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On Saturday, August 3rd, one-time Fear Factor host Joe Rogan returned to Netflix to do some stand-up comedy. During his live special, Burn the Boats, Rogan talked about all manner of subjects that might be familiar to his vast podcasting audience. Rogan also wore a shirt that looked very yellow on television, leading to multiple people on social media making what perhaps seemed like the obvious comparison — to the Minions of the Despicable Me movies.
Look, we all like to make our jokes on the internet, but there’s something about this line of ridicule that’s pretty ridiculous. The Minions and Joe Rogan are totally different.
Here are things I know about the Minions:
- They are very yellow.
- They are very short.
- They have either one or two eyes.
- They do not seem hindered by the amount of eyes they have either way.
- They technically work for bad guys (such as Gru, the titular Despicable person), though I know there was a whole movie which explained their entire backstory prior to working for Gru.
- I have not seen that movie, but I just read the Wikipedia summary for it and it says that while technically Minions have always worked for bad guys, their accident-prone nature means that they often end up inadventantly killing their bosses. So I feel like this makes the Minions a net neutral or good force in the world.
Joe Rogan, meanwhile, is not very yellow — he just made a poor shirt choice on Saturday, which happens to the best of us. He is also… definitely taller than the Minions, who are between three feet five inches and three feet seven inches tall. (How tall is Rogan, exactly? Google says five feet eight inches, proof that the Google algorithm is unimpeachable and its future AI products are definitely reliable.)
Rogan also cares about and does things that Minions don’t seem to be much concerned with. Here are some other things I know about Minions:
- They never once appeared on the classic 1990s sitcom NewsRadio.
- They do not currently host one of the world’s popular and influential podcasts.
- They did not sign a deal with Spotify to do so for hundreds of millions of dollars.
- Being as they are scientifically minded, the Minions do not use their platform to spread misinformation about COVID.
- While they do not speak comprehensible English, it seems unlikely that they have ever used the N-word.
- Although they all identify as male, they seem cool with trans people.
- They have never perpetuated any Jewish stereotypes (to the best of my knowledge).
- They have never annoyed Axl Rose by demanding a selfie (to the best of my knowledge).
- They did not get paid to do a live Netflix comedy special this August.
The theme of Rogan’s comedy special, as Vulture’s Kathryn VanArendonk writes in her review, was that yeah, he talks about a lot of stuff on his podcast, but you shouldn’t take it seriously:
Rogan’s aware of his enormous reach… Still, the message of Burn the Boats is that everyone should just be chill about this. It’s boring that he should have to be careful about what he says just because he’s enormously influential. “Take this advice: Don’t take my advice,” he says. His quotes get taken out of context because people “take things that I’d said drunk, high as fuck, and they’d just put it in quotes.” Don’t take his advice about COVID, he says. Don’t listen to him about vaccines. Don’t pay attention to anything he says that happens to sound racist, because he swears he isn’t. “‘Joe Rogan’s giving out dangerous vaccine misinformation,’” he says, mimicking his detractors. “Fuck. Did I?” he asks. “I might’ve!” But at the same time, “if you’re getting vaccine advice from me, is that really my fault?”
Okay, actually, perhaps this is something he does have in common with the Minions, who aren’t much for taking responsibility for their actions. They often, in fact, do their best to point the finger at other Minions when something goes wrong. It’s not their fault when a rocket they’re building explodes, much like how it’s not Rogan’s fault when the millions of people who listen to him take him seriously, especially when he goes in deep on complicated subject matter with real-world impact.
But beyond this one similarity, let’s all get on the same page here: Minions and Joe Rogan, totally different entities. Not to be confused with each other.
Even if you can maybe see the resemblance.
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