Joe Rogan Experience #1922 - Sam & Colby
Joe Rogan (host), Narrator, Joe Rogan (host), Sam Golbach (guest), Colby Brock (guest), Colby Brock (guest)
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Joe Rogan and Narrator, Joe Rogan Experience #1922 - Sam & Colby explores ghost-Hunting YouTubers Share Hauntings, Near-Deaths, And Viral Stardom Journey Joe Rogan interviews YouTubers Sam and Colby about their evolution from shy Kansas band kids and Vine pranksters to massively popular paranormal investigators. They describe dangerous early stunts, getting arrested for trespassing, and the viral boost that pushed them fully into haunted content. The conversation dives into their most disturbing ghost encounters, the psychology and tech of ghost hunting, and philosophical questions about belief, trauma, and the afterlife. Throughout, they balance skepticism with openness, framing their work as both entertainment and a search for evidence that something exists beyond death.
Ghost-Hunting YouTubers Share Hauntings, Near-Deaths, And Viral Stardom Journey
Joe Rogan interviews YouTubers Sam and Colby about their evolution from shy Kansas band kids and Vine pranksters to massively popular paranormal investigators. They describe dangerous early stunts, getting arrested for trespassing, and the viral boost that pushed them fully into haunted content. The conversation dives into their most disturbing ghost encounters, the psychology and tech of ghost hunting, and philosophical questions about belief, trauma, and the afterlife. Throughout, they balance skepticism with openness, framing their work as both entertainment and a search for evidence that something exists beyond death.
Key Takeaways
Deliberate exposure to social discomfort can rapidly build confidence.
As painfully shy teens, Sam and Colby ran a year-long ‘social boot camp’ at a mall—daring each other to do embarrassing tasks instead of avoiding fear. ...
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Risky, illegal stunts can create viral moments—but also serious consequences.
Their abandoned-building explorations, trespassing, and a felony arrest in Florida (plus a night in jail) generated massive attention and a #FreeSamAndColby trend, but also forced a permanent shift away from illegal exploring. ...
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One powerful unexplained event can radically shift a skeptic’s worldview.
A night in the Queen Mary’s B340 room—complete with an unprompted faucet blast and a 35‑minute ‘knock’ conversation captured on audio—pushed Sam from near-atheism about the paranormal toward believing “something else” might exist, re-opening deep questions about the afterlife and spirituality.
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Haunted locations often overlap with extreme human trauma, amplifying their impact.
Sites like the Villisca Axe Murder House, Waverly Hills sanatorium, and the Conjuring House sit on histories of mass death, war, or horrific killings. ...
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Ghost hunting blends psychology, suggestion, and tech in ways that complicate ‘evidence.’
They use EMF meters, REM pods, cat toys, and the Estes Method to remove senses and seek responses synced to questions. ...
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Intentional focus and belief may help “create” phenomena in high‑lore locations.
They reference the concept of an egregore—the idea that enough people believing in a story can manifest something real. ...
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Virality is fragile; durable careers require reinvention and business thinking.
Sam and Colby highlight losing Vine overnight, grinding in L. ...
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Notable Quotes
“We’re just two kids from Kansas with a camera, trying to make cool videos.”
— Sam & Colby (paraphrased in their own words)
“If I levitate tomorrow, that’s it. I don’t have to do it again because I would believe.”
— Colby Brock
“That experience opened up this whole world… maybe I don’t immediately believe 100%, but the question of if there is something else out there is now back in my brain.”
— Sam Golbach (about the Queen Mary incident)
“It’s weird enough that we’re here. The idea that there’s ghosts is somehow weirder. Just human life is fucking bizarre.”
— Joe Rogan
“The problem with failure is a lot of times people let it define them… you start thinking of yourself as a person who fails.”
— Joe Rogan
Questions Answered in This Episode
To what extent are Sam and Colby’s paranormal experiences shaped by prior knowledge, fear, and group dynamics versus external phenomena?
Joe Rogan interviews YouTubers Sam and Colby about their evolution from shy Kansas band kids and Vine pranksters to massively popular paranormal investigators. ...
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If places or objects can retain ‘trauma’ or energy, how might that change the way we think about crime scenes, battlefields, or historic homes we casually visit?
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How should creators ethically balance entertainment, personal risk, and respect for real victims when filming in locations tied to horrific deaths?
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Could repeated ghost hunting open investigators up to long-term psychological or spiritual consequences, even if they never encounter clear-cut ‘evidence’?
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In an era where virality can be accidental and fleeting, what practical strategies from Sam and Colby’s journey are most replicable for young creators—and which depend on luck?
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Transcript Preview
(drumming music) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.
The Joe Rogan Experience.
Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (rock music) How'd you break your back?
So (laughs) we were just doing some stupid TikTok stuff during the pandemic, and we were all challenging each other to do, like, stupid stuff. And for some reason, I thought it was a great idea to try to jump off of a second story balcony onto a beanbag. But I missed-
Whoa.
... I missed the beanbag.
Missed the beanbag completely.
(inhales) Yeah.
Oh, no.
Yeah. So-
And you broke your back?
Yeah. Uh, I was, you know... I did it a couple times the previous week, and I was like, "Oh, I got this. This is gonna be fine." And then I missed the, the beanbag, and so, you know, I, I think I only fractured a couple bones there.
(laughs) Only a couple.
But that, you definitely took me out for a while.
That's a real problem though.
Yeah.
Is this your, your-
Oh, jeez. That's definitely not it.
Oh, please God.
We got it. Oh.
It's, it's, it's-
(laughs)
... gruesome if you actually see it.
Oh, my God.
So what did you, did you have to get-
Oh.
Oh.
Jesus.
All right, well-
God.
So did you have to get surgery?
Um, I didn't have to get surgery, but I was in a back brace for like six months.
Whoa.
So that was really bad. Had to do a lot-
Do you ever wonder that, like, you guys are in all these fucking haunted places.
Mm-hmm.
Do you ever wonder if you're carrying any of that shit around with you?
(laughs) Well, uh, definitely. But what's crazy is a lot of people think-
(laughs)
... that, uh, the sign of something being with you is, like, back pain. But now that I've broken my back, I'm like, "I can't, I can't make that connection right there."
That's real back pain.
That's real back pain, not haunted back pain.
Yeah, not like... Well, there's back pain where people just like, their psychosomatic back pain. Like, there's a guy named John S- wasn't it John Sarnos? Is that his name? No.
He, he had this weird theory about back pain that applied to some people, not people with actual real injuries, but some people, that it's all in your head.
Huh.
That it's people that are, like, like, deeply stressed out and fucked up and it manifests itself as back pain. And somehow or another, through his teaching, a lot of people, including Howard Stern. Didn't Howard Stern have a thing with his back- I don't know. ... where John Sarnos fixed it? I think so. I'm sure there's a picture of him. Yeah, America's most famous back pain doctor said pain is in your head. Thousands think he's right. Well, millions think he's wrong though. (laughs)
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