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Someone told me the @joerogan interview with Alex Jones was worth the listen.
3 hours and 30 damn minutes later I finished it...
And honestly I feel like I deserve a trophy or something.
Here are my thoughts...
3 hours and 30 damn minutes later I finished it...
And honestly I feel like I deserve a trophy or something.
Here are my thoughts...
I've always thought Alex Jones was a quack, and—as it turns out—this assessment was much too generous.
He is an odious scourge and far more dangerous than I thought.
He is an odious scourge and far more dangerous than I thought.
Nevertheless, millions of Americans listen to what he has to say, so I think it's incumbent on the rest of us to try to listen to these people ever-so-often.
I am a professional storyteller, communicator, and marketer, so I always view personalities and pundits through that lens...
After submersing myself into his world for three hours, I can see how Alex Jones appeals to so many people—and by people I mean mostly males.
Here's his formula for punditry...
Here's his formula for punditry...
Lightning quick pacing in how he talks +
Speak with 100% certainty +
Dwell only in the salacious +
Change the topic rapidly +
Project major alpha male energy.
This is how he draws people in.
Speak with 100% certainty +
Dwell only in the salacious +
Change the topic rapidly +
Project major alpha male energy.
This is how he draws people in.
It's actually kind of fascinating in that it has the effect of completely disarming your intellect.
The pacing of his speech has a numbing effect—your mind doesn't even have time to engage with logic because everything is moving so quickly.
The pacing of his speech has a numbing effect—your mind doesn't even have time to engage with logic because everything is moving so quickly.
The lightning-quick pacing + the constantly changing topics + the outrageous braggadocio is weirdly soothing...
It requires nothing of the listener—no debate, no doubt, no grey, no weighing arguments.
You just jump on Alex's train and let it take you where he wants to go.
It requires nothing of the listener—no debate, no doubt, no grey, no weighing arguments.
You just jump on Alex's train and let it take you where he wants to go.
Which is why it's important to call Alex Jones' form of journalism exactly what it is—entertainment.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
Calling Alex Jones a journalist is like calling a tabloid an academic journal...
Treating his beliefs seriously is like calling a Ripley's Believe it or Not an institution of learning...
Pretending he's credible is like calling Star Trek a science documentary.
Treating his beliefs seriously is like calling a Ripley's Believe it or Not an institution of learning...
Pretending he's credible is like calling Star Trek a science documentary.
Of course, this is why he's so dangerous...
He peddles fantasy as fact to millions of people and the internet gives him endless amplification.
He peddles fantasy as fact to millions of people and the internet gives him endless amplification.
His intense paranoia also leaps out in the interview.
To Alex Jones & his followers, every square inch of every institution In society has been infiltrated by evil globalists, liberals, Marxists, Communists, and more
Everything—EVERYTHING—is a cabal.
(Except Trump, of course.)
To Alex Jones & his followers, every square inch of every institution In society has been infiltrated by evil globalists, liberals, Marxists, Communists, and more
Everything—EVERYTHING—is a cabal.
(Except Trump, of course.)
Gotta give kudos to @joerogan for how he handled the interview...
Jones gets all worked up, starts ranting, makes a ridiculous claim and Rogan would just throw up a
More than a dozen times, Rogan would interrupt AJ's frantic, quick-paced rant and force him to cite his source.
You can hear Jones get frustrated or just try to change the topic but Rogan stood his ground and demanded proof.
You can hear Jones get frustrated or just try to change the topic but Rogan stood his ground and demanded proof.
And, of course, most of the time what Jones had just said was complete BS.
But I think Rogan was actually demonstrating a good model for dealing with the Alex Jones' of the world.
Slow them down.
Don't allow them to steamroll the audience with speed, arrogance, and baseless claims.
Force them to prove everything.
Slow them down.
Don't allow them to steamroll the audience with speed, arrogance, and baseless claims.
Force them to prove everything.
If you listen to the interview, note the massive difference in pacing when Rogan presses in on Jones.
Rogan sounds like molasses compared to the frantic Jones, doing everything he can to rush on to the next rant.
Rogan sounds like molasses compared to the frantic Jones, doing everything he can to rush on to the next rant.
(Football metaphor: Jones runs the rhetorical version of an up-tempo offense.)
@joerogan has the biggest podcast in the world and, understandably, caught a lot of flak for hosting Jones on his show.
The theory is that people with massive followings like @joerogan shouldn't platform crazies like Jones because it spreads their influence and allows them to indoctrinate more followers into their content ecosystem. However...
Rogan's doctrine of "The best way to combat bad speech is with better speech," actually seemed pretty effective during the interview.
His constant questioning of Jones, slowing his pace, forcing him to show his homework, and thereby exposing one lie after another actually made Jones look like the quack that he is.
I'm always a bit torn on the "should celebrity X with a massive following platform crazy pundit Y?" debate.
But the bottom line is that even without @joerogan, Alex Jones has already amassed an enormous following.
The internet has democratized influence and supplied endless free distribution, and—whether we like it or not—we will be dealing with Alex Jones and other vicious versions of him for the rest of our lives.
So I tend to think that Joe Rogan having the cachet to even get AJ on his podcast and then subjecting him to scrutiny might be a net positive for the world.
Maybe some Jones-loving bros tuned-in and, for the first time, had to watch their dear leader squirm in his chair and simmer in his own lies for three hours.
And maybe enough moments like that can loosen the grip that evil men like Alex Jones have on the minds of millions of people.
Idk.
FIN
Idk.
FIN
