“It’s okay if you disagree with me, I can’t force you to be write.” (West). This tweet accurately portrays how Kanye and Rogan think about themselves, even though many of their claims have been disproven multiple times. The Joe Rogan Experience is a podcast hosted by comedian Joe Rogan. He uploaded an episode titled “Joe Rogan Experience #1554 – Kanye West” with his guest Kanye West on October 24th, 2020. As a part of West’s presidential campaign, he started making statements about improvements that we can make to society. While he attempted to convince people that he knew how to be president, his presidential campaign was not very successful. In an article published by the British Broadcasting Corporation after the 2020 election, they recorded that  “the 43-year-old rapper has conceded after his self-styled “Birthday Party” collected just 60,000 votes out of an estimated total of 160 million.” (“Kanye West Election”). This shows that while he thinks he is making an impact and that there are people out there listening to his controversial comments, the majority of people do not support him. This podcast is a combination of two people who use controversial statements to attempt to improve their own self-interests but have many failures while trying to do this.

Kanye West

Kanye West is a hip-hop artist who rose to fame in 2004 after releasing his first solo album. An Encyclopedia Britannica article states that “in 2004 West released his massively successful debut solo album, “The College Dropout,” which definitively established West as a critically acclaimed solo artist” (The Information Architects). He later gained controversy in 2013 after saying “Black people don’t have the same level of connections as Jewish people. Black people don’t have the same connections as oil people” (Ihaza). He also worked with Adidas to develop the shoe called the “Yeezy.” This lasted for a while but according to an article written by AP News in 2024, “Adidas broke up with Ye in October 2022” (“Adidas Sells Snother Batch of Yeezy Sneakers”). These show that Kanye’s personal life has many ups and downs, some days he makes a lot of money and is doing well, and the next, he does something irresponsible and loses most of it, making him a very untrustworthy person. He lost the trust of many people after he revealed that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Kiana Fitzgerald, a freelance music journalist, wrote that “since the sharing of his general diagnosis by way of his 2018 album ye, opinions of West have been divided, to put it mildly” (Fitzgerald). This causes concern for what he might say or do because people like Teddy Amenabar, a general assignment report for The Washington Post, stated that “most experts agree that people with bipolar disorder can behave erratically and may at times lose their “filter” and say or do socially inappropriate things” (Amenabar). He has also started acting out after his divorce from Kim Kardashian. The senior editor for The Cut, Erica Schwiegershausen, stated, “Kanye has claimed that he’s been prevented from seeing his children and has encouraged his fans to harass Pete Davidson, who is currently dating Kim” (Schwiegershausen). While he tries to deny that his bipolar disorder affects his life, when you look at the fact, it is very difficult for anyone else to say the same.

People are not all seeing things that are wrong inside of contracts, they are not turning blind eyes to it and no one is responsible.

Kanye stated that “people are all seeing things that are wrong inside of contracts, turning blind eyes to it and everyone’s responsible” (10:56). Kanye thinks that record label companies should be there to “be of service to the influencer, to the artist” (10:16). The only worry he has about is that it might cause some of those workers to lose their jobs: “I’m not trying to go and eliminate anyone’s job” (9:50). Kanye is not the first artist who has strenuous relationships with music labels, most artists do. Sonia Rao, a feature reporter for The Washington Post, reported that “the relationship between musical artists and their labels has always been tenuous as they often butt heads over creative desires and business strategies” (Rao). While part of this claim has validity, it fails to take into account the side of the record label. They are struggling because of new technology and piracy. According to an article written by LabelGrid in 2023, “Record labels may be unable to fully monetize their catalogs due to widespread illegal distribution” (“Challenges Faced by Modern Record Labels”). This means that record labels have very little they can do to support their artists. The issue is that record labels can only make money off of music, but artists can make money through other ventures.

Even though music may not be Kanye’s main source of income, he still used it to prop himself up and create a substantial “net worth of $400 million as of May 2023, according to Forbes” (Srinivasan and Meredith). While the money gained through his music career is a small portion of his overall net worth, it is still a large amount. Danovan Barnett, a journalist for Highsnobiety, reported that “his vast music catalog, including iconic works like ‘The Blueprint,’ alongside releases from his own G.O.O.D. Music label, amounts to an estimated $90 million” (Barnett). He is purposefully comparing it to his overall network to undermine the value of the 90 million because if you word it as him being upset about making 90 million dollars, then he loses validity. The original money he got from music allowed him to invest in real estate, which makes up a significant contingent of his net worth today. Stephanie Stacey, a freelance journalist, reported that “in 2020, Ye’s team told Forbes that he held $81 million in “buildings and improvements” and $21 million in land — mostly encompassing his various homes” (Stacey). Without the help of the money he made from music, he most likely wouldn’t have been able to accomplish everything he had done to create his net worth.

Kanye West does not have the best taste on the planet

During the interview, West stated, “I have the best taste on the planet” (2:18). Joe Rogan asks him how he would handle student debt. Kanye says “I never make the wrong decision, when I am given all of the information” (2:20). He is trying to use this as reasoning for why he would be a good “leader of the free world” (1:58). The “taste” that he is referring to would improve America by making it more welcoming: “America should be as warming and inviting as Disney world” (2:19). He also elaborates and says he wants to go into the past with the Reagan Administration: “When Ronald Reagan was in office it is like he was hanging out with Michael Jackson and you know it felt like America” (2:19). This is in reference to how he would be able to shape America using his celebrity influence while he is president.

While he has made good choices in order to build up a substantial net worth, he has made even worse ones which has caused him to lose a large contingent of that net worth. These decisions like his motto of “Dream Big” in his 2020 presidential campaign have cost him a lot. Freelance journalist, Katherine Hoey, stated,“Kanye has always lived by the motto “Dream Big,” like when he tried to run for president in 2020. However, this has occasionally ended with some of his business ventures failing through the years, including his travel company, Kanye Travel Ventures, a fast-food chain venture with Fatburger, and, most recently, his ties to the nonprofit Donda House” (Hoey). Some of these losses, mainly Adidas, have cost him a significant amount of money: “The financial site noted that without his $1.5 billion from Addidas, he lost most of his $2 billion fortune” (Hoey). On just one serious issue that Joe Rogan brings up, Kanye tries to shift the topic of conversation by saying that he would need all of the information. While there is a chance that this is true, he doesn’t even have any plan to lower the student loan debt. According to Melanie Hanson, a research analyst and senior editor of Education Data Initiative, reported, “Average federal student loan debt balance which is $37,088, while the total average balance (including private loan debt) may be as high as $39,981” (Hanson). This shows that he is basically just saying he has a plan, but seeing the evidence, it is very difficult to trust that this plan will become reality.

The greatest advocates for the  “a word” are men not from ages 31 to 37.

West made a comment stating, “The greatest advocates for um the  “a word” are men from ages 31 to 37 and that’s how old I was” (1:02:27). Kanye was expressing his disappointment in his younger self and the culture that he put himself into: “Just the idea of it just tears me up inside that I was part of a culture that promotes this kind of thing” (1:02:06). The “thing” he was talking about was a comment on Harriet Tubman that he made during his first presidential campaign speech in South Carolina. Bruce Haring, an editor at Deadline, reported, “Wearing a bulletproof vest and appearing in front of an American flag, West went into an off-the-cuff stream on Tubman. “Harriet Tubman never actually freed the slave, she just had the slaves go work for other white people,” he told the crowd” (Haring). He continues describing the failures of “our culture” and why we need to improve it. One of the things he said about abortions was,  “In our culture, we’re doped up and psyched out and made to kill our children” (1:03:14). These show how he changes the wording of certain claims to make them sound better.

While his argument is difficult to quantify, there are different statistics you can look at to try and get a better understanding. When you look at the crime statistics in the United States, you can see that he is not far off. The chart below shows the age of crime offenders (See fig. 1). The chart shows that 30-39 is the second biggest group for crime, meaning that Kanye’s range is too young. The other graph shows the sex of crime offenders in the United States (See fig. 2). This could be used as evidence to support his claim about men, but the overall claim would not be correct becuase he has the age range wrong and not specifically talking about just crime statistics. He uses the fact that he is slightly correct as a way to justify the entire claim and to try and make excuses for past mistakes that he has made.

Chart showing the percentage of crimes committed by age (“Crime Data Reporter”).

Graph showing the percentage of crimes committed by sex (“Crime Data Reporter”).

Joe Rogan

Joe Rogan started his career as a stand-up comedian known for his raw controversial takes on topics. Ian, a journalist for Press Farm, notes,  “Rogan’s stand-up routines were characterized by their raw honesty and willingness to tackle controversial topics head-on. His ability to blend humor with insightful commentary on societal issues earned him a loyal following in the comedy community” (Ian). While this led to his fame, it also caused him to lose credibility. After that, he became a UFC announcer and commentator. Then he started a podcast called the Joe Rogan Experience. While most backlash goes towards the guests that he hosts on his podcast, he has recently been receiving criticism about an anti-Semitic comment. Conor Murray, a reporter for Forbes, stated that Kanye “drew criticism this week after saying “the idea that Jewish people are not into money is ridiculous” on Saturday’s episode of his podcast” (Murray). His common use of controversial topics in an attempt to gain popularity is the reason he is not a credible source of information.

On the podcast, Joe Rogan invites people of interest for him to interview. While his podcast has been successful, some of his podcasts have led to the spread of misinformation. In 2022 the British Broadcasting Association, stated, “On the show, the US broadcaster hosts a wide variety of guests who discuss their views on a range of topics – but some episodes have featured false and misleading claims” (Reality Check Team). One of the biggest controversies the podcast has produced was a false claim regarding COVID-19. He and his guests have stated that COVID has been exaggerated and that people are making too big of a deal out of it. Daniel Engber, the senior award-winning editor of The Atlantic, reported, “He or his guests have said, for instance, that useful COVID treatments were suppressed by greedy hospital executives, that COVID deaths have been grossly overcounted, that masking simply cannot work to stop disease transmission, that public-health messaging has hypnotized the masses” (Engber). These controversies and misinformation show us that the Joe Rogan Experience Podcast is not a trustworthy source of information.

Conclusion

While there is a lot of misinformation shown in this paper, this is just scratching the surface of all the controversial and untrue statements made by these two. Proving that these two are not credible sources of information, can stop people from listening to their other untrue claims. Both of them are known for posting tweets like “Bill Cosby Innocent !!!!!!!!” (West), so if people didn’t know that they were untrustworthy, they would believe it. All the information shown also shows that Kanye West would probably not be the best president of the United States and the public needs to be aware that voting for him would be irresponsible. They both use their platforms to spread information in their own self-interests and we need to protect ourselves from it. Will people let Kanye and Rogan keep boosting themselves up or will people do something about it and inform themselves about the misinformation spread by those two?

The featured Image is a screenshot from the video “Joe Rogan Experience #1554 – Kanye West“