Why Democrats won't build their own Joe Rogan
Why Democrats won't build their own Joe Rogan
"This is not a cultural war that you can win just by doing fucking podcasts" + Meat Loaf’s wikipedia drama, eating disorder Twitter turns on Trump, DDG on Kai Cenat
Minutes after Donald Trump was declared the winner of the 2024 election, Dana White took the stage to thank the influencers who helped lead Trump to victory. “I want to thank the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, Bussin' With The Boys, and last but not least, the mighty and powerful Joe Rogan,” he said.
The acknowledgement crystallized an alliance between Trump and a vast network of online influencers. Joe Rogan*, Adin Ross, the Nelk Boys, and the myriad content creators who Trump collaborated with during his campaign played a key role in amplifying conservative messaging and helping him reach audiences that traditional right-wing outlets simply never could. You can read more about Trump's influencer strategy in an article I wrote for The Hollywood Reporter today.
While the right has spent years fostering a symbiotic relationship with alternative media, the left has failed replicate anything like it. There are simply no progressive content creators with Rogan's cultural impact and online following, and a quick look at the podcast charts or trending channels on YouTube shows the disparity between conservative vs progressive creators' reach online.
Without a network of culturally relevant influential content creators boosting and translating their messaging, the Democratic Party is rapidly losing credibility among younger, predominantly male audiences who have become ardent supporters of influencers that promote a distinctly conservative worldview.
This imbalance when it comes to online influence is no accident. It is the result of massive structural disadvantages in funding, promotion, and institutional support. And understanding why Democrats can't (or really won't) cultivate an equivalent independent media ecosystem that rivals what the right has built is crucial for anyone who hopes to ever see the Democrats back into power.
The conservative media landscape in the United States is exceptionally well-funded, meticulously constructed, and highly coordinated. Wealthy donors, PACs, and corporations with a vested interest in preserving or expanding conservative policies strategically invest in right-wing media channels and up and coming content creators.
This creates a well oiled pipeline for conservative influencers: young TikTokers, YouTubers, livestreamers, or podcasters are discovered, developed, and pushed to larger platforms, often with the financial backing of conservative billionaires or organizations on the right who have long recognized the content creator industry a valuable means of shaping public opinion and policy.
Organizations like Turning Point USA, PragerU, and The Daily Wire and others receive millions from backers who view them as advertising for a broader conservative agenda. These media entities act as content creator incubators and spend extensively on outreach, production quality, and audience growth. The resources and near unlimited funds they receive allow conservative content creators to grow rapidly and spread their message widely.
For instance, Ben Shapiro's Daily Wire has been heavily funded by wealthy Republican donors, including the Wilks brothers, Texas-based billionaires known for their oil and fracking fortune. Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, receives millions from conservative mega donors including the Koch network. Right wing content creators Benny Johnson, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin were recently getting paid $400,00 a month, at least $100,000 per YouTube video, after accepting funding from a right wing Russian influence operation. Johnson even allegedly negotiated a $100,000 signing bonus.
Renee DiResta, a researcher and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality, recently posted that, if you want to amass power online, pouring money into the influencer industry is essentially cheaper than buying bots or banner ads online. "Buying authentic influencers is a far better use of funds than creating fake personas, because they bring their own trusting audiences and are actually, you know, real," she posted on Threads.
The conservative content creator ecosystem is also extremely collaborative. Over the past two decades, conservatives have built a flywheel of cross-pollination. Right-wing content creators frequently appear on each other's shows and lift up smaller YouTube channels, podcasters, and up-and-coming creators. This results in an extended network of voices that reaches a wide range of conservative leaning audiences.
Conservative influencers are also able to rapidly gain credibility because influential Republican figures like Trump are willing to engage with them, appear on their podcasts, speak to them for their newsletters, or guest on their livestreams.
As I wrote in September, when right wing creators began getting deplatformed more frequently on mainstream social media apps in the second half of the 2010s, an entire ecosystem of alternative platforms aimed at helping extremist influencers monetize and amass audiences, cropped up.
Rumble, a video sharing platform similar to YouTube backed by billionaire Peter Thiel, began paying far right influencers and anti vaxx content creators hundreds of thousands of dollars to create content on its platform in 2021. Locals, a newsletter platform owned by Rumble, allows influencers to monetize through newsletters in a similar way to Substack.
DLive, a right wing Twitch competitor, allowed influencers storming the Capitol building on January 6th, to make thousands of dollars off their live streams. Kick and Cozy.tv, two other right wing live streaming platforms, permit nearly any far right extremist the ability to create content and start earning money.
And X, under Musk, has paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to right wing influencer accounts.
This mirror industry of social media platforms built specifically to amplify right wing voices inflate metrics in order to create the appearance of broader public support and user engagement. They leverage paid amplification and algorithmic tweaks to make it seem like the right wing creators on them command a much larger audience than they actually do. This perception of widespread support further amplifies conservative content creators, building a feedback loop that leftist creators, who lack similar resources, cannot match.
There is simply zero equivalent to this massive infrastructure on the left.
Leftist channels do not receive widespread financial backing from billionaires or large institutional donors, primarily because leftist content creators support policies that are completely at odds with what billionaires want.
Left leaning influencers argue for things like higher taxes on the rich, regulations on corporations, and policies that curb the power of elites. Wealthy mega donors aren't going to start pouring money into a media ecosystem that directly contradicts their own financial interests. And so, progressive creators are left to rely on meager crowdfunding efforts to make a living.
Because they are not well funded, leftist creators also don't have money to pour into production teams or marketing for their independent media businesses. While Bari Weiss and other billionaire-backed right wing influencers who cosplay as independent media can hire large staffs and run national ad campaigns thanks to their robust funding, progressive influencers are forced to rely on organic growth on platforms like YouTube, Twitch, TikTok. Meanwhile, these platforms' distribution algorithms have been shown to reward conservative outrage and extremism.
There is simply no way that progressive content creators can compete. So, they burn out, they quit, and this further constrains the left’s ability to build a powerful leftist influencer ecosystem that could even begin to rival conservative influencers' reach and power
All of these things could change significantly if the Democratic party had any interest in supporting the independent media ecosystem on the left, but leftist creators have been repeatedly shunned by the Democratic party establishment.
Harris' campaign is a perfect example of this. Biden began alienating progressive content creators before Harris even became the candidate. When Harris did become the nominee she showed a repeated refusal to engage with any creators challenging her ideology or policies.
Mainstream Democrat loyalist centrist creators with very little cultural relevance were welcomed at events like the DNC and campaign rallies, invited to speak and collaborate with the campaign, while influencers who challenged the Harris campaign on issues like the war in Gaza, or spread more populist messaging were not granted access or similar opportunities.
The closest thing to a "progressive Joe Rogan" in mainstream liberal media is probably the podcast Pod Save America. But the podcasters on that show operate with a clear allegiance to the Democratic Party establishment. They don't speak to the youth or the disaffected masses who are fed up with the entire system.
"Republican independent media is directly linked to the party in ways that the Democrats cannot recreate among the independent ecosystem because they're ideologically opposed to Bernie style populist sentiment the base wants to hear," leftist Twitch streamer Hasan Piker tweeted yesterday.
The end result of all of this is an influencer landscape that's heavily biased towards right wing creators. We have created a system where right-wing influencers can thrive and scale rapidly and leftist content creators remain marginalized, struggling to gain traction and funding without selling out and becoming right wing grifters (which is just objectively SO much more profitable!).
Ultimately, there will never be a "Joe Rogan of the left" or "Nelk boys of the left" because there is no funding or institutional Democratic support to even begin to form such a network. There appears to be zero appetite from the Democratic party establishment to embrace left-leaning populist messaging and policies.
"This is not a cultural war that you can win just by doing fucking podcasts," Piker reiterated on his Twitch stream. "You have to still have a solid defense mechanism at the top, that aligns with the interests of people like myself. If the Democratic party is running around being like, ‘everything is fine actually, just vote for us, we've got to defend the institutions,’ while everyone is like, ‘I don't give a fuck about the institutions’… You can't reach them."
What I’m reading
Far-Right Donald Trump Supporters Celebrate His Victory With Violent Memes and Calls for Executions
“Many many many executions are warranted,” one Trump supporter wrote on Truth Social. “These traitors are a terminal cancer that MUST BE completely eradicated to make America healthy again.” - WIRED
Donald Trump's Win Cements a New Era for Campaigning Online
On the ground, the Trump campaign was at a disadvantage to Kamala Harris’s massive canvassing operations. But many misunderstood the power—and purpose—of influencer marketing campaigns. - WIRED
The Men Who Swallowed Everything
This campaign season, some of America’s richest people promoted—and even seemed to believe—ludicrous hoaxes. - Mother Jones
The Elon Times: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss
Substack co-founder
argues that Elon Musk is the new Rupert Murdoch — a media mogul who's willing to leverage his reach to influence politics. - Substack ReadsWhat Happens When a Sober Influencer Relapses?
A wave of content creators has made abstinence a core part of their online identity—and some of them are continuing to share when things go off the rails. - GQ
Quote of the day
On Tuesday, User Mag correspondent Pratika Katiyar was at an election night watch party at The Bench, a new culture and politics hub in NYC. She asked TikTok entertainment mogul Adam Faze his take on Trump’s win and the role influencers played. He said, “Conservatives own digital media, Liberals own Hollywood. Hollywood is irrelevant.”
More fun stuff
Moo Deng's election call proved more accurate than any polling predictions.
DDG rolled up to Kai Cenat’s stream with his cute little son in his purse.
Meat Loaf’s wikipedia page is being repeatedly edited by someone obsessed with real estate.
(trigger warning) The pro-eating disorder community has come out aggressively against Trump, listing members of the pro-ed and pro-self harm community with toxic politics. Pro-ed accounts have also been making fatspo threads with unflattering pictures of Trump.
Listen to the sounds of forests from around the world.
This before/after video of the flooding in Valencia is wild.
The guy who posts under @firstgentleman gets to keep his username.
Tech billionaires Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella, Sundar Pichai, Sam Altman, and Jeff Bezos all tweeting warm congratulations to Trump on his win… we get it, u don’t want to be regulated!
* One thing that I think is important to note when talking about Rogan specifically, is that he didn't start out as a full blown conservative. He supported populist rhetoric and used to feature progressives on his show more frequently. Progressive YouTuber Kyle Kulinski appeared multiple times. Bernie Sanders and Dr. Cornel West also appeared as guests.
But when Rogan endorsed Bernie back in 2020, he and Sanders were met with swift backlash. Instead of recognizing Rogan's massive reach and ability to connect with an audience that might not immediately be inclined to vote with the Democratic party, some progressive Sanders supporters called on the candidate to denounce Rogan's endorsement because the podcaster had made transphobic comments in the past. All of this happened around the same time that the mainstream media was pushing the toxic "Bernie bro" narrative, which ultimately alienated many men.
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"There are simply no progressive content creators with Rogan's cultural impact."
This person used to be named MICHAEL MOORE, and when he did challenge the issues that you discuss above ("When Harris did become the nominee she showed a repeated refusal to engage with any creators challenging her ideology or policies"), THE AUDIENCE ABANDONED HIM. You can't just blame the politicians.
The problem with everything political (and non-political) is the reality that most Americans have no memory past a media cycle. This is a bipartisan issue. Humanity repeatedly fails to learn from it's mistakes. It's why the career activists eventually sell out or give up in their old age.
Interesting to note that election '04 was what put blogs on the map. Traffic, chatter, media coverage and revenues all soared into November. We wondered, was all this just a flash in the pan? (This article, originally in Business Week, is a snapshot of the moment: https://www.technewsworld.com/story/blogads-is-there-life-after-nov-2-38588.html )