QAnon Anonymous: The Conspiracy-Pilling of Aaron Rodgers
I went on the QAnon Anonymous podcast to discuss the surprisingly deep rabbit hole of Aaron Rodgers and conspiracy. It was a ton of fun!
I was recently on the QAnon Anonymous Podcast, a podcast dedicated to exploring conspiracy theory in the modern world. They asked me to cover Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers’ willingness to explore conspiracy theory.
Listen to the embed below or check out the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or whatever your favorite platform is.
This was a lie. No matter how much he wants to get around it by what he thinks was a clever play on words, he intended to mislead people, saw that they were misled and was satisfied with the result.
He also clearly got the Packers organization to buy into this lie and keep up the illusion – while he was otherwise following the protocols for an unvaccinated player throughout the facility, he still met with media, in person, without a mask – in violation of the policy. No unvaccinated player on the Packers, other than him, met with the media in person, much less without a mask.
We found out about his real vaccination status on November 3rd, when Rodgers was ruled out for a Week 9 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs. Given the timeline – vaccinated players would only be out for five days while unvaccinated players would be out for at least ten days – the only way this could be dispositively true is if he was unvaccinated.
He complained about being silenced, and he's perhaps been the least silenced athlete in modern football. Not only can he just call a press conference whenever he wants, he has a weekly television spot on ESPN, or had, we’ll get into that. He was on the Joe Rogan experience, which means he went from the most popular sports podcast in the United States to the most popular podcast in history.
He talked about cancel culture. What does it mean to be canceled for Aaron Rodgers? It's always been true that cancellation almost never means what people want it to mean, but with Rodgers it's the most true it's ever been. So many people have been canceled and have never been materially impacted by it. It really is just an essence you assign to yourself, a way to signal who you are now.
And that's how Rodgers uses it. Because what has changed for him aside from earning hero status from a bunch of anti-vaxxers? He still gets paid $40 million a year in on-book salary, he still gets paid over a million a year by the Pat McAfee show to appear on air and he still gets his endorsement deals. He hasn't lost his platform and he almost certainly never will. Instead, he just gets to wear cancellation like it's another jersey for him.
Enjoy!
It makes me so happy when my favorite podcasts do a crossover
Just listened to this podcast and it’s a lot of fun. You forget the total volume of bat shit crazy things Rodgers has said through the years, and the hosts reactions are amazing.
The Cabal Football Game narrated story at the end is pure gold. Had to replay it again.