Joe Rogan explains why he feels somewhat responsible for Ari Shaffir's Kobe Bryant joke.
Joe Rogan hosts one of the most successful podcasts on the market, inviting a list of insightful and entertaining guests to his table to speak on some of the most pressing issues in pop culture, sports, and more. The comedian has a great handle on what people want to hear, integrating hot topics into his conversations and offering thought-provoking takes on the situation. The world of comedy was shook last week when Ari Shaffir made a , celebrating his passing in a video that he has since apologized for. It was all part of Shaffir's regular shtick. The comedian often tears apart celebrities who have recently passed away but, this time, he crossed a line. Joe Rogan and his guest Jim Norton spoke about Shaffir, who is Rogan's friend, and discussed the comments that were made on the new episode of JRE.
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Beginning their talk about , Joe Rogan says that he needs to find a word better than "dumb" to describe the comedian's actions. "It was so stupid, but it's also what you said earlier, that you gotta keep ramping it up. When you do outrageous things to get people to be like "oh, look at Jimmy, he's crazy," you get caught in a trap and you keep doing it more and more outrageous," said Joe. "With Ari, he's always done this thing where, when people die, he would make the meanest comment [...] but he just did it for shock value. You gotta keep upping that every time."
Admitting that he doesn't know how Shaffir will bounce back from this misstep, Rogan noted that he thinks it's kind of a good thing this happened to him. He explains, "He needed to know that there are consequences for just saying ridiculous shit that you're not supposed to say when people die."
Joe Rogan even admitted that he feels the slightest bit responsible for Ari's actions, noting that he convinced him to get an iPhone to stay connected to his fans on social media, now realizing that Shaffir should have stuck to a flip phone or a social media manager.
Watch their discussion below, beginning at the 42-minute mark.