Joe Rogan Experience #1710 - Cullen Hoback

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast,…

   1. CHCullen Hoback0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night! All day! (instrumental music plays) What's up, man? How are you?

   3. CHCullen Hoback0:14

      Uh, I'm good.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      (laughs)

   5. CHCullen Hoback0:16

      I'm good. You know, it's- it's, uh, it's ex- it's really exciting to be here. I- I... There was this... Right before we got rolling, I was mentioning, you know, I- I d- I tweeted back in April, uh, "Would love to, would love to, uh, go on Joe Rogan's podcast at some point."

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:29

      Is that when the documentary series came out, in April?

   7. CHCullen Hoback0:32

      Y- yeah. So it, it, it premiered in March, like end of March.

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:35

      Oh.

   9. CHCullen Hoback0:36

      And then it was rolled out in, uh, two-episode-per-weekend installments. So it took three weeks for the whole, the whole thing to, to, you know, release. And, uh, it was actually really exciting because it was y- you had the audience reacting in, in real time.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:53

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CHCullen Hoback0:53

       You know, there, there'd be a week to see, okay, well, how, you know, how is the Q-munity receiving this, you know? How is the-

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       Did you say-

   13. CHCullen Hoback0:58

       ... mainstream media?

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:58

       ... "the Q-munity"?

   15. CHCullen Hoback0:59

       The Q-munity, yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00

       You really said that?

   17. CHCullen Hoback1:01

       Yeah, yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:01

       Is that what they call themselves?

   19. CHCullen Hoback1:02

       I mean, I have so much of this-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       (laughs)

   21. CHCullen Hoback1:03

       ... like lexicon now that I can't, that I can't avoid. It's just-

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:06

       Uh, it was funny.

   23. CHCullen Hoback1:07

       You know, I say it at the beginning of the series.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:08

       Yeah.

   25. CHCullen Hoback1:08

       Like, it seeps into your thoughts. It really does, you know?

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:10

       Right. Clinton, body count, right? Like you-

   27. CHCullen Hoback1:12

       Clinton, body count, 17.

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:13

       Yeah.

   29. CHCullen Hoback1:14

       Can't, can't say that without thinking Q.

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:16

       Right, right.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Do you think that…

   1. CHCullen Hoback15:00

      to the privacy issues, and I actually think if we had not let privacy be eroded online, we wouldn't even be having this debate. You know? Because if, if these gigantic companies hadn't collected thousands of data points on us, you know, didn't know our fears, our desires, um, if they hadn't built these psychometric profiles, they wouldn't have been able to manipulate us, use these algorithms to drive us into echo chambers, which have really created these disparate realities, and now these disparate realities can't agree necessarily on a set of facts. Um, sometimes you c- you're, you're considered, um, you know, sometimes people will be ostracized for even to talking to somebody from the, quote, unquote, "other side," right? Um, and, and so now there's this conversation about what should be allowed to be said online, uh, and I think that that's simply a byproduct of, of, um, you know, our privacy having been eroded. So, you know, if I was to do anything about these issues, I would start by restoring rights. I would go back and say, "All right, well how do we get," (laughs) you know, "how do we get, um, ownership and privacy rights, um, online when it comes to our, our personal data? Let's start there before we, we start, you know, going after the speech itself."

   2. JRJoe Rogan16:19

      Do you think that the algorithms are designed to do this, or do you think that it's just a function of human nature that we tend to gravitate towards things that outrage us and then huddle up together in echo chambers, that this is just a natural tribal behavior, and that what the algorithms do is essentially just highlight what we're really interested in?

   3. CHCullen Hoback16:46

      They magnify it in a feedback loop, right? So you're right to say that humans do have these traits. Um, you know, and I- I haven't designed the algorithms, but I've also talked to people who have, and, you know, a lot of it, they don't even understand how they work at a certain point. Like, they're off to the races.

   4. JRJoe Rogan17:03

      Have you seen The Social Dilemma?

   5. CHCullen Hoback17:05

      Yeah. Yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan17:06

      What, what'd you think about that?

   7. CHCullen Hoback17:07

      It's great. It's great.

   8. JRJoe Rogan17:08

      Amazing, right?

   9. CHCullen Hoback17:08

      Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I-

   10. JRJoe Rogan17:10

       Scary too-

   11. CHCullen Hoback17:12

       Uh-

   12. JRJoe Rogan17:12

       ... the conclusions that they draw.

   13. CHCullen Hoback17:14

       Oh, certainly. I mean, I ... Yeah, I made a film about eight years ago called Terms and Conditions May Apply, you know, and that, that came out right before the Edward Snowden revelations, you know, and when it (laughs) came out, pe- uh, the initial response was like, "Oh, this is maybe conspiratorial. Surely the government doesn't have this much insight into our behavior and, and, you know, and access to, um, to our devices and our personal information," and then the Snowden revelations came out, and then it was like, "Oh, well, maybe the series didn't go far enough." (laughs)

   14. JRJoe Rogan17:49

       (laughs)

   15. CHCullen Hoback17:49

       Um-

   16. JRJoe Rogan17:49

       Yeah.

   17. CHCullen Hoback17:49

       ... you know, and I, uh ... And, and back then, we had talked about the idea of how, how is technology influencing us? How is it changing us, manipulating us? And it didn't feel like that was the biggest story at the time. And this question of privacy and how our rights were being eroded through these agreements that nobody ever really reads, and you could find all, all kinds of, uh, juicy tidbits, uh, hidden in there in terms of what the companies were actually doing and kind of revealing this unholy collusion between the government and, and, and big tech. Um, you know, but, uh, it w- at the time people would often say, "Well, what's the cost?" You know, "What's the big deal if they're mining my personal data to serve me with ads?"

   18. JRJoe Rogan18:33

       Yeah.

   19. CHCullen Hoback18:33

       And I'd say that, "The environment we find ourselves in now is the cost."

   20. JRJoe Rogan18:39

       Do you do anything to personally protect your data? Do you, like, use DuckDuckGo for searches-

   21. CHCullen Hoback18:45

       (laughs)

   22. JRJoe Rogan18:46

       ... and thi- things along those lines? You have Brave as a browser. Like, do you do that stuff?

   23. CHCullen Hoback18:49

       All that, yeah.

   24. JRJoe Rogan18:50

       Yeah?

   25. CHCullen Hoback18:50

       Yeah. Use Signal.

   26. JRJoe Rogan18:51

       VPNs?

   27. CHCullen Hoback18:52

       Mm-hmm.

   28. JRJoe Rogan18:53

       Yeah.

   29. CHCullen Hoback18:53

       VPNs. I mean, I, I do my best, you know, to... If a government actor really wants to get at you, they're gonna be able to.

   30. JRJoe Rogan19:00

       Yeah.
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. …

   1. CHCullen Hoback30:00

      behind it. Um, and it would not be until the last year in the approach to the election that Flynn would openly embrace it, doing what I think you were describing where he, you know, raised his hand with his family-

   2. JRJoe Rogan30:11

      Yeah.

   3. CHCullen Hoback30:11

      ... on the 4th of July and they all take the, the Q oath. (laughs)

   4. JRJoe Rogan30:16

      Whoa. Yeah, that was wild to see an actual general do that.

   5. CHCullen Hoback30:22

      And then you saw all of the QAnons doing the same thing, so then they went on YouTube and started taking, you know-

   6. JRJoe Rogan30:28

      Yeah.

   7. CHCullen Hoback30:28

      ... taking the same kind of oath. You saw how, you saw how much power he had really generated vis-a-vis QAnon. What's even more wild though is that in Japan there is a huge-... crowd that supports Flynn there. So there's, like, Q Army Flynn Japan. And there's over-

   8. JRJoe Rogan30:51

      No.

   9. CHCullen Hoback30:51

      ... like, 100,000 people in Japan who are, like, giant Flynn supporters. There's a, like a, it's almost like a religious offshoot, uh, in Japan. There's sort of two different, two different big primary segments there of QAnon. Uh, but one of the biggest ones, um, is, is really centered around, centered around Flynn. Um, and, uh, that, that's always shocked me. I mean, imagine if there was, like, a general in Japan who had a big following in the States (laughs) .

   10. JRJoe Rogan31:18

       Yeah, right?

   11. CHCullen Hoback31:18

       They, he managed to do that through 4chan or 8chan or 8kun or whatever.

   12. JRJoe Rogan31:22

       Well, that was another aspect that I thought was odd is that how people in other countries, like the guy from South Africa, are so into American politics.

   13. CHCullen Hoback31:31

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan31:31

       Like, he ... I, I ... It's hard to try to get their perspective. Like, I would, I would imagine that it's just very different being there and looking at us. Like, I think America is such a bizarre anomaly in that-

   15. CHCullen Hoback31:46

       But America has so much influence on-

   16. JRJoe Rogan31:48

       Yes.

   17. CHCullen Hoback31:48

       ... world policy that if you wanna influence world policy, you influence America.

   18. JRJoe Rogan31:53

       But it's so ... I mean, it is really unusual that we don't ... We barely know who the fuck the Prime Minister of Canada is.

   19. CHCullen Hoback32:02

       (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan32:02

       You know? Right? We know very little about-

   21. CHCullen Hoback32:04

       Yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan32:04

       ... Canadian politics.

   23. CHCullen Hoback32:05

       Yeah, that's true.

   24. JRJoe Rogan32:06

       We know Trudeau, right? Handsome guy, see him on TV, a lot of Canadians hate him. That's what we know.

   25. CHCullen Hoback32:11

       (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan32:11

       You know? I mean, we, we really don't know anything about all the other people. We knew about that guy ... What was his name? The, the one who was the mayor of Toronto who was out as fu- ... Ford.

   27. CHCullen Hoback32:21

       Oh, gosh.

   28. JRJoe Rogan32:21

       Remember that guy?

   29. CHCullen Hoback32:22

       I, I do remember him.

   30. JRJoe Rogan32:23

       He was doing coke and-
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   So- …

   1. CHCullen Hoback45:00

      So-

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:00

      ... style of communication.

   3. CHCullen Hoback45:01

      Yeah, yeah. I mean, so the two points there. So, eh, when we get to the end, we can go into all the reasons that Ron is Q. Um, but if we're just talking about the early days, because I get a lot of people asking me, "Okay, well, who was the original Q?" Um, what you were, what you were describing, uh, that style shift, that's a huge indicator, A, that there was only one person writing at one point and then another person writing at the next, and B, it tells us when the shift might have happened. So, you know, that shift that's most detectable is somewhere between the jump from 4Chan to 8Chan and th- the mo- a little bit after when Paul loses control of the board and believes that Q has become fake.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:45

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CHCullen Hoback45:45

      Um, and, uh, and that's... You know, Q starts posting really, you know, obvious doctored photos. There's, um, you know, punctuation changes. You know, you can see that it's someone who's trying to emulate.

   6. JRJoe Rogan46:01

      Punctuation changes?

   7. CHCullen Hoback46:03

      Yeah, like way more exclamation marks, you know?

   8. JRJoe Rogan46:05

      Mm-hmm.

   9. CHCullen Hoback46:05

      (laughs) Like, just... A- and stuff. Eh, to be clear, it's this kind of punctuation I've seen Ron use on his Telegram feed-

   10. JRJoe Rogan46:12

       Hmm.

   11. CHCullen Hoback46:13

       ... ex- extensively since, since, uh, you know-

   12. JRJoe Rogan46:16

       Uh-huh.

   13. CHCullen Hoback46:16

       ... he was booted from-

   14. JRJoe Rogan46:17

       Is-

   15. CHCullen Hoback46:17

       ... Twitter in January.

   16. JRJoe Rogan46:18

       Is he leaning into it?

   17. CHCullen Hoback46:21

       Wha- Well, so I... After the series concluded, you know, Ron, Ron messaged me, um, and that was the first time he had seen it. He was watching it alongside everybody else, and he messaged me and he said, "Cullen, you know, I identify more with villains." Um, he said something to the effect of, um, "I learned a long time ago that you have to make internet personalities larger than life because it makes for a more entertaining existence. Um, I'm not Q, but I may as well lean into it." So he's alwa- He has to ke- continue to deny Q, being Q, I think, um, in his mind for whatever liability might come with that. You know, he's, he's always... He has... It's like he comes as close to admitting it without, without, you know-

   18. JRJoe Rogan47:14

       Yeah, there's that moment-

   19. CHCullen Hoback47:15

       ... fully, you know, without, without getting rid of the plausible deniability. Um, just... And I think he also assumes that all of our communications are being monitored. (laughs)

   20. JRJoe Rogan47:25

       Right.

   21. CHCullen Hoback47:25

       So, uh, which they probably are, but-

   22. JRJoe Rogan47:27

       I'm sure they are.

   23. CHCullen Hoback47:28

       Um- (laughs)

   24. JRJoe Rogan47:29

       100%. There's that moment where y- you, you're both laughing, or he's laughing, where he talks about that, that he's been doing this 10 years anonymously, but, but he's not Q.

   25. CHCullen Hoback47:42

       Yeah.

   26. JRJoe Rogan47:43

       And then, and then you laugh and then he laughs.

   27. CHCullen Hoback47:45

       But he breaks first.

   28. JRJoe Rogan47:46

       Right. That's right.

   29. CHCullen Hoback47:46

       That's... And which is a huge tell as well.

   30. JRJoe Rogan47:48

       Yeah.
5. 1:00:00 – 1:15:00

   That's stunning. …

   1. CHCullen Hoback1:00:00

      him ... Yeah. You can, you can see that Ron was, was openly, was openly advising them on, on what to do in relationship to the election. He has been-

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:08

      That's stunning.

   3. CHCullen Hoback1:00:09

      ... an advisor ever since.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:00:10

      Still?

   5. CHCullen Hoback1:00:10

      It blew my mind.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:00:11

      Still right now?

   7. CHCullen Hoback1:00:12

      Yeah. He's like ... I mean, he was deeply involved with all the stuff with Lindell. You know, he was, he was-

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:00:17

      Lindell?

   9. CHCullen Hoback1:00:18

      Um, Mike Lindell.

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:00:20

       What is-

   11. CHCullen Hoback1:00:20

       You know, the whole symposium, the-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:00:22

       iPillow guy?

   13. CHCullen Hoback1:00:22

       Yeah, like the... iPillow guy. Yeah, MyPillow.

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:00:24

       Oh, oh, the MyPillow guy.

   15. CHCullen Hoback1:00:25

       MyPillow.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:00:25

       That guy. I, I shut that guy off as soon as I hear him talking.

   17. CHCullen Hoback1:00:29

       (laughs)

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:00:29

       (laughs) I don't ... (laughs)

   19. CHCullen Hoback1:00:29

       You know, um, the, the audit, uh-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:00:32

       (clears throat) Yeah.

   21. CHCullen Hoback1:00:32

       ... the audit in Arizona. Ron's been advising on that.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:00:35

       Really?

   23. CHCullen Hoback1:00:36

       Yeah. Yeah. He's been really-

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:00:37

       But did they watch your documentary?

   25. CHCullen Hoback1:00:39

       (laughs) I don't know. I don't know if they saw it.

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:00:40

       If they watch your documentary, wouldn't they go like, "Hey, hey, what the fuck are we doing? Who are we talking to here?"

   27. CHCullen Hoback1:00:45

       Yeah, I mean, I don't, uh-

   28. JRJoe Rogan1:00:47

       It's wild.

   29. CHCullen Hoback1:00:47

       I'm not, I'm not sure they all, I'm not sure they all saw it. Uh-

   30. JRJoe Rogan1:00:50

       But that's wild.
6. 1:15:00 – 1:17:24

   Oh. …

   1. CHCullen Hoback1:15:00

      the chans. Um, but it was still fairly contained. It was fairly contained up until like late December of 2017 when these characters, Tracy Beans, Paul Furber, and Coleman Rogers, and I believe it was Tracy's idea, say, "Let's, let's, uh, start a board on Reddit that's devoted to QAnon."

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:15:22

      Oh.

   3. CHCullen Hoback1:15:22

      "That's gonna reach, that's gonna reach, you know, a much wider audience." Um, and, and it certainly did.

   4. JRJoe Rogan1:15:28

      So that's 2017?

   5. CHCullen Hoback1:15:29

      2017, yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan1:15:29

      So Reddit is where it branches out?

   7. CHCullen Hoback1:15:31

      Reddit branches out, and then it also branches out when they go on The Alex Jones Show.

   8. JRJoe Rogan1:15:36

      (clears throat)

   9. CHCullen Hoback1:15:36

      And that becomes a, a big, a big boom. Um-

   10. JRJoe Rogan1:15:39

       So then it becomes fun?

   11. CHCullen Hoback1:15:40

       Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's when-

   12. JRJoe Rogan1:15:42

       And then-

   13. CHCullen Hoback1:15:42

       That's when people, that's when the excitement kind of kicks up. But you had a lot of the Anons who were pissed off that they had gone on Alex Jones, that they were going mainstream. Um, they didn't, they didn't like-

   14. JRJoe Rogan1:15:51

       They wanted everybody to stay anonymous.

   15. CHCullen Hoback1:15:53

       And they didn't like the celebrity status of it. Yeah.

   16. JRJoe Rogan1:15:55

       That's fascinating.

   17. CHCullen Hoback1:15:56

       In fact ... Oh. Here's the-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:15:57

       Fascinating part of the culture, right?

   19. CHCullen Hoback1:15:59

       So here's a, yeah, really fascinating, and you can see it even in Q's mentality, um, towards Tracy, because he ... Okay, so this is, this is great. I had talked with, um, I talked with all of the board owners for, for Q. So everybody who had ever, um, been in charge of the like craziest thing on the internet that's QAnon, right? Like, um, where Q had been posting on their board. Um, I asked them all like, "Okay, well, did Q ever communicate with you?" Right? "Did Q ever, you know, send you messages?" And they said, "Well, not like direct messages. But Q, because of that IP address, would sometimes post anonymously openly on the boards so that only the board owner or the moderators would know it was Q." So it was a way of communicating with those who were running the boards without the entire public knowing it. And so they would be able to just go, "Okay, same IP, bring it up." And there was one inc- and they didn't, Q didn't do this very often, very, very rarely. Um, but one of the board owners was like, "There's a really unbelievable moment." Like I, my jaw just dropped that Q was, Q was saying this stuff. You know, and, and I was on this call with like a couple of other, um, you know, um, uh, folks who were, who were, uh, big into Q at the time. I think like ... Anyway, um, they were all like, "Wait, what, what is it? What is it?" Um, I think we have the, it's like secret Q drop. Um, but-

Episode duration: 2:49:07