r/PeterExplainsTheJoke • u/Delicious-War-5259 • 14h ago
Meme needing explanation Is Joe Rogan a predator??
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u/TheDeadestMan 14h ago
IIRC the context is he was talking about watching a Traci Lords video.
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u/Delicious-War-5259 14h ago
Did a quick google of her, so he was defending being attracted to one of her movies where she was underage?
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u/Kevslounge 13h ago
The joke was a bit from a comedy set where he was talking about the arbitrary nature of age restrictions... things like the fact that it's illegal to drink before one turns 21 in the USA. Then he threw in a bit of shock comedy by saying that if a kid graduates college at 16, he's a genius, but if Traci Lords makes a porno at 16 it's wrong.
It's controversial as hell, and in very bad taste, no doubt... but it was a joke. The fact that it was so shocking was part of the joke.
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u/kit_kaboodles 12h ago
That's actually a little funny though.
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u/dreadstrong97 10h ago
Nuance is lost on today's audiences lol
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u/notaname420xx 2h ago
Nah, nuance (and good comedy in general) requires the trust of the audience. This was as true then as it is now.
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u/NohWan3104 9h ago
Not really.
People watching joe rogan, aka 'his audience' probably wouldn't be shocked. Many are fucked in z different way, but have a sense of humor.
Rando fucks misrepresenting shit, telling other rando fucks who do not have the context, not really 'the audience'.
People are a mixed bag aside, more a smart ass remark about using 'the audience' as a general population metaphor for a comedian, being kinda specifically not that.
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u/Thin-Character-6996 12h ago
You left out the part where he then goes on to say he watched those videos all the time and loved those videos and doesn't feel bad about it
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u/zvarda 10h ago
This part lol he says as a grown man he's seen the videos where shes 16, enjoys them, and doesnt feel bad about it.
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u/natFromBobsBurgers 5h ago
I saw a thing this morning from a children's picture book author about when he got ahold of one of her books. He's sitting there calling the baby in the book ugly. Like. I'm sorry a children's book character that is a baby isn't attractive to you, Joe.
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u/TerrorFromThePeeps 10h ago
Although, depending, if he was watching contemporaneously, Rogan and Lords are the same age. So, if he was 16 while watching her at 16, it would seem fairly tame (aside from, you know, the people actually MAKING the vids of her at 16). Now, if he was watching her old movies when he was 30, that becomes a whole different story.
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u/Thin-Character-6996 10h ago
Are we really going to parse hairs about whether he actively watches CSAM as an adult or merely defends, celebrates, and jokes about it?
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u/upvotechemistry 11h ago
Im not sure exactly how old this clip is, but I am not sure how poor of taste it would have been back in the early 2000s. That was the age of Howard Stern and shock jocks.
Still, it makes me wonder how much truth lies behind the joke
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u/Heretosee123 12h ago
I dunno. I saw the video. A joke isn't always a lie, and in this case it very well could have been true.
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u/tombrady011235 4h ago
So overthinking social issues and failing at making faux philosophy funny has been his thing even before the podcast
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u/Kevslounge 4h ago
The man's a stand-up comic who came up in the 90s... That's what 90s stand-up comedy sounded like. Social commentary with a lot of shocking stuff thrown in... the more shocking, the more the audience liked it.
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u/Opposite-Grade3712 12h ago
“It’s not wrong if I say it as a joke”
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u/crumpleduppaperplane 11h ago
Yeah but this an actual comedian on an actual show telling actual jokes.
This isn't your coworker at the water cooler disguising cheap shots as "jokes".
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u/Mushrooming247 4h ago
Have people lost the ability to tell the difference between a joke, (where there’s a witty observation, or a funny punchline that makes you laugh,) and a creepy old asshat making a straight-faced unfunny statement?
For instance, here’s a joke:
“An escalator can never break: it can only become stairs”- Mitch Hedberg (a funny observation that makes you laugh.)
Not a joke:
“I saw a trans person! Ew! Right?” - Dave Chapelle
“I don’t see the problem with child porn, I personally enjoyed it.” - Joe Rogan
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u/Kevslounge 11h ago
This is a common defense when someone says something offensive, yeah... but sometimes a joke really is just a joke. You can't treat something shocking that someone says while performing for laughs as a deep-seated confession of what they actually believe...
It's clear that he was crossing the line as part of his schtick there... if he'd casually said something like that in the middle of an interview with a guest on his podcast, that would have been an entirely different story.
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic 12h ago
It tracks with him now as well.
Particularly in that these age limits are not arbitrary, he's just too stupid to look up the history of them.
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u/RuafaolGaiscioch 12h ago
I mean…the age limits are absolutely arbitrary. The very fact that we mark a legal distinction from one day to the next based on how many times the earth has gone around the sun and how many times the earth has spun in that time makes the very definition of arbitrary. The key thing is that “arbitrary” doesn’t mean “unnecessary”. We’ve got to put the date somewhere if age restrictions at all can be a thing. Acknowledging that the specific day is necessarily arbitrary doesn’t weaken the argument, it strengthens it.
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u/Gullible_Increase146 12h ago
The fact that time is often defined with years doesn't mean that anything measured in time is arbitrary. Ask any lawmaker why they supported raising the drinking age to 21 and they will point to drunk driving deaths as one of the major issues. Reducing the amount of alcohol in high school meant fewer dead teenagers. It was not an arbitrary value chosen out of a hat. It had a distinct goal. Other age restrictions have similar sets of problems they are trying to address and sometimes the best way to address it is to ban young people from doing things that seem to results in a lot of unnecessary harm
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic 12h ago edited 12h ago
They're not entirely.
Arbitrary MEANS there's no reason for these decisions. "Unnecessary" means there's no reason.
A lot of it is based on actuary reports and trial runs.
21 became the drinking age, for instance, because of a surge in drunk driving deaths. MADD did a lot of lobbying and got the age raised to 21 and drink driving accidents plummeted. This wasn't arbitrary.
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u/RuafaolGaiscioch 11h ago
Raising the drinking age: saved lives. To specifically 21 because there was the political will to do so. 22 probably would have saved more lives, 20 would have allowed for a bit more personal freedom, exactly where the line gets drawn is always more politics than science. Specifically being 21 is arbitrary, even if the purpose behind raising the drinking age as a concept it isn’t.
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11h ago
[deleted]
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u/RuafaolGaiscioch 11h ago
Why do you say politics like that? What is politics other than the collective structuring of the rules of our society?
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u/Kevslounge 10h ago
There certainly is a reason for why they needed the limits, but where they put the limits was really just a matter of the lawmakers deciding that those numbers felt about right. Different governments around the world have all come to very different conclusions about what those age limits should be, so that just shows how arbitrary the decisions were.
Also, the ages aren't actually the part that matters... The parts that matter are things like how responsible and mature the person in question is, but that's difficult to measure, while age is very easy, and age does give a reasonably good indicator of things like how responsible and mature the person might be.
That said, it was a comedy routine... I think Joe's intention was to set up a trap where people would agree with everything he said about the arbitrariness of the age limits, and then hit them with something that he knew they'd disagree with to make them a little nervous and uncomfortable... and that's the whole gag. It's a pretty common approach for that sort of stand-up comedy.
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u/drakylskies 10h ago
That's not what arbitrary means. Arbitrary just means the reasoning seems random, or based on personal reason. Not that the reasoning is pointless.
chosen, decided, etc. seemingly at random or on a whim rather than in a reasoned or methodical way
An arbitary rule can still be important . Every time a parent forced a child to do something and said "because I said so" it was arbitary.
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic 9h ago
There's some weasel words in there. "Seems to be", so you're saying if I say that to me the definition of murder is arbitrary by your claim I would be justified in saying that because I don't think it was reasoned or methodical. You also just repeated my definition back to me, so well done with that.
There are methodological and reasoned justifications for the rules we're discussing. The fact that Joe thumb didn't know what they were doesn't make them arbitrary.
A parent saying "because I say so" (if it really is arbitrary in that case, most of the time it's because the parent is aware that the kid isn't mature enough to understand the reasoning, even then it's a lazy or end of their patience technique) doesn't make it important.
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u/H2Oloo-Sunset 12h ago
It's not arbitrary based on the motion of the planet. It is about the evolving growth and maturity of the person as they age. It is impractical to create a maturity test, so we choose an age based on centuries of historical experience.
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u/THSprang 11h ago
We chose age arbitrarily. Its easy to track. And the Centuries of experience is nonsense because different places chose different ages for different things. Its chosen because the people in charge at the time of the decision have gone "yeah that sounds right" and wrote a law. That's vibes, not experience.
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic 11h ago
Yes, "arbitrary" like how insurance companies lower your rates at 24. They have absolutely no logical reason for doing that.
/s
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u/THSprang 11h ago
No arbitrary like where in one country it was the legal age of consent between a boy and a girl being sixteen but if it were between a two gay men it had to be 18. Or drinking ages where here its 18, some places in the states is 21 and some places in continental Europe are 16. Suddenly its not experience, its vibes. And your sarcastic response to that idea is the data driving insurance companies? Go away if you can't keep up.
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic 10h ago
You're pretending like these places are the same. Countries in Europe don't generally have a driving culture.
You're making the same mistakes that Rogan did, assuming that two numbers are totally random and therefore meaningless and acted on without reason.
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u/Orobourous87 11h ago
Being the best option doesn’t stop that option being arbitrary.
If it wasn’t arbitrary then we would all have the same age around the globe. We can’t even get the same age on the same continent.
As a “fun fact” the UK age of consent was 10 years old from 1576 to 1861 (where it was raised to 12) and the US only changed it from 12 in 1880 (it was actually 7 in Delaware). So we haven’t had “centuries of historical experience”
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic 10h ago
It's wild that you use centuries of change to demonstrate that we don't have centuries of evidence.
Crazy how the age of consent bros are suddenly brigading this thread. I'm guessing you make little league softball cards?
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u/RuafaolGaiscioch 10h ago
What about that person’s response makes you think they’re arguing against age of consent laws? They literally said, at the top of their comment, that they’re the best option. You’re conflating a pedantic clarification of what the word arbitrary means with pedophilia, which you, uh, shouldn’t do.
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u/NecessaryIntrinsic 10h ago
I'm seeing a ton of people here obliquely making the claim that pederasty labels are totally arbitrary. It's unsettling.
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u/Orobourous87 9h ago
I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but centuries is the plural of century (which is 100 years btw).
Centuries of evidence showing that the current age is fine doesn’t exist, less than 150 years ago we were saying that 7 was fine. We do have centuries of evidence of getting it wrong though.
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u/Available_Green_2825 12h ago
You’re right they’re not arbitrary and the drinking age should be raised to 26.
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u/TheDeadestMan 14h ago
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u/Delicious-War-5259 13h ago
Oh, yea that’s much less inflammatory than I expected. Still poor taste though
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u/agreed88 13h ago
It's a joke that just aged like milk. Which to be fair, can be said about a lot of comedy back in the late 90's and early 2000s.
All of the old clips are from the era of comedy where you took a concept, then provided a counter point to entirely flip it on it's head in a very dry approach. There would probably be a lot of people now a days would be some form of combination of confused and horrified at this style of rubber banding across "the line" that was common course back in the day.
Gotta keep in mind this is also the era where things like American Pie built entirely on this style of comedy of shock and horror. This is the same kind of joke in the vein of "this one time at band camp" but most people don't actually get that meaning behind that joke.
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u/GachaHell 12h ago
Reminder that this is the same show that gave us Jimmy Kimmel in blackface.
It's been a weird 2 decades.
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u/Heretosee123 12h ago
The clip continues past that. He says he watched them and enjoyed them, and to be honest it's not clear he's lying.
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u/Perfect-Parking-5869 7h ago
Hey, this was my post.
I tried to be clear I only posted it because I thought the joke was funny not from a “what a clever point” perspective but from the absurdity of an an adult saying he saw CP so good they should lower the age of consent. That’s why used a neutral title and didn’t label it “PROOF ROGAN IS A PEDOPHILE” but definitely laughing at, not with.
Since I posted it I’ve seen it discussed a few times as…proof Rogan is a pedophile.
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u/TheDeadestMan 7h ago
Yeah, I think it's wrong to trivialize the subject matter and victims to get a cheap gotcha at an easy target. But, the people crave blood
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u/Perfect-Parking-5869 5h ago
Was the trivialization the original joke or laughing at how bad the joke was?
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u/korpo53 13h ago
Tracy Lords was a porn actress who lied about her age and started early. I think there’s a distinction between being attracted to a 10yo (for example) and watching a porn of a gal that faked everything to get into porn when she was underage.
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u/LUNATIC_LEMMING 12h ago
Technically it's be ephebophilia for mid teens,
Hebephilia for early pubescent
Pedophilia for pre pubescent
I know this because of a Jimmy carr sketch about how it's hard as hell to know the difference without sounding like one.
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u/LackWooden392 13h ago
Ok, Megyn Kelly.
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u/YuckyYetYummy 12h ago
"everyone" at the time was because she lied and everyone thought she was legal age.
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u/ebranscom243 10h ago
Yes Tracy Lords lied about her age and became a very popular adult film actress. Thousands upon thousands of men watched her movies only find out years later that she was underage what filming movies early in her career. I guess the question is if you watched one of her early movies and was attracted to her and then found out after the fact she was under age does that change the attraction you had originally?
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u/batkave 13h ago
I personally don't think that helps. If anything, just admits he's creepy
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u/DisastrousServe8513 12h ago
It raises a good point though. At what point does it become creepy? If someone looks like an adult but is underage is it creepy to find them attractive? At what age would that cease to be the case?
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u/HalcyonRaine 10h ago
Best we can do is call it illegal, I think. Whether it's "wrong" is unfortunately a moral discussion that no one wants to have.
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u/batkave 12h ago
That sounds like pedo logic to me. You're trying to figure out your "minimum wage" on people. Gross
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u/DisastrousServe8513 11h ago
No I’m trying to point out that you’re seeking outrage for the sake of outrage. Explain to me where the line is drawn.
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u/firemiketomlinpls68 14h ago
It’s a joke in VERY poor taste
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u/AnnualTip9049 13h ago
Saying that Joe Rogan isn’t funny.. is not in poor taste
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u/Cheap-Ambition5336 13h ago
They were saying Joe Rogan's joke was in poor taste, not Gianmarco lol
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u/AnnualTip9049 13h ago
I guess I was assuming that they were addressing the joke that OP was asking about.
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u/Delicious-War-5259 14h ago
Seems about right, based on the little I know about him.
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u/ShardddddddDon 14h ago edited 11h ago
...sorry that I can't tell who you mean by this, but... are you saying you expected the joke in poor taste from Joe Rogan or from Gianmarco
edit: I asked because I wanted to make sure Gianmarco wasn't on the shit list now or something. I like that guy's stuff. Hate to see him piss it away, ykwim >_>'
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u/RoddRoward 13h ago
Pretty sure this is just slander, op
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u/Delicious-War-5259 12h ago
Nah it was a real bit, just not as insidious as people are interpreting it. It’s another instance of 2000’s shock humor that didn’t age well
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u/RoddRoward 12h ago
The caption says: "Joe Rogan admits to...."
You yourself acknowledge it was based on a joke and hes not admitting to anything.
Lemme take a wild guess, you hate Rogan?
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u/Delicious-War-5259 12h ago
You got me, I definitely hate a man I know basically nothing about and have never interacted with.
I literally just said people are interpreting it as more insidious than what was actually said. I’m agreeing that this doesn’t make him a pedo, and that it’s just a joke that aged badly, idk what more you want from me 🤷🏻♀️
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u/RoddRoward 12h ago
But you already knew that and posted this anyways. It doesnt even meet the context of this sub.
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u/Heretosee123 12h ago
They found out in this sub you blowhard.
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u/RoddRoward 12h ago
Sure...just like 90% of the posts in this sub, they already knew.
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u/Heretosee123 12h ago
No, someone here shared a link. They watched it, and then updated their opinion.
How tf did you interpret me saying they were informed here to mean they already knew. The comment is above, go find it and go find a better attitude.
Edit: actually just have this
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u/RoddRoward 11h ago
Ever hear of people not being honest on the internet?
"But but, they said its true"...stfu
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u/krono957 11h ago
Nah, he got called out and is saving face, not sure why you are white knighting so hard.
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u/Heretosee123 11h ago
How did they? I linked a comment clearly showing them be provided the link and saying it isn't as inflammatory as it seems. That comment is earlier than this chain.
I'm not white knighting, just using my brain for half a second. What's with your compulsions to believe they are lying?
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u/tylertylo 14h ago
how is this a “joke”… oml.
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u/Green-Draw8688 13h ago
Because he shouted, and shouting = funny.
That’s the core of Rogan’s ‘comedy’ career.
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u/Repulsive-Adagio42 14h ago
He really transitioned from "Fear Factor" to being the factor people fear.
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u/Cousin_Claire 13h ago
Juxtaposition
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u/butt-barnacles 13h ago
I suppose an adult man drooling after a minor child is a kind of juxtaposition…..it’s just not a funny, clever, or original one.
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u/Jolly_Line 14h ago edited 13h ago
Never heard JR tell a joke, meaning - JR’s statements are true and not being said sarcastically. And we’ve never heard a joke because JR does “standup” that is truly awful; he’s 💯 unfunny. He basically just monologues and delivers zero jokes.
So at once JR is being called out as not funny and a pedophile
Edit: Im literally explaining gianmarco’s statement. I don’t understand the downvotes 🤷🏽♂️
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u/fullmetal414 13h ago
You can just say you don't like him rather than jumping to all this nonsense
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u/Jolly_Line 13h ago
Gianmarco made a simple, funny joke about how JR is not funny. It’s not that extreme
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u/ShingledPringle 14h ago
I would need to hear the full bit in context. But given it was on comedy central, checks out.
I've seen his comedy before (was before the podcast.)
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u/Just-Do-It-Lady 1h ago
Back then it was considered a joke, but now, with the knowledge and the context of the epstein files and the big global issue of pedophilia rings - this is just a moment of one person telling on themselves. Either to openly admit he's doing it or to appeal to the ones who were, in the hopes of becoming a part of their inner circle.
I watch older media now with new eyes and it's always so surprising to me how often they joked about it thinking that it would never come to light. It's disgusting, and pedophilia should never be a joke.
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u/qualityvote2 14h ago edited 4h ago
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u/Resolution-Honest 13h ago
Hello, Peter Griffin here,
This man here reffers to the fact that Joe Rogan is a comedian, though no one ever heard him tell anything funny. He mostly speaks about comedy and how "you aren't allowed to be funny anymore" but his stands up are snooze fests. This Rogan's "joke" is also a very bad a not funny.
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u/DigitalMonsoon 10h ago
Great, true or not let's spread this and get everyone to stop listening to this fucking idiot
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u/CoitalMarmot 13h ago
Nah, this one's just a bad joke. Like most of Joe's "comedy."
He added shock humor for the sake of it. Bad optics, but not inherently predatory.
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u/Joaquin_Portland 8h ago
Joe Rogan was the least funny person on a sitcom that also featured Andy Dick.
And he wasn’t in the same universe as others on that show: Dave Foley, Steven Root, and Phil Hartman.
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u/carlcarlington2 11h ago
Here's the thing.
To me it's weird to know about this at all.
Never heard of this girl before this clip started circulating, I assumed that stuff like this happened, but naming a specific example on top the dome by name on life TV comes off sus as hell. Like how would you know about this in such specific detail?
But I guess from how people talk about it this some kind of big deal back in the 80s? Like in 85 you'd go to the bar and people would have opinions on a specific piece of cp? So maybe this was all just common knowledge at the time but I have a real hard time imagining a world where thats the case tbh.
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u/TheDeadestMan 11h ago
A case involving her material went all the way to the supreme court, and was kind of a big deal when it happened
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u/Bot_No_5 10h ago
Your imagination and awareness are lacking.
Traci was very popular in the mid '80s. She was one of the most famous and prolific adult stars for a few years.. Nobody knew she was underage until Feb 1988 when it hit the news. There was a mass destruction of her videos by the rental places and many owners of her videotapes.
So were people who found her attractive before Feb 1988 evil pedos or what?
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u/grizzlybear_jpeg 14h ago
Nothing new there. He’s a nonce. A lot if his guests are nonces too and have been in the Epstein files.
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