From Machiavelli’s Study to Joe Rogan’s Studio
It is well known by now that months before the election, Donald Trump and J.D. Vance cozied up to a small army of hyper-male podcasters. You’ve probably heard of Joe Rogan, Charlie Kirk, and Tucker Carlson; but some of the others, like the Nelk Boys, Adin Ross, Theo Von, or Bussin’ With the Boys, may not be as familiar. Yet, collectively, they dominate a vast and growing media landscape, where the studio space itself has become as significant as the voices within it.
The godfather of them all is undoubtedly Rogan, who hosts the world’s number one podcast. Unlike traditional broadcasts, his “bro-casts” are streamed in both audio and video. In the visual format, you get a glimpse of his studio, decked out with antlers, sports gear, and energy drinks. It’s all a bit messy but also carefully curated, signaling peak performance and rugged masculinity.
Rogan’s recording studio looks like a man cave, that uniquely gendered space in American suburbia. Usually tucked away in the basement of a Home Depot dad’s oversized house (perhaps Tim Walz’s?), this is where he can bask in a low-lit sanctuary of leather recliners and half-remembered dreams of high school conquests. As a masculine version of Virginia Woolf’s “room of one’s own,” the Rogan audio den stands as the alpha-male’s response to fifty years of feminism. His podcast studio is a space where ideas are forged—or perhaps just flexed.
