Jordan peterson

It’s a normal hot day in Los Angeles somewhere east of the 405 freeway. It’s also the day after Labor Day, so talk show host Dave Rubin, like most Americans, is back at work. For him, though, it was more than a long weekend. He’d been off the grid for 33 days straight, the whole of August and then some. No news, no phone, no nothing. So the first thing he says to me when I walk in the door is ‘Don’t tell me anything about current events! That’s part of the deal on the show today. The guest host is going to tell me what I’ve missed.

A common view is that the mainstream media loves censorship. Mainstream commentators smear people as bigots, mainstream social media platforms close their accounts and mainstream politicians applaud their efforts. Alternative tendencies like the 'Intellectual Dark Web' have emerged to oppose censorship. But is the alternative media free of its own censorious trends?One of the more memorable episodes of The Joe Rogan Experience involved the comedian cum commentator-cum-podcaster Mr Rogan sitting down with his friends, the comedian Bryan Callen and the UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub. Schaub had just come off a loss by technical knockout and expected to discuss the bout in a collegial fashion.

Readers can be forgiven – indeed, should bless the Lord – for not knowing ‘Tana Mongeau’ and ‘Fousey’ but on the strange alternative universe that is YouTube they have 3.7 million and 10 million subscribers respectively. Young people have flocked to hear their crazed, interminable ramblings about fashion, music and ‘drama’. This year, both decided to take their newfound fame into the outside world and hold festivals where they could meet and entertain their fans. Both of their events were catastrophic. Mongeau’s resulted in gigantic queues after she overlooked the elementary task of selling tickets according to the venues capacity. Ambulances were called after her fans suffered from dehydration in the summer heat.