy interviewer who’s read all the books. Maybe they want someone just as uninformed as them so the information conveyed in the interview arrives at their level.

Sadly, Joe’s now hosted many of the top minds in the world. People like Neil DeGrasse Tyson just see him as a podcast host who’s popular with the youths. So why not go on his show. These people have boosted his numbers even more and legitimized him. Then he brings on a vaccine denier and it all goes to shit. He seems to thrive in the criticism, too, doubling down on the fact that he wants to investigate the things everyone else wants to bury (when his critics say he’s just giving the worst people in the world a platform).

The connotations are that they aren’t too bright. Joe Rogan is a comedian turned political influencer of sorts, and this same dude once said, on set, “I am an idiot. I don’t know shit. Nobody should take anything I say seriously.”

Rogan has 2-3 hour interviews with people from every walk of life but got obsessed with COVID misinformation.

Rogan has explicitly supported gay rights/marriage, drug legalization, prison reform, and other leftist positions, but recently appears to have become swayed by right-wing talking points to the point that he is unnecessarily confrontational.

He has some amazing podcasts in the bank with amazing people, and has some newer podcasts that are garbage. He has like 1500 3-hour podcasts.

So look up some of the athletes, the biologists, the astronomers, geologists, a lot of interesting non-political podcasts before covid happened and you’ll probably learn a bunch of interesting things.

But anything remotely political in the past few years is pretty rough to the point that I haven’t listened to any of his podcasts since.

Politics aside I would say the connotation here is that this person isn’t very intelligent. I don’t mean that as a statement on their intelligence but instead that Joe Rogan falls into the category of anti-intellectual, low bar entertainment. I’d consider Joe Rogan to be the equivalent of a tabloid paper but for people who listen to podcasts.

For me, it kind of depends. If Rogan is interviewing an actor, comedian, or MMA/UFC fighter, he’s more in his element, and the interview can be alright. The problem is he’s kind of an “all sides” show and he doesn’t really understand all the stuff some of his guests pedal. This is problematic when he has folks on pedaling stuff where he doesn’t recognize and call out the potential toxicity. A good example is someone like Jordan Petersen. A guy whose credentials would seem to indicate he knows what he’s talking about. In reality, a lot of the MRA-adjacent BS he spews sounds somewhat reasonable, if a bit “edgy,” on its surface. Petersen knows it isn’t actually backed up by any research (which is where his credentials are), it’s just his musings that he’s found an audience, and quite a bit of money, espousing. This is a problem because Rogan doesn’t usually call this stuff out for the dog whistle that it is, and he has a massive audience.

FWIW, I haven’t listened to him in years, and didn’t listen to him very long to begin with.

I’ll try to give an unbiased answer. Joe Rogan podcasts aren’t just political, but they do discuss political topics frequently in conversation. The connotation for a regular listener is that they are very likely to be misinformed, plain and simple as that. As many have already said, it’s likely that they are libertarian at best or into conspiracy theories and alt-right at worst. I’ll explain why:

He brings in a lot of different guests to his podcasts. These guests could be celebrities, athletes, book authors, researchers, actors, etc. Sometimes he would have politicians, from left and right. He would also bring in people who spread conspiracy theories, aka “qanon” types.

He never confronts any of his guests. Some people hate him for it, others listen to him precisely because of that.

Rogan gives a platform equally to all of his guests and presents and treats them all as if on the same level of legitimacy. This means, today he interviews a scientist who is an eminence in their field, with 30 years experience in research… and next week he brings in some influencer on the same topic, who doesn’t understand the science behind what they say. Both guests sound equally knowledgeable to the average listener.

The problem with this is that this spreads misinformation, and if you as a listener are not already well informed on the topic then you are likely to fall for it. Most people don’t question everything they hear, let alone understand in depth anything discussed superficially over a podcast. This is evident with science, but it gets really hairy when you add politics and personal values/morals to the mix.

I hope this helps you understand better.

A lot of the comments above are super creepy in how neutral they are on Rogan, who is well known to be a far right conspiracy crank who mostly platforms other cranks and super bigoted people and credulously spreads their claims as accurate.

He very rarely has actual decent people on and, frequently when he does so, tries to argue with them that they’re wrong. Especially if they’re scientists.

His whole thing has been that of being a skeptic for many years, whether it’s in legitimacy of certain combat sports, whether pumping your body with TRT will have any negative effects, or in what medical professionals push. This seemed all fine and dandy when the political landscape was sane, and when society didn’t need people to follow medical advice.

Like many, he’s realised that his fans will follow anything he says, and he’s become more vocal towards his own views. For lack of a better term, he’s an influencer, and his views influence people. From a MMA perspective, many would say that this has had an effect on his ability to call the sport he’s an expert in, because his analysis is often pretty poor - even compared to commentators with minimal knowledge of the professional sport.

The connotations for Rogan is that fame corrupts. The connotations for your friend are that he might be exposed to utter bullshit and assume it’s correct because “Rogan brings experts on the show”.