Rogan's Boomer Ramboism Can't Compete with Greta's Balls of Steel
While real bodies pile up in Gaza, these self-styled warriors of truth retreat into the comfortable cowardice of punching down, mistaking cruelty for strength and apathy for manhood.
While Greta Thunberg and her companions brave dangerous waters on a small sailboat to confront one of history's most immoral armies, backed by history’s most depraved empire, Joe Rogan lounges in his climate-controlled studio, flexing his podcast muscles and cracking jokes about their potential demise. The self-styled champion of challenging conversations, the UFC commentator who celebrates ‘raw masculinity' and physical courage, the man worth hundreds of millions can't summon even a fraction of the moral courage displayed by this 22-year-old woman sailing into the jaws of a genocidal monster.
There is something profoundly revealing about watching middle-aged men with enormous platforms mock a 22-year-old woman risking her life to deliver humanitarian aid to besieged Palestinians. In a recent podcast episode, Joe Rogan and his equally vapid guests snickered and joked about Greta Thunberg's participation in the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, speculating that "the IDF guys are going to turn her into cat food" and that they will "light her up from the shore before she's even close."
This is what passes for discourse from America's most listened-to podcaster—a man who has built his brand on supposedly challenging orthodoxy and asking tough questions. Yet when confronted with genuine courage, with the raw moral clarity of someone willing to put their body on the line to challenge a genocide, Rogan and his cohort can only muster schoolyard taunts between puffs of their cigars.
Rogan’s Boomer Ramboism Versus Greta’s Balls of Steel
Let us be clear about what is happening: Thunberg is currently aboard a 60-foot sailboat attempting to break Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza to deliver food, medicine, and basic supplies to a population being systematically starved and bombed. She does this fully aware that in 2010, Israeli forces executed peace activists aboard the Turkish Mavi Marmara flotilla, shooting them at point-blank range—something the supposedly 'manly' “Ottoman Erdogan” never meaningfully confronted despite his bombastic rhetoric. She does this knowing Israel recently bombed another aid vessel with drones in international waters. She does this understanding the full weight of state violence that could be brought against her.
And what does Rogan do? He mocks her from the safety of his $100 million studio, displaying a breathtaking ignorance about the very situation he finds so amusing. Better yet, he frames Palestinians as if they were violent tribesmen who would attack Christians on sight—apparently unaware that Gaza is the cradle of Christianity that has lived in harmony with Muslims for centuries. In other words, Bruv, projection much? It is Western Christianity—and Western Judaism—that turned “Middle-Eastern” religions into racial supremacist murder cults.
His guest, sporting a ridiculous hat and an even more ridiculous understanding of the region, compared visiting Palestine to missionaries approaching hostile uncontacted tribes.
I call this Boomer Ramboism—that insufferable boomer uncle who revels in ignorant 'masculine' humor while having never confronted genuine danger beyond the old bar brawl. Worse yet, he thinks that his history of drunken bar fights makes him really manly and more courageous than anyone who would sail into the teeth of one of history's most mentally and sexually depraved military forces to deliver bread and medicine to the starving.
“They know that for all their muscles, their stinky farts, their wealth, their platforms, their posturing, and their smelly armpits, they lack the fundamental moral courage to stand for something when it might cost them”
Stupidity is Rewarding, Morals are Deadly
This performance of ignorance-as-virtue represents everything toxic about American discourse. These men, who have built careers posturing as truth-tellers, reveal themselves as incapable of even the most basic research before broadcasting dangerous misinformation to millions. They sit in their studio, flexing their UFC-adjacent masculinity, while a young woman demonstrates what actual balls of steel are.
The contrast is stark. While Rogan and friends treat genocide as a punchline, Thunberg articulates the moral imperative with stark clarity: "Not saying anything in times of injustice, when we are facing genocide, to be silent is by far a bigger risk than getting on this mission." She understands what these supposedly worldly men do not—that remaining silent in the face of atrocity is its own form of complicity and worse yet, will normalize what we see in Palestine to the rest of us.
The danger is not merely philosophical—as Gaza becomes the laboratory for weaponized starvation, for deliberate medical collapse, for the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, for torture, rape and mass murder, these tactics will inevitably spread beyond its borders. This is what Thunberg grasps instinctively—that the rope that strangles Gaza today will form the noose for other populations tomorrow.
What terrifies men like Rogan about figures like Thunberg is not her climate activism or her youth or even her tactics—it's her moral certainty. It's the way she cuts through the fog of equivocation and bothsidesism that media personalities hide behind. Thunberg's willingness to risk everything for her principles makes their performative rebelliousness look hollow. While Rogan mocks Palestinians as backward "tribesmen" and dismisses Thunberg's action as a naive publicity stunt, she demonstrates at just 22 years old what he has failed to grasp in five decades of life: the fundamental recognition of our shared humanity with the people of Palestine.
She doesn't just theorize about human rights or pontificate about injustice between commercial breaks—she places her physical body between the oppressed and their oppressors. This radical act of solidarity exposes the profound emptiness at the core of Rogan's brand of pseudo-intellectual machismo, revealing it as nothing more than profitable cowardice dressed in the language of free thought.
“This grotesque pantomime of toughness—all swagger and cigar smoke, all tactical gear and hunting stories—reveals itself as fundamentally hollow when confronted with actual courage”
Roided-Up Cowards
For all his supposed anti-establishment credentials, Rogan only recently "discovered" the Palestinian genocide after 18 months of Israeli bombardment. Even then, his engagement has been tepid and inconsistent, careful not to draw too much fire from the powers that be. Meanwhile, Thunberg has been on the frontlines for a year and a half, getting arrested, facing cancellation and smears, and now literally sailing into danger.
This is why they mock her. Because in their hearts, these men recognize what true courage looks like, and they know they don't possess it. They know that for all their muscles, their stinky farts, their wealth, their platforms, their posturing, and their smelly armpits, they lack the fundamental moral courage to stand for something when it might cost them.
So they sit in their studio, making juvenile jokes about a humanitarian convoy, while the death toll in Gaza possibly hovers around half a million by now. They demonstrate the emptiness at the core of American media culture—the valorization of John Wayne-esque faux-masculine bravado over genuine moral conviction. This grotesque pantomime of toughness—all swagger and cigar smoke, all tactical gear, shotguns and hunting stories—reveals itself as fundamentally hollow when confronted with actual courage.
Their posturing masculinity, divorced from any meaningful ethic of protection or justice, serves only to mask their subservience to power. While real bodies pile up in Gaza—children crushed under rubble, mothers starving to protect their babies, doctors operating by phone light—these self-styled warriors of truth retreat into the comfortable cowardice of punching down, mistaking cruelty for strength and apathy for wisdom.
When the history of this genocide is written, it will record that while governments armed the killers and media personalities joked about the resisters, a 22-year-old woman and her comrades sailed directly into the heart of darkness, carrying food and medicine and hope. That is what courage looks like. That is what principles look like.
- Karim
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