Podcaster and comedian, Joe Rogan took to Instagram to share an ad that he felt proved Australia’s political propaganda has gone too far. The catch – it was a satirical ad from Gruen.
Rogan has been openly critical of Australia’s lockdowns and vaccinations for a while now, so it wasn’t exactly shocking when he took to Instagram to complain about an ad that mocks people who are anti-vaccine, particularly because Rogan was used as a punchline.
According to ABC, Rogan has referred to Australia as a “police state,” and earlier this year, Politico reported, Rogan said: “If you’re like 21 years old and you say to me, ‘Should I get vaccinated? I’ll go, No.
“If you’re a healthy person and you’re exercising all the time and you’re young and you’re eating well, I don’t think you need to worry about this.”
The ad features a man going into anaphylactic shock. However, as a woman tries to save his life with an EpiPen, he begins to question what is in the pen. As he gasps for air – he says, “What are the stats from Europe,” followed by “What does Joe Rogan say?”. The point is clear, we don’t normally question what is in our medicine, particularly when it’s life-saving.
The Pitch: Create a campaign to win over the vaccine hesitant by PaperMoose. #Gruen pic.twitter.com/E4qZNrwei5
— The Gruen Team (@GruenHQ) October 13, 2021
Naturally, Rogan posted the ad on his Instagram to share his thoughts with his millions of followers.
Rogan said, “Not only has Australia had the worst reaction to the pandemic with dystopian police state measures, that are truly inconceivable to the rest of the civilised world, but they also have the absolute dumbest propaganda.”
The only problem is the ad was made, basically, as a joke. After followers pointed out the ad was satirical, Rogan updated his caption accordingly and added: “EDIT: apparently this is not a real ad. It’s from a satirical show.” You have to give him points for not just deleting the post altogether.
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. The post has now clocked over 20,000 comments and over 200,000 likes.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CVvyYXzgrD2/
Of course, Twitter lost its mind at Rogan’s mistake.
Holy shit joe rogan shared a fake Gruen ad lol pic.twitter.com/xC0BI8eAS9
— BRAD ESPOSITO (@bradesposito) November 1, 2021
When I wrote Joe Rogan into the @papermoose pro-vaccine ad for @GruenHQ, we could only hope he'd think it was real and share it with his 13 million followers.https://t.co/E9QEwKg6fU
— Kate Holdsworth (@KateHoldsworth_) November 2, 2021
Joe Rogan has discovered Gruen. The ad isn’t real, which is a pity because it’s pretty good pic.twitter.com/QrEj69V8Ye
— Gavin Coote (@GavinCoote) November 1, 2021
Just another day on the internet.
