Topline
Netflix on Tuesday announced podcast host and comedian Joe Rogan will perform his first special in six years for the streamer later this year with a live performance called "Burn the Boats" set to air in August.
Joe Rogan during UFC 274 at Footprint Center on May 7, 2022 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Key Facts
Rogan, 56, will tape his special at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio and join other big names like Chris Rock and Katt Williams in participating in a new series of live events hosted by Netflix.
It will be Rogan's third hour-long Netflix special and the first since his "Strange Times" special in 2018, in which he tackled topics like veganism, marijuana laws and professional wrestling (he’s also worked as a commentator for UFC).
As part of the announcement, Netflix released a short teaser for the special in which Rogan can be heard telling his audience, "Don't get mad at me, you knew why you came here," and, "Ooh, feel that? That's some ride-home arguments in the air."
“Joe Rogan: Burn the Boats” will air at 10 p.m. EST on Saturday, Aug. 3.
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Key Background
Joe Rogan got his start in comedy in the 1980s and released his first comedy special on CD in 2000. After six years of hosting the popular game show "Fear Factor," he started his now-mega-successful podcast "The Joe Rogan Experience" in 2009. The show, as of March, had 14.5 million followers on Spotify as the platform's most popular show ever with almost three times as many followers as the runner-up series "Ted Talks Daily," which had 5 million followers. In 2020, Spotify bought the exclusive rights to host "The Joe Rogan Experience" for an estimated $200 million. The Washington Post that month estimated the show averages 11 million listeners per episode and the New York Times said the podcast is broadcast in 93 markets around the world.
Chief Critics
Rogan’s rise to podcast fame has not been without its controversies. The host has been hit with criticism on several occasions for allowing conspiracy theorists or far-right figures, like Milo Yiannopoulos and Proud Boys-founder Gavin McInnes, access to his massive platform. In 2022, experts slammed him for allowing false claims about the Covid-19 pandemic and its vaccines to air to millions of people and that same year, a compilation video that showed Rogan using the N-word two dozen times began to circulate online. After the Covid-19 controversy, medical experts and scientists penned an open letter to Spotify asking it to crack down on misinformation, and pressure on the audio streamer to drop the podcaster intensified following his use of racial slurs. Joni Mitchell and Neil Young were among artists who famously pulled their libraries from the streamer in protest (Mitchell’s music has since been re-added). Instead, Spotify stood by him, saying "canceling voices is a slippery slope" and vowing to invest $100 million in audio “from historically marginalized groups.” Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported he signed another Spotify deal worth up to $250 million. While many of Rogan's most notable controversies lean in the direction of the ultra-conservative, the personal politics of the host have been notoriously hard to pin down. He endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2020 election, called Barack Obama the “best president we have had in our lifetime" and has publicly supported abortion rights, universal healthcare and universal basic income.
Crucial Quote
"Like the internet itself, Rogan and whatever dangerous misinformation, conspiracy theories, jerky bigotry, or offensive views he wants to serve up today are all unstoppable and essentially answerable to no one,” Vox reporter Aja Romano wrote of the host. “He has all of the audience, money, attention and prestige of a traditional gatekeeper, but with barely any real pressure to assume responsibility for repeatedly making high-profile mistakes on the job.”
