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The success of Joe Rogan is fascinating and encouraging. For a long time there was a view that attention spans were diminishing. Facebook and Tik Tok reduced c

• sb057 7y ago
  With old media (specifically television and newsprint) "information bandwidth" was restricted to a limited number of channels and pages. This meant there had to be a calculation where the editors had to maximize the audience by making the content short enough to not lose the easily distracted, but long enough to be engaging. High-speed internet has blown open the information bandwidth cap so that now content can be created for every attention niche. This is just anecdotal, but it seems to me part of the decline of traditional journalism has to do with article length. People either want short, snappy headlines that tell them the essential information, or long, elaborately-written pieces thousands of words long. The only reason mid-length articles existed before was a compromise between the two groups.
  • K0SM0S 7y ago
    And a subtle but massive change is the removal of imposed formats i.e. artificial time boundaries, as if there were only a few possible lengths for any piece of content — 5 min, 22 min, 42 min, because commercials. Online audiovisual content is refreshing in that it lasts exactly as long as the creator(s) intended to treat the topic. Likewise for article length in blogs.
  • noodle 7y ago
    I feel like there's also something to be said about old media and their revenue models. Commercial breaks are written in to most shows, and show length matters. With newer media, it doesn't matter if you have a 22 minute episode 1 and a 47 minute episode 2 - you create the scene, shot and/or episode length that works for you artistically.
• flycaliguy 7y ago
  I think there are a lot of people who smoke a joint and drift to sleep watching Rogan.
• generalpass 7y ago
  What I have found interesting about Rogan's show is that on the rare occasion he has more of a previous generation personality as a guest, I find these personalities are about 15 minutes of interesting. It's as if this new format requires personalities of greater depth, which, somehow, feels more gratifying.
• frgtpsswrdlame 7y ago
  To be clear, a big reason behind the popularity of podcasts is that you can listen to them while doing other things - working, driving, etc. so I'm not sure long podcast episodes really dispel the idea that attention spans are diminishing.
  • hateful 7y ago
    I listen to Joe Rogan when I'm gaming, fiddling with my Arduino or playing on my phone.
• ChicagoBoy11 7y ago
  Until you listen to his actual content and it is, the vast majority of the time, pretty "easy" listening in the sense that it is pretty vacuous and doesn't really require any sort of concentration to follow along. Don't get me wrong -- I listen to it often on my way to work, but one of the reasons I do is because it is not something that really requires much of my concentration to follow along.
  • hollerith 7y ago
    There is that, but there is also the fact that when the conversation is cognitively challenging, the guest cannot relax as much. More relaxed guests tend to reveal more of their personality in my experience. The main reason I watch Joe Rogan Experience is to learn what sort of human being the guest is.
  • agumonkey 7y ago
    Good point but at least it is patient. It's a quality to uphold.
  • leepowers 7y ago
    That's not necessarily a negative. Rogan is wide not deep. The eclectic guest selection means listeners are exposed to a wide range of ideas. Well, at least as wide as the guests Rogan can book, and the topics and people that interest him personally. The show is successful because it knows that Google exists - it knows there's a universe of information outside the bounds of the show. It provides the gestalt and it's up to the listener to explore the details.
• redisman 7y ago
  I think thats Podcasts as a medium in general. IMHO Rogan could use pretty heavy editing, I guess people like having it on in the background or something.
  • bmurphy1976 7y ago
    Heavy editing can drive me crazy. The really bad ones are the podcasts/videos that jump in between each sentence. It's really disconcerting to hear somebody talk with no pauses in between sentences. I like the format of Joe's podcast because it feels like a real conversation and I'm participating in it, even if I'm not. Editing would ruin that feeling and make it something else. There's plenty of other podcasts that service that. Joe's issues are that can be long winded at times, and he fails to press people on some issues which occasionally sucks (the first episode with Jack Dorsey, the last episode with Alex Jones, or the recent episode with Bob Lazaar). Most of the time, however, that's exactly what I want. I don't want two blowhards shouting at each other, I want two people trying to understand each other's ideas and to learn something new from it.
    • therealdrag0 7y ago
      Freakanomics will even splice together two people saying the same sentence. So annoying.
    • redisman 7y ago
      It's a spectrum right? No editing on one end, every second spliced together on the other. Most podcasts I listen to you can't really tell it's been edited. They just cut out banter that's off topic etc.
  • vocatus_gate 7y ago
    A solution I've found is to listen on 1.7x speed. Originally I bumped to 1.3x, but over time your brain adjusts and has no problem following along at faster speeds.
• cdeutsch 7y ago
  Exactly the reason I watch most Joe Rogan content as "highlight clips" on YouTube. I don't have time for most of this drawn out content. (I did listen to the entire Joe Rogan - Snowden podcast but that was a first)