Covering Joe Rogan seems futile. Yet on occasion, something so egregious occurs on his podcast that letting it slide seems equally irresponsible. The sane tune him out—those considerate of their mental health—but some people cannot, as the rhetoric on his show puts them in danger. As the most popular podcaster in America, diminishing his influence might serve us, but not the people in jeopardy.
Last Thursday, comedian and actor Katt Williams joined for a three-hour marathon. A side eye-invoking interview, given how The Root explains another recent Williams appearance.
Williams made claims that felt unshakably suspect, like his insistence that he read eight actual novels a day seven days a week as a child or that he can run a 4.3 40-yard dash – a speed which many NFL players can’t achieve – as a 52-year-old man.
We’re used to Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump spinning mythical origin stories. Jarring, every time. Thinking that highly of yourself—to the point of delusion—makes everything else out of your mouth suspect.
Onto the content: whereas Andrew Huberman recently danced around the “fluoride in the water is bad (but buy my new purified yerba mate)” conspiracy theory, Williams dove right in, claiming that fluoride is a government psy-op designed to shrink our pineal glands. He entertained aliens constructing Egyptian pyramids (an old one, and harmless, though telling) and ramped it up =with tales of the Illuminati pulling the strings of, well, everything.
But it was the discussion of transgender people that proved most dangerous. You can surface the clip on Twitter if you’re interested—when I captured the below image, it already had 18 million (likely inflated, but still) views. At the time of publication, it’s nearing 21 million.
While the text captures the overall sentiment—this person clipped it in favor of the discussion, not as criticism; the comments warrant an entire thesis to dissect—it misses an important reply by Rogan.
First, I’ll touch on the real-world danger of this anti-trans rhetoric, and then briefly discuss the blatant hypocrisy that men like Rogan will never bother to take the time to understand.
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