Comedian and podcaster Joe Rogan aimed at targets like COVID vaccines and trans people during his newest comedy special.
Rogan’s latest, named “Burn the Boats,” debuted live on Netflix on Saturday night and amplified some of the controversial views he has discussed on his podcast before. Yet he was also self-deprecating about his perceived impact on culture.
“That might be misinformation,” he said, as the tag of a joke early on. “Don’t say you heard it from me, because I am known for that shit.”
Rogan discussed his skepticism of COVID vaccines early in the special.
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“COVID was just so strange,” he said. “And we lost a lot of people during COVID, and most of them are still alive. There’s a lot of people that I don’t fuck with anymore. Before COVID, I would have told you that vaccines are the most important invention in human history. After COVID, I’m like, ‘I don’t think we went to the moon. I think Michelle Obama’s got a dick. I think Pizzagate is real. I think there’s direct energy weapons in Antarctica.’ I’m just kidding —I don’t think Michelle Obama’s got a dick, but I believe all of that other shit.”
Later, he skewered the blowback about COVID discussions on his podcast, saying, “If you’re getting your vaccine information from me, is that really my fault?”
Elsewhere in the special, he followed in the footsteps of comedians like Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais, who have been criticized for jokes about trans people in their specials. Rogan started his similar batch of material with a run of jokes about “pregnant men” and then broadened it to his viewpoint that trans acceptance has been happening too quickly in American culture.
“I’m open-minded,” he said. “I just want to know what happened. It’s almost like a pervert wizard waved a magic spell on the whole world. ‘With a wave of this wand, you can walk into the women’s locker room with a hard cock, and anybody who complains is a Nazi. Abracadabra!’ And it just works! And everyone just accepts this new reality, and it’s fucking weird. I just think we need standards. You can’t just put lipstick on and now you can shit in the women’s room!”
Later on, he turned his attention to gay men, saying, “I don’t hate anybody. I love everyone. And I love gay men. But I think about gay men the same way I think about mountain lions: I’m happy they’re real, but I don’t want to be surrounded by them. They’re a bunch of dudes who fuck dudes. I don’t like my chances, OK? They’re not unicorns —they’re just men who fuck men. And every man who’s ever lived is a shifty cum salesman, OK? 100%. Especially the ones who say they’re not.”
“Burn the Boats” was taped live at the Majestic Theatre in San Antonio, and is Rogan’s first comedy special in six years, since 2018’s “Strange Times.” It’s his third special in a row that debuted on Netflix, a partnership that started with 2016’s “Triggered.”
Netflix has developed some high-profile live comedy events in the last year and a half, including Chris Rock’s 2023 stand-up special “Selective Outrage,” John Mulaney’s recent talk show, “Everybody’s in LA,” and May’s “The Roast of Tom Brady.”
