After hearing a comment from Satan, Joe Rogan said, “Hey Jamie, can you pull a clip up of that guy burning in Hell?”
Photo by Julia Wong

This past Thursday, Joe Rogan released the latest episode on his hit podcast The Joe Rogan Experience to widespread controversy. Weeks before the episode’s release, Rogan teased on his Twitter that “a hot guest is coming soon,” coupled with a photo of a decaying severed goat head surrounded by flies. Fans were eagerly waiting to see who this mystery guest was and were blown away when they saw that the guest was none other than the Prince of Hell himself, Satan. Many listeners were confused as to how this was possible, questioning if it was the real Devil or some type of prank. Rogan cleared up this confusion by posting a video on his Instagram account of a section of the podcast when Satan released Sigmund Freud to speak to Rogan for a few minutes. After this display, most listeners were “basically convinced” of the Devil’s authenticity.

One specific instance in the podcast that many took issue with was Rogan’s uncritical response to the Devil’s promotion of drunk driving. “I’ve seen a lot of things in my time, Joey,” said Satan between puffs on his cigar. “I’ve been around since almost the start, you know, and when you’ve been around that long you start to see things differently. You start to see that a lot of things in this world aren’t as serious humans make it out to be. You’re all so worried about your precious little morals and fragile little lives that you are missing out on some of the greatest pleasures in life, like drunk driving. There’s nothing nicer than letting that warm liquor pour down your throat all night and then cruising around town with some rock ‘n’ roll blasting. You should try it some time. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

After the release of the episode, many individuals on the internet took issue with Rogan’s choice to give Satan a platform. “You don’t think that maybe the literal devil might have an ulterior motive for promoting something like drunk driving?” said @blorgest on Twitter. User @FlagFinisher replied, “you’re just a hater. There’s no truer test of skill for a driver than trying to stay in between the lines while the lines are moving.”

“I know there’s a lot of talk going around the internet about Satan’s appearance on the podcast,” said Rogan in a video posted to his Instagram account last Sunday. “I think that many people saying these disparaging things don’t actually have the full context of what’s going on. Satan is an angel, used to be one of God’s closest allies, and now people are literally demonized for following him. I wondered what Satan really did to deserve this level of punishment? What did he do to deserve this level of scorn from the mainstream public? My show is all about having conversations with people of differing perspectives, and now more than ever I think it’s important that I have people on who may go against what the mainstream narrative is. It’s not my job to say if these opinions are ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ That’s for God to decide.”

Eventually caving in to some criticism, Rogan promised to have the Pope on to balance out the perspectives given on the show. “I’m looking forward to what I believe will be a very productive conversation,” said Rogan. “I really think I can get him to budge his weed stance.”