Joe Rogan used a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience to argue that social media algorithms are actively pushing users toward Marxist ideology, not because of any organic intellectual movement, but because conflict and division keep people engaged on platforms designed to profit from attention.
The conversation, held with longtime friend and California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, moved through a wide range of subjects before landing on how platforms shape political belief. Rogan connected the rise in young people expressing sympathy for socialist ideas directly to what social media companies choose to amplify.
Rogan said the growing appeal of socialism among younger users online is not something people arrived at through genuine study or reflection.
“It’s because these things can change the way people think. They can change public opinion and they can move people in certain directions. I attribute it to the rise of, you know, the democratic socialists,” Rogan said. “It’s a lot of this manipulation, these ideas like people are really getting, oh, maybe being socialist is cool. This is all coming out of social media 100%.”
He pushed back on the idea that this shift reflects any real engagement with political theory.
“It’s not natural that people are sitting around, you know, reading Marx and going, ‘What a great idea.’ Like, let’s implement this. They’re not doing that,” he said.
Rogan argued that most people repeating these talking points online have little grasp of where the ideas actually lead.
“Very few of these quote unquote Marxists that you find on social media are even aware of the consequences, the historical consequences of these strategies and what it ultimately leads to, which is like checkers. It’s like real simple,” he said. “You’re going to have a military that controls everything you do. As soon as you give up everything to the state, well, the state has the g*ns and you have nothing, and then they tell you what to do.”
Still, Rogan was careful to note he was not defending unregulated markets either.
“It sucks. It doesn’t mean that that’s the way to do it because capitalism is br*tal,” he said, adding that capitalism needs guardrails.
The exchange came during a discussion about how platforms like X, Instagram and TikTok are built to maximize time spent scrolling rather than inform users.
