IMO there is no public figure today that is doing as much good for hunting as Joe Rogan. He is arguably one of the biggest celebrities in the world right now and reaches more people via his podcast than anyone else out there. I have personally had more friends and family approach me to ask about getting started hunting due to Rogan and his crew (Rinella, Cam Hanes, Dudley, etc) than ever before. People I've known for my entire life who know I hunt and have eaten wild game at my house never showed a lick of interest until they listened to Rogan talk about it. If our goal as a community is to reach out to non-hunters to either get them interested in hunting or at the very least get them on our side, nobody is reaching more people and doing more good than Rogan. Period.
The vast majority of his podcasts receive well over 1 million views on YouTube alone. The last I checked his interview w/Ed Snowden was over 11 million views. Estimates say the audio version is reaching up to 10x that many people, and they estimate over 1.5 billion annual listens. There is nobody with that type of reach that's blatantly advocating for and discussing bowhunting the way Rogan is.
That is fine and I am not arguing that, 1 million views I have never heard another hunter bring up his name or podcast in general discussions. Could be that I am isolated old fart that does not keep with current trends.
We dont need to reach hunters, they're already hunters, who are most likely pro hunting and hopefully advocates for our cause. Rogans audience is by far non hunters who by and large have a neutral opinion on hunting. By him casting bowhunting in a postive light it brings good press and help to persuade others to have postive opinion of the activity.
There's a good chance of that. The thing with Rogan is that he's reaching a ton of non-hunters and doing a great job of explaining hunting, why we do it, what it's all about, and dispelling a lot of the myths and rhetoric that's often used by anti-hunting campaigns. And he does it in a very easy to understand, and very blunt, manner. Getting that type of message out to people who may be neutral or on the fence about hunting is probably the most important thing that anyone can do right now.
I know of Joe Rogan because of Fear Factor, UFC and his muscle cars. I did not know that he was involved with hunting. He seems to be a decent guy to me. Is he good for hunting? As I said before, he can't be any worse than some of the others. I don't follow his pod casts or anybody else's for that matter. I can tell you this, where I live almost everyone hunts. It is a hunting community. We get a lot of hunters at our bar and grill. I can tell you that at least 9 out of 10 people would have no idea who Joe Rogan is much less if he hunts or would be good for hunting. I'm one of the few around here that frequents different forums of things of interest. The people of this rural community don't seem to be as interested in being "connected" as the city dwellers were where I moved from. I can't say that it's a bad thing either.
Joe Rogan also got into MMA training and Jiu jitsu. He is a smart guy who dabbles in a lot of stuff to figure out what he likes. I would say he is a great voice for hunting.
I actually found out about Rinella via his podcast lol. IIRC Joe pushed Steve into doing a podcast of his own. I'm not a big JRE listener but if he has someone interesting on or a topic I'm interested in I'll check it out. Just stay off the DMT while hunting Joe!
On the flip side - Joe Rogan advocates for a lot of things - not all noble causes... He's done about every drug known to man and often advocates for heavy drug usage. I'm quite sure I've heard him admit to doing Acid. Bath Salt. Coke. Mushrooms. I don't know what half of these drugs are let alone if they just a slang name duplication of one of the drugs that I listed. He doesn't really advocate for heavy drug use - but he talks about it in a really odd way.
I first heard of him on Fear Factor, years ago. Then I didn't pay attention until I ran across a youtube podcast with Cam Hanes. I think he's a guy that had no clue how great bowhunting is until he opened his eyes and gave it a shot. I am sure it was in large part due to being a pupil of Cam Hanes. Cam has a done a lot for bowhunting in IMO. Joe probably saw that most hunters are not what the stereotypes always are and he probably saw Hanes as an athlete and became interested in the hunting part of his life as well. I don't know if we "need" anyone to represent the hunting community or not. I just think that anyone in the spotlight that does hunting any good is positive for us all.
The odd thing about this thread so far is that not one of you have mentioned what Joe Rogan is really known for- his standup comedy. He's been one of the biggest names in comedy for almost 30 years. His last 2 Netflix specials are hysterical (despite some of the politics) and have been watched by tens of millions of people worldwide. Add his podcast, and his MMA commentary and the dude is a one man mass media juggernaut. No other advocate of hunting even touches his audience numbers. I watch and/or listen to Rogan's podcast almost every day. Old ones from years back that I missed, through present. I rarely skip his new ones unless it's some retard rapper or last week he had on that shrieking abortion shrew "comedienne" Michelle Wolf or whatever her name is. I also sometimes get bored when he interviews other comedians b/c it can be a little too "inside baseball." That being said, its his eclectic guest list that keeps me interested. An amazing array of topics, voices, and viewpoints that I would otherwise never have been exposed to. If I was pressed to say who the interesting famous person in the US is, I would say Joe Rogan makes top 5. And he does it without being polarizing. He's certainly the most vocally open minded celebrity I can think of. I could definitely do without his prolific drug use but he's mostly down to weed, mushrooms, and DMT. Oh, and HGH. He's one of those weird lefty libertarians that don't exist much anymore. As others have noted, his humble descriptive stories of his initial exposure into and now advocacy of and for hunting, and specifically for bow hunting is second to none. He's actually gotten more than one vegetarian on his show to agree that in principle hunting (as opposed to factory livestock farms) is at least morally equivalent to their non-meat eating ethos. That's a win for us. We (hunters) can't all be middle-American white bread pickup driving blue collar types. Otherwise the only people listening to us when we talk about huntin' will be the reflection in our mirrors.
I think it's funny nobody remembers him being on "News Radio" with Phil Hartman and Dave Foley. That show was hilarious!
In terms of new ears hearing positive messages about hunting he's #1 in the country and it's not even close. Way more people listen to his podcast in a given week than will ever watch Carbon TV on cable. His show is consistently in the top 5 for any list of most downloaded/subscribed podcasts. I found Cam Hanes, John Dudley, and Steven Rinella though his show.
Yes it was...of course he had a full head of hair and wore a hat 3 sizes smaller than he does now, so you can understand why people don't recognize him from that show, but still.
Well said. I would also say the underlying question is how are we contributing to this message to non-hunters, that Rogan is delivering? Sent from my SM-G960U using Bowhunting.com Forums mobile app
IMO - Joe has done more for archery than most people probably realize - mainly because many of the people he's getting too aren't hardcore hunters and in many cases not even hunters at all. In the instances I've seen, he seems to come across positive and seems to show humility in that he is still learning and a newer hunter. In a world of 'political correctiveness', he isn't sorry that he hunts animals and praises the healthy food/protein they provide - which is refreshing - truthflully, he really puts himself out there which is more than I can say for many - he isn't' afraid to do what he does.
