Joe Rogan, during last week's interview with comedian Joe List, asserted that cancel culture would at some point lead to a moment when "straight white men" will be silenced.
Rogan sat down with List on his "Joe Rogan Experience" show to discuss movies, particularly comedies. But, while List was coming up with comedies he has recently seen, Rogan lamented how creators might feel restricted in the genre due to a fear of being "cancelled".
"The stuff that they talk about and say to each other I just don’t think you can do that today or if you did do that you’d face a tremendous amount of criticism," he said.
Rogan continued his tirade by suggesting that a day could come when "woke" people will "silence" "straight white men" for simply existing and trying to express themselves.
"You can never be woke enough, that’s the problem. It keeps going, it keeps going further and further and further down the line and if you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it’ll eventually get to a point where straight white men aren’t allowed to talk because it’s your privilege to express yourself when other people of color have been silenced throughout history," Rogan claimed. "It’ll be ‘you’re not allowed to go outside because so many people were imprisoned for so many years.' I’m not joking, it really will get there. It’s that crazy."
The podcast host went on to say that there are a lot of people who have a thing on "calling people out for their privilege, calling people out for their position."
"You know, we’ve just got to be nice to each other man", he said by way of offering a solution.
According to Rogan, one should not have to take into account the thoughts of "all the other people that are either not heard or not expressing themselves currently or not in the same whatever category as you" on what one has to say.
"What you’re doing is you’re forcing yourself to think double and triple about every f***ing thing you say and whether or not you have the right to say it. Whether or not you’ve got the right to express yourself… It’s a terrible way to live", he said.
Rogan, who particularly gained popularity after launching his podcast, has recently landed in hot water for his stance on coronavirus vaccines, claiming that young and healthy people do not need it. After receiving backlash for his comments, he acknowledged in another podcast that he is not a doctor and should not be listened to on the matter, and neither he is an "anti-vax person".
Earlier in April, Spotify, which remains the only platform with Rogan's content, reportedly deleted over 40 episodes of his podcast the "Joe Rogan Experience", deeming them "controversial".
Thought by some to be a modern form of boycott and ostracism, 'cancel culture' is a phrase used to describe a way to shade a person who expresses an opinion that differs from the mainstream and can be controversial or questionable for some, in an attempt to exclude them from social and professional circles.
Rogan's comments on the phenomenon come amid rising concerns among conservatives in the US, who are worried about how supporters of what they describe as "the radical left" might silence their voices and "cancel" them, particularly with the use of big tech corporations and social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
