On episode #2507 of The Joe Rogan Experience, host Joe Rogan took aim at comedians who have criticized roast humor, accusing them of abandoning the craft for personal clout. Rogan began by explaining that roast culture had largely disappeared from television for nearly a decade before major events like the Tom Brady Roast brought it back into the mainstream.
“The last time there were roasts on television before the Tom Brady Roast was literally 10 years ago,” Rogan said.
He argued that younger audiences who didn’t grow up around roast comedy may not fully understand the format or its history.
“Comedy is Chris Rock. Comedy is Kevin Hart. Comedy is Louis C.K. That’s what they think comedy is,” he said. “They don’t even understand the jokes like that. Roast jokes are f***ing mean. They’ve always been f***ing mean.”
While Rogan said casual viewers misunderstanding roast humor is understandable, he had far less patience for comedians publicly condemning it.
“Comedians that are getting upset about these roast jokes, f*** all the way off. Just f*** all the way off,” Rogan said. “You f***ing traitor. You know what this is. You know exactly what this is. You’re a f***ing traitor. You’re just using this moment to try to boost yourself up to try to like knock down what’s happening in these.”
He went on to distinguish between criticizing jokes and accusing comics of genuinely ha teful beliefs.
“You could disagree with the content,” Rogan said. “You could say, ‘I think they went too far with this. I don’t think.’ But this f***ing pretending that these people are actual racists and N*zis just because they’re telling these jokes that are in a roast. Like, f*** all the way off.”
Guest Harland Williams agreed with Rogan’s stance and compared roast comedy to contact sports.
“Don’t suit up. Go out and play hockey if you don’t want to play hockey,” Williams said. “Sit on the bench. And don’t badmouth the people playing hockey.”
Rogan also praised Kevin Hart for how he handled jokes directed at him during roasts, using him as an example of how participants should approach the format.
“You know who didn’t have a problem with it? Kevin f***ing Hart,” Rogan said. “Kevin f***ing Hart has defended every single person that said horrible s*** about him being lynched from a bonsai tree and all the craziest s*** that they said.”
Williams added that networks and streaming platforms clearly supported the content as well. “There’s a whole subsection of the foundation of where these the platform that they’re given. They didn’t care about it either or they wouldn’t do it.,” Williams said.
Rogan agreed and pointed to the massive success of Netflix’s Tom Brady Roast as proof of public demand.
“The Tom Brady Roast was the number one watched thing in Netflix history,” Rogan said. “More than 55 million people watched that thing.”
A similar conversation recently came up during a discussion between Theo Von and Nate Bargatze, where both comedians reflected on why modern roasts can sometimes feel harsher than they used to. Theo first brought up the backlash surrounding the event and mentioned that “Chelsea Handler came out and said that she had some of the problem with some of Shane and Tony’s jokes, maybe.”
Nate agreed, adding, “She kind of said that. It was like, ‘I don’t know about all the jokes. Mainly Shane and Tony.'”
Theo then questioned whether criticism even makes sense once comedians voluntarily participate in a roast format. “Do you feel like in that kind of instance, if people are signing up for something like that, it feels like it’s like fair game,” Theo said. “Unless it’s like vile, you know, maybe.”
Nate responded by saying that roasts traditionally worked because there was usually genuine affection underneath the insults, but that dynamic has faded over time. “I think it’s got to all be fair game. Just signing up for it,” Nate said. “I believe we’ve gotten to the spirit of the roast is kind of gone. You’re not really having people on there that love each other. And so if there’s no love shown, then it just gets mean.”
Theo agreed that while edgy comedy can still be creative and funny, some roast moments leave audiences with a strange feeling afterward. “Some of it is kind of like, yeah, what feeling do I really leave here with in the end?” Theo said. “I leave with some temporary highs for sure. Oh, that was crazy, that was creative. Even something that’s edgy and dark can still be very creative.”
Despite their criticism of the tone surrounding modern roasts, Nate still praised Kevin Hart’s handling of the event. “I think Kevin Hart did great handling a lot of it too,” Nate said, noting that Hart repeatedly reminded everyone involved that “this is what you signed up for.”
