New Daily Beast Column & A Particularly Gross Example of Comedy's Transphobia Problem
Andrew Schulz agrees with Joe Rogan: gender-affirming care for trans youth is worse than the Holocaust.
I have a new piece in The Daily Beast today that looks at how Joe Rogan, whose new Netflix special airs live this weekend, reshaped the comedy industry in his image. As with most stuff I publish for bigger outlets, much of the substance will be familiar to readers of this newsletter. That said, you may enjoy a few details that I haven’t written about before, like the time Alex Jones appeared on Tim Dillon’s 2020 New Year’s Eve livestream and promoted a certain upcoming rally he organized in Washington, DC.
Comedy
The piece is roughly about what I wrote about in last week’s essay: how a large part of Rogan’s influence on comedy has been his inspiration and cultivation of, basically, an army of comedians just like him, mini-Joe Rogans who spend thousands of hours saying the most ignorant (and/or derogatory) things imaginable, on camera, for audiences of millions, thereby converting their ignorance into genuinely dangerous propaganda, often doubling as a legitimacy-laundering mechanism for some of our culture’s biggest cranks and conspiracists.
So it may be redundant of me to use today’s newsletter to highlight yet another instance of this mechanism in action; unfortunately, I don’t have the willpower to leave it be. Real quick, then, allow me to present a handy illustration of how far-right ideas bounce around the podcast ecosystem, finding purchase in impressionable comedians and, presumably, their audiences.
Earlier this week on the Joe Rogan Experience, Jordan Peterson argued that gender affirming care for trans youth is worse than the Holocaust:
It's the worst thing I've seen professionals do. Not only in my lifetime. I've studied atrocity for 40 years. I've never seen anything worse than what's happening right now. And that includes the sorts of things that were done in the camps in Germany. At least the goddamn Nazis admitted what they did was wrong. They tried to hide it. We trumpet it as a moral virtue. “We're freeing the children.” It's like, no, I don't think so. Mothers, I think what you're doing is sacrificing your child to the parading of your moral virtue. “Oh, my son, he's so confused. He thinks that he’s a girl, but I still love him. That's how wonderful I am.” Jesus Christ, Joe. you have no idea how dark that is.
Granting that we live in a moment where the terms antisemitism and Holocaust trivialization are often inappropriately weaponized, I hope we can agree that these comments are quintessential instances of antisemitism and Holocaust trivialization. No, gender-affirming care is not worse than the concentration camps. No, the Nazis did not admit that what they did was wrong. Without getting into the weeds about who knew what (and when) about the gas chambers and death squads, the Third Reich’s aims were a matter of public policy. Indeed, they had the widespread support of ordinary people throughout Nazi Germany.
In a Patreon-exclusive episode of his podcast Flagrant released today, Andrew Schulz regurgitates Peterson’s argument by way of defending noted transphobe JK Rowling:
Akaash Singh: I've been team JK this whole time.
Andrew Schulz: She’s right, bro. You know what I love about her?
Alexx Media: You guys are gonna be on the wrong side of history. I'm telling you.
Singh: The right side of history is the one where you cut your dick off?
Schulz: It’s when you mutilate children?
Media: No. No one agrees with you.
Schulz: Jordan Peterson said some fire-ass shit. Even though he's wilding right now. He said something fire, he so funny. I almost wanna bring it up. But he was on Rogan, he was like, what's happening right now with the trans kids in America is worse than what the Nazis did. Wait, listen to his justification. The Nazis at least knew they were doing something wrong. They were embarrassed about it. They tried to hide it. What's happening with the trans kids and like the puberty blockers and, you know, the surgeries and all this kind of stuff is—they're not even embarrassed about it. They're actually feeling virtuous about it. They're proud. They think they're doing something good. And he's like, that's what makes it worse.
Media: Man…
Mark Gagnon: Yo, comparing some shit to Nazis, that shit always bangs.
Schulz: It always bangs.
Again: complete nonsense. What we’re seeing here is some of the most straightforward Holocaust distortion imaginable, all in the service of attacking a vulnerable, oppressed minority group. As I wrote in The Daily Beast, this is the natural consequence of Spotify’s investment in Joe Rogan and Netflix’s investment in Dave Chappelle, which is not to say it’s the natural conclusion. The endpoint of rhetoric isn’t rhetoric; it’s action. But good luck getting any comedian to believe that.
