Alex Jones 2020 Joe Rogan Experience Podcast Appearance

Submission 6,104

Part of a series on Joe Rogan. [View Related Entries]

Overview

The Alex Jones 2020 Joe Rogan Experience Podcast Appearance refers to episode #1555 of the JRE featuring guests Alex Jones and Tim Dillon, which took place in late October 2020. Due to the controversy surrounding Alex Jones and Joe Rogan facing heightened scrutiny after moving to Spotify’s platform, disputes between supporters and detractors of the show erupted online shortly after it released. Online debates across a number of sites and social media platforms revolved around censorship, free speech and conspiracy theories associated with Jones.

Background

On October 27th, 2020, the Joe Rogan Experience released episode 1555 of the podcast on YouTube^[1] and Spotify^[2] featuring radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and comedian Tim Dillon. The show discusses a number of topics ranging from climate change and COVID-19 to Jeffrey Epstein and other various conspiracies, as well as many of Jones’ controversies from the past. During the episode, Rogan and his producer Jamie Vernon fact-check claims made by Jones. In roughly 18 hours after being uploaded to YouTube, the episode received over 4.2 million views, 207,000 likes, 8,200 dislikes and 90,000 comments (shown below).

Developments

Online Reactions

On October 27th, 2020, following the release of the episode, the inclusion of Alex Jones sparked a heated debate between supporters and detractors across social media, particularly on Twitter where the hashtag #AlexJones trended that evening. One such example was tweeted by Twitter^[3] user Nathan Bernard, who identified themselves as a “free speech activist,” and criticized Rogan for hosting “far-right conspiracy theorist Alex Jones” and pushing the anti-vaccination movement, receiving over 11,200 likes and 5,400 retweets in 20 hours (seen below, left). That same day, Twitter^[4] user Xeni Jardin also criticized the episode and added that this is why they “quit Spotify when they announced this deal with Joe Rogan,” receiving over 1,800 likes and 300 retweets in 18 hours (seen below, right).

On the other side, Twitter^[5] user LegendaryEnergy praised Rogan for having Alex Jones back on and added, “Eventually we need to reclaim free speech on all social networks or leave these authoritarian sneaks in the dust,” accumulating over 6,000 likes and 640 retweets in 16 hours. That night, Twitter^[6] user Sophia Narwitz tweeted a collection of verified Twitter accounts reacting negatively to the episode, accumulating over 3,500 likes and 860 retweets in 15 hours (shown below).

After numerous people claimed Rogan would be censored by Spotify after his deal, in addition to the reported tension between some employees at the company over Rogan’s move to the platform, many online also alluded to the episode being a “flex” by Rogan for hosting Jones. One such example was tweeted by Twitter^[7] user Saagar Enjeti on October 27th, receiving over 9,000 likes and 800 retweets in 20 hours (seen below). Twitter^[8] user TheArtOfWar6 also made a similar comment in their tweet and said, "LOOOOOL Spotify tried to censor and cancel joe rogan and he just goes fuck you here’s Alex Jones," receiving over 3,600 likes and 450 retweets in 19 hours.

On Reddit, the /r/JoeRogan^[9] subreddit discussed the episode in length, resulting in over 6,600 upvotes, 6,000 comments and numerous Reddit awards in 20 hours. On the /r/SubredditDrama^[10] sub, a post from Redditor Cupinacup highlighted the discussion between the post on the Rogan sub, receiving over 4,000 upvotes, 860 comments and several Reddit awards.

Other users online reacted to the episode through memes. One such post came from Twitter^[11] user MommyBigDick, who shared a meme alongside the caption “joe rogan fact-checking alex jones on his podcast,” accumulating over 5,700 likes and 900 retweets in 18 hours (seen below, left). Shortly after, Twitter^[12] user HotepJesus also shared a meme under the caption “I JUST turned on this Alex Jones @joerogan interview like 2 minutes ago and I'm like daaaaaamn!” and received over 1,800 likes and 130 retweets in 15 hours (seen below, right).

Alex Jones Holding Document Meme

A meme format also spawned in the wake of the episode featuring Alex Jones holding his documents used during the show, which was shared to Twitter^[13] and Reddit^[14] after it aired (examples shown below).