My Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan was a lightning rod before the pandemic. He’s even more controversial now for hosting guests with ‘controversial’ claims about vaccines. Picture: Supplied

It was surprisingly cold for Texas. I stomped my feet in a grey industrial park. The sky threatened sleet. Behind an unmarked door hid the plush lair of the world’s biggest podcast, where I’d just spent three hours bantering with Joe Rogan. As I waited outside for my car to the airport, I scanned my mind. We’d disagreed about vaccines. We’d disagreed about quarantine. But did we say anything that might cause trouble?

Rogan and I have clashed in the past. This was my seventh appearance on his show and he’s been on my podcast, Uncomfortable Conversations, the sole purpose of which is to provoke blunt discussions.

He was a lightning rod before the pandemic. He’s even more controversial now for hosting guests with – let’s say – “controversial” claims about vaccines. His fans are wild, his enemies wilder. He is the ringmaster of a cavalcade of superstars, academics, athletes, comedians, writers, weirdos and geniuses. But I knew the drill. I was prepared for the torrent of hate from the left, who think I’m a reckless grandma-killer for criticising Covid-zero overreach in some Australian states. I was prepared for the hate from the right, who think I’m an authoritarian bootlicker for defending Australia’s general pandemic response. I was prepared for the hate from the woke, for whom talking to Joe Rogan makes me a fascist, and I was prepared for the hate from bigots, for whom my being gay makes me … well, to be fair … that’s quite sufficient for them, thank you, Dorothy. What I wasn’t prepared for was Neil Young.

At one moment in our three-hour-plus conversation, Rogan and I had a brief dispute about vaccine side-effects. He was warning about the risk of heart inflammation in young people from the vaccine. I pointed out that the risk is worse from catching Covid. He said it’s not. I said it is. He fact-checked it live, and the article his producer brought up proved me right in real time.

This moment lit a fuse. It was the perfect viral clip; a tidy embodiment of the whole Covid misinformation debacle. CNN replayed the exchange under the subtitle “Joe Rogan Plays Know-It-All Doctor When Fact Checked In Real Time” (demonstrating, ironically, the sort of snark that’s been driving viewers away from cable news and towards “realer” voices like podcasts). Rogan himself tweeted a clip of our discussion, writing, “If anyone was going to make me look dumb on the podcast I’m glad it’s Josh Szeps, because I love him, and he’s awesome”. Newsweek published an article entitled “Joe Rogan Admits Josh Szeps Made Him ‘Look Dumb’ in Podcast Vaccine Debate”. The Daily Mail jumped in with “ABC News presenter in fiery clash with Joe Rogan over Covid”.

In the midst of all this, Neil Young entered the fray: 270 doctors, healthcare workers, educators and scientists had written an open letter calling for Spotify to clarify its guidelines regarding medical misinformation on Rogan’s show. When Young delivered his ultimatum to Spotify, I became a collateral piñata. US senators were retweeting me. Jon Stewart was debating me. The clip had millions of views on Instagram. It was a Rorschach test. It proved either that Rogan peddles misinformation, or that he’s open to being corrected in real time.

I don’t know whether a voice like Rogan’s belongs on a platform like Spotify. I do know the best way to amplify misinformation would be to boot him off, make him a martyr, embolden the right’s persecution complex, and motivate him to lean into fringe ideas without the guardrails that a big tech platform provides (such as advisory warnings, guest balance and public pressure).

How this controversy unfolds will shape the next debate about who can say what, where. Who should settle such a debate? Do we believe the best people to decide what can be said in the new public square are skateboard-riding software engineers in Silicon Valley, on the advice of Twitter mobs reacting to the wisdom of rockstars?

As I got in the car and pulled away from Rogan’s studio, I made small talk with the driver. It’s cold for Texas, isn’t it, I said. Yes, yes, whatcha been up to? I recorded a podcast. Ahh, there are too many of those, he said. I agreed. They can never get traction, he said. If you wanna get noticed ya gotta cause some trouble, he said. I laughed. Don’t worry, I said. We didn’t.

Josh Szeps is the presenter of Afternoons on ABC Radio Sydney and host of the podcast, Uncomfortable Conversations.