Cale Ensminger First Draft Introduction The Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) is a Spotify exclusive podcast that has created its own lane in the midst of a competitive world of social media. Hosted by Joe Rogan, the show has become one of the largest and most popular pieces of cultural media to emerge in the podcasting industry. JRE is valued at around one hundred million dollars, and it draws in a few million views per episode. The show’s highest viewed episode was with guest star, Elon Musk, that earned nearly forty-two million watches. The podcast is not just popular though, it is becoming influential and important. “The show was Apple Podcasts’ second-most-downloaded podcast in both 2017 and 2018. It also routinely sits near the top of Stitcher’s weekly most-popular-podcast rankings” (Peters). Since Rogan signed a contract with Spotify making them the exclusive medium for viewers or listeners, the show has been ranked as the most searched for podcast on the platform as well as the most watched new podcast. JRE was also ranked as the most popular podcast in 2020 by Spotify which could be some of the reasoning behind the huge deal they offered to Rogan. A very interesting and intriguing part of the show to me lies in the discourse. The communicative abilities that Rogan possesses keeps his audience engaged in the podcast and coming back to hear and/or see more. Rogan has a career in stand-up comedy and has a past in reality television which contributes to his charismatic personality and to the popularity of the show. JRE is a very insightful and thought-provoking podcast that is full of discourse regarding human behavior, pop culture, socio economic issues, and many things in between. Guests on the show range from professional athletes, and high profile politicians to renowned scientists and prosperous business moguls. I’ve learned a great deal of genuinely new information and ways to think and/or communicate from aspects of the podcast that have made an impression on me and I feel it is important to acknowledge considering the draw it has brought and the positive reception the show receives. One thing that strikes me about Joe Rogan is his ability to communicate, articulate, and connect with total strangers over long periods of time. His podcasts are pretty much all done in person, and usually last at least two hours long. He’s now got a few episodes that were filmed and put out virtually due to the pandemic, but Rogan moved from Los Angeles, CA to Austin, TX so he could continue to meet with his guests without as many regulations as California. He also moved for reasons of his comedy career as he’s said in several episodes since the move. It’s been a couple years since I first started listening to the show and there has barely been any moments of intermission, or disconnection, between him and his guests. And not only does Joe keep engaged in every conversation, he seems to hit a point with every guest where the conversation is unconstrained, and sincere discourse takes place. Regardless of the guest profession, race, gender, class etc. I think the people that come on his show feel comfortable with him or with what his show offers which is an opportunity for open dialogue within mass media. His guest can come on the show and talk about whatever they like and for however long they desire, which creates an environment that is honest and understanding and able to share and amplify someone’s voice. There’s many cases of the show where a guest comes on with baggage whether it be from the past or the media. On JRE these individuals can identify themselves and have their voice heard and, at times, actual facts over rumors or opinions about them. Joe builds relationships with these people if he did not have one previously before having them on the show. Research Questions: In this paper I will be engaging subjects that surround the podcast, such as the publics and counterpublics it creates, or how constitutive rhetoric is used. I aim to engage the reader with an understanding of how JRE interpellates its audience through the formation of a culture and subcultures. I also want to explore how these digital mediums like Spotify are structured around podcasting and how JRE has been a large impacting factor in form and content for the digital community. Some preliminary research questions of mine are: 1) How does JRE effectively maintain and interpellate its audience? 2) How is constitutive rhetoric used in the style and processes of JRE and how does that affect the reception of the show as a whole? 3) What are the publics and counterpublics forming around these episodes? How do people identify with them and what do they mean for culture and the podcasting industry? This angle of analysis is important, I believe, because there hasn’t been much if any scholarly research on this show or podcasting in general. Coincidentally, the audiences that are viewing and listening to podcasts have not been studied either. Context & Description The Joe Rogan Experience is one of the highest consumed and most popular podcasts to have ever emerged in modern social media and culture. The podcast was founded, hosted, and is produced by Joe Rogan himself, with the help of his longtime friends, co-founder and co- producer Brian Redband and Jamie Vernon. Rogan came up with the idea and started JRE in 2013, and by 2015 the podcast was one of the most viewed podcasts in the world averaging around a million views per episode (Warren). Today, the podcast is still considered one of the most popular podcasts in the world. It is a unique show that operates with an open ended style discussion and features new guests on each episode. These guests have included the likes of professional athletes, scientists, politicians, billionaires, and even just friends of Joe Rogan. As the show has evolved over the years, spanning over 1,500 episodes and multitudes of guests; the format, one Rogan describes as “listening and learning” has forwarded him to superstardom. Now with that being said JRE is also one of the most criticized and distinguished media platforms to be characterized as a podcast. As a fan of JRE, I would say that it would be a difficult task to be a completeist, as we see the volume of episodes that are made and put out. And Rogan is know to dish out a heavy amount of content with around three episodes dropping per week on average, an attribute to keeping engagement of the JRE audience. Since playing as a leading piece in the surge of podcasting and the formation of culture and subcultures that surround it on Youtube’s medium, JRE has caught the attention of other multimedia platforms looking to make their way into this flourishing industry. Rogan just recently signed an exclusivity agreement for the podcast with Spotify’s company. Katy Warren at Business Insider said that, “Spotify announced in May that Rogan's podcast would be available on the platform starting September 1st, 2020 and that it would become exclusive to Spotify in 2021. The multiyear licensing agreement could be worth upwards of $100 million based on the podcast's performance metrics and other factors…“The Joe Rogan Experience" is downloaded almost 200 million times per month and brought in $30 million last year, making the comedian and UFC commentator the highest-paid podcaster of 2019, per Forbes”(Warren). The signing of this deal could potentially be one of the biggest moves made in the short history of the podcasting industry, and for Spotify’s business. As for Rogan he get to continue on his own course in this deal, Warren wrote, “On the day the Spotify deal was announced, Rogan wrote on Instagram that his podcast will remain free”… “It will be the exact same show,” he said. "It's just a licensing deal, so Spotify won't have any creative control over the show. They want me to just continue doing it the way I'm doing it right now.” The fact that Spotify has made out an agreement like this is a key factor, in my opinion, to truly understanding the significance that JRE holds for the podcasting world, and culture as a whole. It is apparent and valuable to analyze the metaphorical weight that the podcast holds for this industry. And can give a better overall understanding and picture of what ways online culture is shifting and how that has and will make an impact in the future. I think a reason Spotify offered Rogan such a large and long term deal is because they see some of this impact happening now, even if it be only from the lense of more dollar signs for the company, that speaks for something doesn’t it? JRE has an effect on the culture and for those who engage in its content because it offers things in exchange for the time you spend tuning in. Rogan is very good at forming this dynamic and grabbing his audience's attention through his discourse and tone. Each episode of the show is used as a new opportunity for Rogan to talk to someone he is interested in, having conversations with which have some kind of impact on its viewer, may it be big or small. Rogan didn’t do almost any of the things that successful podcasters do on his path to success. Even though he has a ton of industry connections, he didn’t join a network.