Joe Rogan Experience #1461 - Owen Smith
Joe Rogan (host), Owen Smith (guest), Jamie Vernon (guest), Guest (unidentified brief interjection) (guest), Joe Rogan (host), Guest (unidentified brief interjection) (guest), Guest (unidentified brief interjection) (guest), Owen Smith (guest), Owen Smith (guest), Owen Smith (guest), Joe Rogan (host), Guest (unidentified brief interjection) (guest), Joe Rogan (host)
In this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring Joe Rogan and Owen Smith, Joe Rogan Experience #1461 - Owen Smith explores joe Rogan and Owen Smith Confront COVID, Comedy, Culture, And Control Joe Rogan and comedian Owen Smith dive into the early COVID-19 era: antibody testing, mortality-rate confusion, and media narratives around the pandemic. They examine risk, personal responsibility, and racial myths about who can get sick, while contrasting cautious behavior with cavalier attitudes. The conversation branches into economic fallout for restaurants and small businesses, systemic problems like student debt and redlining, and anxieties about government overreach, surveillance, and China’s role. Woven through are long riffs on comedy craft, relationships, race, food, martial arts, and how this crisis might permanently alter everyday life and live performance.
Joe Rogan and Owen Smith Confront COVID, Comedy, Culture, And Control
Joe Rogan and comedian Owen Smith dive into the early COVID-19 era: antibody testing, mortality-rate confusion, and media narratives around the pandemic. They examine risk, personal responsibility, and racial myths about who can get sick, while contrasting cautious behavior with cavalier attitudes. The conversation branches into economic fallout for restaurants and small businesses, systemic problems like student debt and redlining, and anxieties about government overreach, surveillance, and China’s role. Woven through are long riffs on comedy craft, relationships, race, food, martial arts, and how this crisis might permanently alter everyday life and live performance.
Key Takeaways
COVID risk is real but uneven—and early data dramatically shifted perceived danger.
Rogan cites antibody studies suggesting far more infections and a lower mortality rate than first believed, yet both he and Smith emphasize that underlying health, immune weaknesses, and random severe cases (like comedian Michael Yo) make it dangerous enough to warrant serious caution.
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Racial myths about immunity are deadly; targeted communication saves lives.
Smith recounts a delivery driver claiming “Black people can’t get this,” then contrasts it with friends’ family members who caught and died from COVID after a ski trip, showing why public, day-by-day documentation of Black patients’ experiences was crucial to counter fatal misinformation.
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Economic fallout for restaurants and small businesses will be deep and uneven.
They discuss a top LA steakhouse barely hanging on while cooking for hospital workers, how PPP loans went to big chains like Ruth’s Chris, and the likelihood that many independent restaurants and clubs—including venues vital to stand‑up—may never reopen without targeted support.
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Crises expose how structural systems—student loans, redlining, incarceration—trap people.
From senior citizens having Social Security docked for old student debt to post‑slavery Black Codes and modern redlining, they argue many “personal” financial and neighborhood outcomes are rooted in engineered policies that constrained mobility and wealth-building over generations.
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Pandemics accelerate surveillance and control, which can erode creativity and freedom.
Using China’s social credit system and talk of digital health monitoring as examples, Rogan warns that once pervasive tracking is normalized—ostensibly for safety—it’s easily repurposed for political control, chilling dissent and the innovation that thrives on personal freedom.
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Political tribalism (Red vs. Blue) obscures nuance and rewards performance over competence.
They critique both Trump and Biden: Trump for ego and lack of empathy; Biden for cognitive decline and being a weak ‘default’ pick, while noting Cuomo and Michelle Obama as examples of leadership qualities people actually respond to, and arguing two-party “team sports” thinking is a trap.
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Comedy craft thrives on transparency, iteration, and cross‑disciplinary thinking.
Smith’s ‘Notebooks’ series has comics read their awful early material to show growth; he explains how studying economics and Japanese changed how he structures bits—thinking in cause-and-effect ripples and sentence order—while Rogan draws parallels between joke construction and Brazilian jiu‑jitsu strategy.
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Notable Quotes
“Greatness and madness are next‑door neighbors, and they borrow each other’s sugar.”
— Joe Rogan
“No one has a stronger work ethic than a racist.”
— Owen Smith
“The world’s not that safe, it’s just safe right now.”
— Joe Rogan
“Racism is not bullshit… but it’s a dumb thing to still hold onto.”
— Joe Rogan, clarified in discussion with Owen Smith
“I’m the most reckless on stage, but offstage I’m like, ‘What’s going on? Is that the police?’”
— Owen Smith
Questions Answered in This Episode
How should influential creators balance talking candidly about COVID uncertainties with the risk of amplifying confusion or misinformation?
Joe Rogan and comedian Owen Smith dive into the early COVID-19 era: antibody testing, mortality-rate confusion, and media narratives around the pandemic. ...
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What would a serious, practical plan to repair long‑term harms from redlining and Black Codes look like today—and who should design it?
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Where is the line between responsible public health surveillance and a dangerous erosion of civil liberties that could permanently change Western democracies?
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In a post‑pandemic world, how can live performance industries (comedy, music, theater) be rebuilt so they’re both financially viable and more resilient to shocks?
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If two-party tribalism is a structural problem, what realistic alternatives exist in the U.S., and how could media and voters begin to support them?
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Transcript Preview
Owen Smith.
He- hey- hey. (laughs)
How you feeling?
(laughs) I feel good, man. I'm, um, I'm excited. We-
Cheers.
Cheers, man.
Salud.
Come on, man. Salud. Yes.
Yeah. We, uh, just tested, Owen. Um-
Yes. Negative.
There's apparently has been some controversy about this, so just let me, um-
Right.
... let everybody know right away. There's no shortage of antibody tests. What we're using, there's no shortage of them. People are saying, "Why do people on the front lines, there's a lot of people..." It's just misunderstanding and confusion. These tests, there's no shortage of. Uh, I understand some people in some places have a hard time getting access to the test. That's not the case here. So, I've taken it upon myself to test everybody as they come into the studio.
Right.
This is not taking away from anybody that's on the front lines. This is not taking tests away from any medical workers. Um, the, the, the tests that they would use for them, particularly the a- they're using swabs. I mean, look, man. Those fucking people that are working in those hospitals and the medical workers, those people are legit heroes.
Yes.
You know? And if I found out that-
Yes.
... there was something we were doing that was somehow another taking away from their ability to be tested, I would never do it.
Right.
You know? So, people got upset, apparently, because, uh... Well, a- also, people writing articles about things, 'cause they, there's, you know, it's like it's a hot topic.
Right.
In their home, too. It is. (laughs)
And their home. Yeah.
But I get it. I get it.
Right.
I'm not hating, I'm not mad. I get it, you know, but when I posted that Donnell and I were 'Rona free, people like ... Someone, someone posted some story where they, they ... Here's what's hilarious.
(laughs) They-
I go out of my way to not read comments.
(laughs)
And these motherfuckers are writing stories-
(laughs)
... where they're taking comments from Instagram and using them as quotes.
Ah.
Just some random magoo that's, uh, posting something. And this, one of them said that-
Wow.
... we were, "Low-key flexing that we had tests." (laughs)
That's hilarious.
That's just someone just looking to use the term low-key flexing.
Low-key. (laughs)
And they don't have any place for it, so they were just like-
Boom.
... "He's low-key flexing that he's got a Corona test."
(laughs)
So, it's a, it's a test that, um, tests you-
Yes.
... for antibodies.
And you were laughing at my face the entire time.
(laughs) I was a little nervous.
I just was just so ...
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