UFC commentator, podcaster and comedian Joe Rogan has been featured in the 2022 Time 100, an annual list of hundred most influential people from all fields of life.
Rogan made it into the list among world’s most powerful leaders like United States President Joe Biden, Russian head of state Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
He is considered as pioneer in podcast industry. His podcast “The Joe Regan Experience” is among most popular shows on the planet with an average of 11 million listeners. Thanks to his loyal audience Rogan secured an exclusive deal with Spotify worth north of $200 million.
American journalist, Kara Swisher summed up Joe Rogan’s success saying:
“He certainly delivers with big interviews from Elon Musk to Dave Chappelle, ranging across the ideological spectrum, which is a critical talent in these partisan times. ”
“But he’s also gotten into a lot of trouble this year for resurfaced racial slurs he made—and apologized for—and being a place where COVID deniers get a very easy ride. It’s complicated, of course, but there’s no question that Rogan’s success is pretty simple: the former Fear Factor host has become the nation’s earworm.”
Matt Sienkiewicz, co-author of the book “That’s Not Funny: How the Right Makes Comedy Work for Them” also talked about the influence of Joe Rogan on young Americans.
Matt Sienkiewicz told Vulture:
“The argument we make is that Rogan doesn’t have politics, he has demographics. He has a set of ideas and empathies that tend to attract a certain audience.”
“It’s very male, it’s very young, and it’s very interested in, I guess, buying pubic-hair shavers and boxes of raw meat and the kinds of things that he sells.”
“To be clear, the way that social media works is you can be part of the right-wing comedy complex and also part of a liberal space, because you can hack up an episode. You have these four-hour shows that can be broken up into pieces, and each can appeal to different people. It need not be exclusive.”