I love how Joe Rogan tells people -- SPECIFICALLY, HONESTLY, and REASONABLY -- that he is an (Normal Ordinary Everyday) idiot, that his opinion is uninformed, and that he is NOT the guy to cite as an authority in ANYTHING AT ALL ... because he is a COMEDIAN and a CURIOUS and INTERESTED BYSTANDER, not a Professional Authority ... NOT AN EXPERT.
He doesn't do this ironically. This is NOT meant as as a typical "DISCLAIMER DISCLOSURE" statement, like you find at the beginning of a Self-Help Guru's "Formula for Success" or the footer of pretty much every informational web page ... that is, a "Don't Sue Me Because I Am Not Liable For YOUR Stupidity STUPID".
Actually, I have also admired YouTuber Phil DeFranco for the use of a similar statement, "Don't Be Stupid, Stupid!"
Myself? I've been scared shitless over getting into Comedy as a career, because of the Cancel Culture mentality that seems to have taken front-centre-stage in the MORAL MAJORITY'S current weapon against "anything that anyone (we/they) disagrees with."
We really need a better method of doxxing who's behind popular puppet string pullery these days ... you'd think that, with the enormity of technological advancements in trollery, we'd be far more cognisant of sussing out who is paying to manipulate cultural opinion. Or not. What the fuck do I know?
Me? I've been chased off of an indigenous law degree, because I couldn't handle the idea of spending the rest of my life angry and in more emotional pain than even I, carrying mountains of pain, could deal with. I just fucking can't. (Isn't Canada ... AMERICA ... supposed to be something we are supposed to be PROUD OF? Fuck it. Poisoned fruit of the Poisoned root. And all that.)
Don't get me wrong, I love my career. Zeh. (Careers). I am proud of what I have accomplished. And if I were promised another few decades of youthful exuberance and blissful ignorance, then I actually believe that I would like to make a difference.
Meh ... I'm ALREADY a drug addict, alcoholic, divorcee who has children who've been taught to hate myself for merely having been an assembly line of dumb-fuckery. There's NO HOPE in Wishful Thinking. Expectation and Reality have to compromise somewhere. At least, that's what reality has taught me. I want better for all. Especially myself.
(LMFAO ... call this the formal announcement of my internationally publicised walk of shame tour.)
On the other hand, I'm inspired by the willingness of ordinary people to revolt against 'OFFICIAL' forms of censorship (Money For Nothing in Canada, To Kill a Mockingbird in the US, amongst innumerous examples) -- enthusiastically, intelligently, independently, and with a healthy interest in telling the ESTABLISHMENT, "NO."
That's the point, though, isn't it? Isn't a healthy distrust of the establishment important? The powers that be control too much, don't they? Aren't systems of oversight efeete and easily corrupted by "manufactured consent"? Aren't all politicians indoctrinated into a system which defeats all forms of integrity? Aren't they incentivised to undermine the best interest of their own electorate? Or at least complicit?
Fucked if I know. I am a lowly wannabe comedian with so much trauma in my personal history that it dilutes anything that I say into an irrelevant, unforgivable, inabsolvable mush of eternal horror and sinful fuckery. If that is what a "Free" Society means to you, then you are obviously without sin and a far better person than I could ever hope to be, since I am already a lost cause in the eyes of perfection. (BTW, I don't believe a single letter of this, any of you fucking high-strung artists of hypocrisy. I don't HAVE an opinion. My published thoughts are examples of my current contemplations, not definitive opinions cast in stone. I am a fictional character. What's YOUR excuse?)
"Cynicism is Sanity"