Netflix has been royally criticised by viewers after releasing the trailer for a controversial new comedy show.
The streaming giant has announced that Joe Rogan will front Burn The Boats, a live stand-up special which is the divisive comedian’s first show on the platform in six years.
Airing on August 3 at 7pm PT/10pm ET (3am UK time), the show succeeds 2016’s Joe Rogan: Triggered and 2018’s Joe Rogan: Strange Times.
However, many have made it clear they won’t be tuning in, slamming Netflix for ‘giving the worst people a platform’.
In the 30-second trailer, Rogan, 56, begins to a rowdy crowd: ‘Don’t get mad at me, you know why you came here.’
‘Feel that?’, he says as the crowd erupts. ‘That’s some ride-home arguments in the air.’
‘Jokes, folks. Just jokes,’ he’s then heard saying.
The trailer concludes with the bold statement: ‘There’s no coming back from this,’ insinuating the show’s content is set to ruffle feathers.
Reacting to the trailer’s release on social media, X users were quick to express their fury.
Dragon_King1973 wrote: ‘Don’t really want to watch anything with a pseudoscience platforming idiot who also spreads general bigotry’.
SimonJadis described the project as ‘disgusting’, while Bittersweet888 declared: ‘Oh, heck no.’
Chef_Loxworthy exclaimed that Rogan’s stand-up is ‘pure trash’ and Bionix01 added: ‘Joe Rogan has never been funny. I get why his podcast is successful but the comedy career has never made sense to me.’
‘I am not at all surprised by Netflix continuing to give the absolutely worst people a platform’, wrote a frustrated user named indel.
Rogan’s special joins a string of Netflix live comedy events, as well as Chris Rock’s 2023 special Selective Outrage’ and 2024’s The Roast of Tom Brady and John Mulaney Presents: Everybody’s in LA.
The American star has long been at the centre of controversy online with his podcast, which has released more than 2,200 episodes, previously criticised for spreading misinformation about Covid-19.
In 2022, several high-profile musicians – such as Neil Young and Joni Mitchell – pulled their songs from Spotify, where Rogan’s pod is platformed, in a boycott against his anti-vax rhetoric.
This promoted Rogan to deny intentionally spreading misinformation as he vowed ‘to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people’s perspectives’, agreeing with a disclaimer being placed at the beginning of his videos.
Streaming service Spotify also removed a number of episodes from the Joe Rogan Experience, which launched in 2009, after he was found to have used racial slurs in recordings.
Amid the controversy, Indie.Arie shared resurfaced footage to social media of Rogan using the N-word.
At the time, Arie explained that she finds Rogan ‘problematic for reasons other than his Covid interviews,’ criticising ‘his language around race.’
In response, Rogan took to Instagram with a video, describing his comments as ‘the most regretful and shameful thing that [he’s] ever had to talk about publicly’.
However, he argued that they were ‘taken out of context’.
‘I never used it to be racist because I’m not racist,’ he stated.
Other problematic comments from Rogan include those made as recently as February 2024, when he invoked the views of AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg, saying he thought that party drugs were ‘a very important factor in AIDS’.
Reacting, The American Foundation for AIDS Research criticised the podcaster for ‘disseminating false information’.
Rogan has also been an outspoken critic of transgender women competing in women’s sports, while also criticising ‘cancel culture’ for suppressing those who hold right-win views in the media.
Joe Rogan: Burn The Boats airs on Netflix on August 3.
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