The Wokery vs. profits

Every so often the myth that corporations adopt woke policies because it is ‘the right thing to do’ is punctured — this time thanks to comedian, podcaster (and Biden critic) Joe Rogan.

The Joe Rogan Experience podcast interviews celebrities, politicians and sports stars, and has over 2 billion views, and 10 million subscribers on YouTube.

After Rogan announced he signed a $100 million deal with Spotify for the exclusive rights to his insanely popular podcast some employees expressed disquiet.

The Spotify snowflakes were concerned about some of Rogan’s previous guests and “some …asked for editorial supervision of Mr Rogan’s podcast.”

One executive claimed, “It doesn’t matter if you’re Joe Rogan…we do apply [content] policies and they need to be evenly applied.” You must wonder if he said this with a straight face — of course it matters if you’re Joe Rogan.

Amidst the flurry of recent successful cancellations, it is easy to forget companies have one priority goal: profit.

Since Rogan announced the deal, Spotify’s stocks have increased 50% and his podcast is now the number 1 show on Spotify; as his millions of fans have followed him to the new platform.

If Spotify thought people would abandon their platform because Rogan’s podcast was now there, they would not have embarked on the deal. If people had actually abandoned the platform because Rogan was hosted, Spotify would have cancelled it.

If any business leaders thought changing the name of Coon cheese, Eskimo Pie, Redskin lollies or Colonial Brewing; kicking out a Boeing executive for what they wrote three decades ago; removing Chris Lilley’s back catalogue of shows or axing the Coco Pops monkey would lose them money, they would not do it.

This is why the attempted cancellation of J.K. Rowling was quite amusing. It’s laughable to think any publisher would refuse to work with a woman whose novels were so successful she became richer than the Queen because some Twit heads were upset.

It is quite easy for companies to jump on the woke cancelling bandwagon if they think they can earn money through their wokery – or at least not incur any losses.

As was written in The Australian recently about ANZ’s intervention in the climate change debate: “They are better at sanctimony than morality.”

Like a child finally learning the truth about where the tooth fairy money comes from, woke employees are going to get a rude reality lesson — profit does not care about their feelings.