 I just finished watching the Joe Rogan podcast featuring the long-awaited Kanye West. Without a doubt, it was interesting hearing Kanye's thoughts, but for all the hype around this episode, it was a massive disappointment. Before you spend three hours listening to or watching this podcast, I may be able to save you some trouble if you're someone hoping for a deep conversation answering some Joe Rogan-style, hard-hitting questions and fact-checking is not worth your time. Before I dive into everything wrong with Kanye West on the Joe Rogan podcast, I want to be transparent so you're aware of some of the potential biases I may have. First, I think it's important to state that I used to be a massive Kanye West fan and he inspired me during a very dark time in my life when I was addicted to drugs and alcohol. I listened to his first few albums obsessively because not only did he have an amazing style of rap and great beats, but I loved his message. I loved his music and his personality because he made me feel like I could accomplish anything even if it felt like the whole world was against me. Today, with 8 years sober, my son back in my life and an amazing girlfriend, I feel like a part of my success is due to Kanye's impact on my life. As a chronic relancer who destroyed all my relationships, everyone told me I'd never get sober. Like Kanye, the only person I had in my corner was my mom, but I managed to get sober and stay sober because also like Kanye, my main motivation was people telling me what I can't do. Due to the massive impact he's had on my life, seeing him spiral these last few years has been a major bummer and I hope he learns to manage his mental illness. In the podcast, they discuss how medications diminish his creativity and that's common, but as someone with mental health issues and who has worked with people who have mental health issues as well, I have some opinions that I'll touch on later about Kanye stopping his medication. The next disclaimer I want to give is that I haven't listened to Joe Rogan in months. I was a massive fan for a long time and I've always respected that he has a diverse roster of guests. I believe we live in a time where it's increasingly difficult for people to have different ideologies to have conversations and I think Joe Rogan has done a service by showing that people can calmly talk to other people they disagree with. I didn't stop listening to Joe Rogan for any specific reason, I just dedicate most of my time to books rather than podcasts now. With that being said, after listening to this episode, I'm not sure if he has just lost his touch or if he just wasn't comfortable enough to put Kanye's feet to the fire or it's something else that I'm not even thinking of. But as I'll explain, I feel this was a complete waste of three hours for how much we were all anticipating this episode. But before we get started, if you're new to the Rewired Soul, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. Here we practice critical thinking and skepticism to better improve our knowledge of the world and understanding of everything that goes on. And as always, if you want to check out any of the books that I mentioned in this video, my affiliate links for those books are down in the description below. As I mentioned, I haven't listened to the Joe Rogan podcast in a while, but what I loved was the conversation. Joe Rogan had no problem bringing people on who he disagreed with and they'd talk it out. This is something that has become quite popular in recent years as well. I've recently been thinking about how prior to the pandemic and during Peterson's medical issues, people were paying a lot of money just to sit and listen to intellectuals like Peterson and Sam Harris wrestle with ideas in different perspectives. Although I don't always agree with Peterson or Harris, there's something great about seeing an atheist and a believer have an in-depth conversation. A good conversation or debate is something incredible to watch. But what happened during the three hour episode with Kanye was far from a conversation. I remember being 35 minutes into the episode and realizing that Joe Rogan had only spoken a few sentences in the first five minutes of the episode. I stuck around to listen to the whole episode hoping that Rogan would take back control of his show, but that didn't happen. If I had to break it down into percentages, I'd estimate that Kanye talked 90% of the time and that's not a conversation. There's no denying that Kanye's mind works in an interesting way. But this episode could have just been a series of voice memos from Kanye as a stream of consciousness. During my time of not following many of Joe Rogan's episodes, I've seen people highlight the base he's had with different guests. For example, Rogan has had no problem calling out people like Dave Rubin on his show when something they said was factually incorrect. One of my favorite clips in recent history was Joe Rogan talking to Ben Shapiro about systemic racism and the right for gay couples to get married. During this conversation, Joe Rogan backed Ben Shapiro into a corner by simply asking him questions. Unfortunately, Joe didn't do the same thing with Kanye. And I'm not simply looking for a gotcha moment in an episode, but I think people tune into the Joe Rogan podcast because he's open to different ideas and comes from a place of trying to understand. For the last few years, we've all tried to have a better understanding of Kanye. And I think that's why this episode was so hyped. But Joe sat back and just let Kanye talk. This wouldn't have been that big of an issue if Joe simply interrupted Kanye every now and then to challenge some of his conspiracies and incorrect statements. Kanye is a very religious person and that's no secret. As an atheist, I'm of the belief that as long as you're not hurting anyone, believe in whatever you want. If religion helps people get through the day and gives them a community, more power to them. But there comes a point where you have to challenge a religious person's beliefs on a situation that's happening in the real world to real people. And Joe Rogan didn't do that. For most of the episode, Kanye West talks about his calling from God and the messages he believes he receives from God that guides his actions. As someone with eight years sober who started in 12-step programs, they have a basic understanding of what Kanye is saying. But during this episode, it comes to the point where Kanye comes back to the topic of abortion and a woman's right to choose. And he starts sharing conspiracies and false information on Joe's massive platform. Personally, I've come to realize that you're gonna have a really hard time converting a religious pro-lifer. Something I've learned from reading various books on the flaws in our thinking is that two religious people, abortion is taking the life of an innocent. Trying to convince them otherwise is nearly impossible when they believe life begins at conception. You can show them the science around fetal development and when consciousness actually forms. But this is null and void when you're debating someone who starts from the belief that at conception, a soul is formed. Unfortunately, religious people often use motivated reasoning and confirmation bias to try and find science that backs their beliefs. And Kanye is no different. During this Joe Rogan episode, Kanye starts sharing false information about planned parenthood and statistics. What he shared can easily be found within different evangelical circles. And these so-called facts have been debunked multiple times. Again, I think one of the reasons Joe Rogan's podcast grew to popularity is that he's open to conversations, but he's also going to fact check people. He even has young Jamie on standby just in case something sounds a little bit off and Joe wants a quick fact check. But during this episode, Joe sat back and passively nodded as Kanye shared this misinformation. And at the time of making this video, the YouTube video of their episode has 7.8 million views. And I'm assuming there are even more listens on Spotify. As you can see, about a month ago, Joe Rogan received quite a bit of heat for spreading false information about left-wing protesters starting fires in the Pacific Northwest. As someone with integrity who prides himself in not spreading misinformation, he made a public apology. So when Kanye was sharing this misinformation, the least Joe could have done was have Kanye pause to challenge what he was saying. Finally, there were a few points where they talked about Kanye West bipolar disorder diagnosis. And this is a difficult nuanced subject. So I don't fault Joe for not knowing all the facts around mental illness. During the interview, Joe Rogan asked Kanye, why do people think there's something wrong with you? And Kanye proceeds to give his explanation. Kanye minimizes everything down to one situation and says that that one situation is what gave him the label of bipolar disorder, and they put him on medications. From there, Kanye discusses how medications turned him into a zombie and stripped him of his creativity. From here, Joe actually chimes in and shares his views about mental illness, and I'm not surprised by Joe's views at all. Joe is someone who advocates for psychotropic medicines to help open the mind. And even though I'm a recovering drug addict, I agree with his views. I've read some incredible books like Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, The Emperor's New Drugs, and Saving Normal, which challenge some of the conventional diagnoses from the DSM. As someone who has battled mental illness most of my life and has worked at a dual diagnosis treatment center, I do know that we often overdiagnose and overmedicate. With that being said, to put Kanye in that category is enabling a sick person. To enable Kanye by nodding in agreement that he had one situation that caused his diagnosis is negligent. Just this year alone, Kanye has had multiple episodes that have raised alarms with his friends, family, and fans. After a series of unprompted Twitter rants, Dave Chappelle flew out to visit Kanye because he was concerned. Days later, Kanye's wife, Kim Kardashian, made a public statement about his bipolar disorder. This is something that hits very close to home for me because for nearly a decade I was addicted to drugs and suffering from severe depression. I was slowly trying to kill myself and I was in a completely selfish state of mind. Meanwhile, my family and my friends and my son had to sit back and feel absolutely powerless. With eight years sober today, I still look back and can't believe that I put them through that. I touched on this personal aspect of my story because I feel for Kanye's family and if I were them, I wouldn't be happy with the enabling of Joe Rogan. Again, it's not Joe's fault that he doesn't fully understand mental illness, but to sit back and enable Kanye without challenging him by bringing up any of the other instances from this year or recent years is just another reason this episode was extremely flawed. It seems like the primary focus of this episode was that Joe wanted to talk to Kanye about running for president. If you're interested in listening for that aspect, I'll save you some time. After years in the music industry, Kanye realized the music industry screws over artists, which is now common knowledge. He's very passionate about making changes in the music industry, but you can't run a campaign off of wanting to help the select few musicians who blow up. If anything, Kanye should start his own record label or managing company for up and coming musicians. Like Trump, he also believes that since he's rich, he can figure out how to run a country. In fact, he says at multiple times in this episode that he just has this amazing ability to solve problems. Personally, these sounded like the rants of a man with a massive ego who needs to be humbled. But if you do believe that Kanye's bipolar diagnosis is legitimate, these sound like the grandiose thoughts of someone in a manic state. All right, everybody, thank you for checking out this quick little video essay. And yeah, my main thing is that obviously, like I always talk about on this channel is that we need to fact check people. We need to look into things. We need to challenge beliefs as well as our own beliefs. And we can't just nod in agreement. That's kind of what just frustrated me because Joe Rogan has such a massive platform and this is kind of out of character form. So I was expecting him to pressure Kanye a little bit and challenge Kanye a little bit. But he just sat back and just like Kanye take over the whole entire episode. So if you want to watch it, like go check it out. I'm not your dad. You can do whatever you want. But it's three hours long and like, yeah. But anyways, like I said, like mental illness, mental health, like I'm not a licensed professional, I'm just somebody who's had my own struggles and has worked in the industry and stuff like that. Personally, I do take medications and I've made a bajillion videos about my experience with medications and talking to doctors and everything like that. For me, a huge help has been therapy. If you're interested, there is always an affiliate link down below for better help online therapy. That's a therapy service that I personally use. So if you use that link, not only do you get affordable online therapy, but a little bit comes back to support the channel. So if you want to check it out, it's really simple to use. You can switch therapist very easily. And like I said, my therapist is dope, has helped me out a lot. I mean, anyways, if you did watch this episode, I would love to know your thoughts on it. I've seen mixed opinions, so I'm interested. So let me know down in the comments. All right, but anyways, that's all I got for this video. If you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. If you're new, make sure you subscribe and ring that notification bell. And a huge, huge thank you to everybody who supports the channel over on Patreon, as well as everybody who supports the channel by getting my books at therewirestall.com or the books that I recommend that I list down in the description. Those are affiliate links. So that helps out the channel too. You're all amazing. All right. Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time.