Joe Rogan was a stand up comedian in the 80s/90s, appeared on the MTV comedy show Half-Hour Comedy Hour and was performing at The Comedy Store in Hollywood. Not that I find him funny, but that in my book at least would make him someone with a professional comedy background if he spent nearly 3 decades there..
But I was refering to was the specific idea of what has been labeled the "Rogansphere" by his critics. This refers to a loose media/comedy ecosystem orbiting Joe Rogan, his podcast, Austin (comedy) clubs, and a web of frequent guests and adjacent podcasters/comedians who cross-promote each other on YouTube and podcasts. This network rose to prominence in a push to normalize "anti-woke" and right-leaning narratives under a free-speech banner. This was a pretty popular niche to serve as the term "cancel culture" gained more traction. At the time even many otherwise (american-)left-leaning people would express frustration with liberal attempts to police language etc.
This popular niche was especially present in comedy with a discourse about what and who you could joke about and since Joe Rogan played a big role into giving that topic traction I cynically called it "Joe Rogan school of comedy". I am no alone in thinking that way, comedian Marc Maron puts it better than I could in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_N4W05eyto&t=307s
But I was refering to was the specific idea of what has been labeled the "Rogansphere" by his critics. This refers to a loose media/comedy ecosystem orbiting Joe Rogan, his podcast, Austin (comedy) clubs, and a web of frequent guests and adjacent podcasters/comedians who cross-promote each other on YouTube and podcasts. This network rose to prominence in a push to normalize "anti-woke" and right-leaning narratives under a free-speech banner. This was a pretty popular niche to serve as the term "cancel culture" gained more traction. At the time even many otherwise (american-)left-leaning people would express frustration with liberal attempts to police language etc.
This popular niche was especially present in comedy with a discourse about what and who you could joke about and since Joe Rogan played a big role into giving that topic traction I cynically called it "Joe Rogan school of comedy". I am no alone in thinking that way, comedian Marc Maron puts it better than I could in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_N4W05eyto&t=307s