by Tom Luongo, Tom Luongo:

In the end it took a self-proclaimed ‘meathead’ like Joe Rogan to give new meaning to the phrase “Star Wars.”

Because if there was ever a moment where someone with real star potential just went to war on our behalf, it is Joe Rogan signing a $100 million exclusive deal with Spotify.

Don’t take my word for it. Take Alex Jones’, Rogan’s good friend, who was given the media exclusive to break this story and explain to all of us why he took that deal.

The short answer is he’s going to war against Silicon Valley.

Because there comes a point when even a normie like Joe sees that things have gone way too far.

Rogan is an anomaly in podcasting, hell for that matter, all of media and gods bless him for it. Who else can get tens of millions of people to tune into him talking with someone for three hours?

CNN can’t get people to watch them for five minutes in airports for pity’s sake, now that airports all have wi-fi. In fact, I’ll bet you, before the Coronapocalypse, more people on a daily basis were consuming the Joe Rogan Experience in airports than CNN.

Rogan’s willingness to talk with and listen to anyone is his greatest asset. It is the key to his rise and his future success on Spotify, who desperately needs a big name to keep their business afloat.

Because in an age of endless spectacle and TV screens and websites crammed to the gills with graphics to distract you from the content, the simplicity of a conversation between two people who aren’t shouting at each other has become a welcome node of sanity.

For a long time we’ve been waiting for a big name to finally walk away from one of the big social media platforms for treating them and by proxy us like livestock.

Because the power platforms like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube wield comes from their dominance and the unwillingness for major influencers to leave them.

Now that we’ve had one finally do so, the game has changed completely. And remember, the Empire has been striking back at us for years berating us for having the temerity to elect Donald Trump president.

Joe Rogan has now told the entire country that he’s had enough. And we needed someone like Joe to do this.

That said, Rogan is only one half of the story, however. Because at the same time, one of these platforms needed to break away from the herd and welcome the dissenters.

For Spotify, Joe Rogan is the ‘killer app’ they needed to differentiate themselves as non-partisan and begin the exodus away from the big platforms who have become nothing but partisan.

I don’t know if the board at Spotify know what they’ve just unleashed but they better realize it quick. They’re Echo Base and the walkers will be landing real soon now.

For small to mid-sized creators who want to take a stand against censorship and blatant partisanship it’s a classic Catch-22. If they leave the dominant platform they are unlikely to take enough of their audience with them to make it worth their time.

On the other hand if they stay, they wind up shadow banned to ensure they never leave that ghetto. And if they do break out, then they will be deplatformed the minute they get too big.

Because they can’t fight back and no one with power will champion them. We seen this movie dozens of times.

Joe Rogan is too big to take down and doesn’t measure his self-worth by his followers.

Alex Jones was the first casualty in this war and almost no one stood up for him. Even Rogan clearly thought he could bargain with Silicon Valley by, effectively, working from the inside.

He didn’t want to believe, like so many normal people, that they were that evil and hellbent on maintaining certain people had control of politics. But what’s been clear to many of us for a long time now is now clear to him.

And that makes his move a giant wake up call to his millions of followers that it is not acceptable for YouTube or Twitter or Facebook to treat them the way they have.

Read More @ TomLuongo.me