Joe Rogan: If Elvis Had a Twitter Account

Do you read your Twitter? No. Me neither. Never. Because... Why toxic? Exactly. And what I read about people very often who've killed themselves. Oh, yeah, after reading the responses. Yeah, this is a big thing. How about this guy losing his fucking job for saying regard? Couldn't you just stop? Well, he got a job with the Saints. Did he? Oh, that was fine. Like he went... Well, he's a great football player. Which is a better team, yeah. Oh. But I mean, I asked some people who I know, like Barry Weiss, who's like brilliant person, and she's like, oh, it's like so depressing. It's like, don't read it. Oh, yeah, she came out here. That generation cannot stop reading even when it's going to kill them. I don't understand that. Well, it's very impulsive, right? You see your name and you see someone, what did they say? Oh, Barry, you're brilliant. Oh, thank you. And then you go a little further and you fucking don't cut. I died, you. Oh, Jesus Christ. And then there's a bunch of them liking that response and then a bunch of people piling on. Right. You got to realize this. First of all, they don't even know you're a real human. A lot of people have never met anyone famous. They are looking at... And a lot of them are 15. Like when I always say that if I had a Twitter account when I was 15, I would have said horrible shit to famous people just to get a rise. Right. Just to see if I can get them to react. It's not even things that they necessarily mean. They don't know you. But unless they meet you, they don't even really know you. But did people take it to heart so much that they killed themselves? You know what? A few of these K-pop stars have killed themselves. Really? Look that up. From the social media. Yes. I think so. I think that's the main reason. And these are pop stars. I can't imagine Bobby Sherman, you know, in 1968, reading his fan mail and going, Ah, this one hates me too! Elvis had a Twitter account. Hey man, what the fuck you give a shit? Priscilla's 14. We like each other, man. Yeah. Come on. What the fuck? I ain't a pervert. Yeah. Fuck. Well, maybe he could have used social media back then. That's it, right? That's the balance. Like you don't want Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his cousin and drowning his wives. And you also don't want Elvis fucking 14 year olds. Maybe it'd be better. Maybe a little bit. There's a balance to be achieved. I often wonder what my life would have been like as a teenager with this stuff, because maybe it would have made me kill myself. But I was painfully shy. Couldn't really talk to a girl. If I had been able to text them, I think I would have done... Maybe we could have said some clever shit. I... exactly. Right. I think I could have done really well with that. I would have had a lot of dick pictures floating around. A hundred percent. I would have sent it to everybody. Were you fucking dumb and young? You have no idea that's going to last forever. I thought that was a humble brag about his dick. No! No, it's a regular dick. But it was just any old dick. I'd send people other people's dicks. But I would just think that the whole idea about it... Because young boys love dick picking. They draw it and they... Yeah, they're crazy. Like, remember that scene in... What was the fucking movie? Superbad. That was one of my favorite scenes in a movie ever, where he's just drawing dicks in class all day? Yes, exactly. It's fucking hilarious. Yes, because it's so true. That's so true, yeah. Look, we got real lucky that we are not held up to the standards that kids are today. Because everything they do today that they put online, they're going to put a lot of things online. It's permanent forever. I couldn't imagine something that I said when I was 14 being permanent. And that points me back to this thing about this football player and things that people write on Twitter. It's something that Louis C.K. said to me recently. We were talking about this. He said, people look at stuff when it's written down like it's different. But it's just talk. It's talk, but it's written. Like, people say, she's a fucking bitch. I'm tired of her shit. And then you see her, you're like, oh, I'm sorry. Like, but that's talk, right? But when you see it written, it's like, oh, my god. Did you see what he put on Twitter? Did you see what he wrote? Like, you're talking to the whole world now. Right. And you got to realize this is a different thing. And then people get a screenshot of it. You can never take it back. You said it. We're going to keep it forever. We're going to archive it. Look, he said it. He said, she's a fucking bitch. And there's no just talk anymore. But we're wired for just talk. People are wired for gossip and nonsense talk, especially when you're drinking. But if you're drinking, then you get on Twitter. Oh, you could say the dumbest shit ever. You could tank your life. And people have. Yeah. Well, Justine Sako, that famous case. Yes. That was one of the first ones, the one who was on. As soon as she got off the flight. Her life was upside down. Right. She gets on a plane. I mean, it's almost comical, except for her. It's comical. She gets on a plane and tweets that something is funny. And then by the time the plane lands, her life's over. By the way, Family Guy did a hysterical version of that, where Brian, the dog, goes into the theater. He tweets something going into a theater, and it's semi-racist. But it's, and then by the time he comes out of the movie, his life is destroyed by the Twitter mob. There's literally a mob outside his house. We're not designed for permanence like that, to be able to just express yourself loosely. It's like, if you're going to write something in a book and publish that book, and you're going to carefully consider every word, and then you put that book out and you go, okay, we've gone over it, we've read it. That's a different thing than, fuck this guy.