American podcast host Joe Rogan has come under fire after mocking a song created with Indigenous Australians to help raise awareness about substance abuse.
The moment came during a conversation with American online commentator Andrew Wilson, who told Rogan, 59, that the music would make him “laugh himself to death”.
A short section of the track was then played on the episode. The song was produced through a program run by rock musician Adam Thompson’s educational group MusoMagic, alongside Outback Tracks.
The workshop brought together Indigenous communities, including children, to create music addressing petrol sniffing, a form of intoxication that has caused serious harm in some Aboriginal communities.
“What I’m about to show you is going to make you laugh to death,” Wilson told Rogan, before incorrectly claiming the song had been produced by the Australian government.
Rogan laughed as the clip played, then described the song as “catchy”.
“Imagine you got that and you think you’re going to fix that problem with a catchy song?” he said.
The exchange drew strong criticism from Tony Shaw, director of Indigenous Services Australia, who condemned the pair’s reaction to the song.
American podcast host Joe Rogan (pictured) has been criticised after he made fun of a song written with Indigenous Australians
The track, which the pair played a snippet of during the episode, was created by an educational group run by rock musician Adam Thompson
‘Watching grown men sit in a studio thousands of kilometres away, completely ignorant of the context, laughing at those children and turning their efforts into a joke was disgraceful,’ Mr Shaw told news.com.au.
‘Joe, perhaps before ridiculing something like this, it would have been worth finding out what you were actually watching.
‘You have an enormous audience. You could have taken five minutes to learn the story behind what you were watching. Instead, you chose to mock it.’
Mr Shaw said Thompson had worked with children to write lyrics and create the song.
‘In this case, they chose to address petrol sniffing, a very real and devastating issue that has affected many remote Aboriginal communities in Australia,’ he said.
‘If writing and performing a song gives those kids pride, brings them together and plants even one seed that petrol sniffing isn’t something they want for themselves or their friends, that’s a bloody good outcome.’
Petrol sniffing was a serious issue in remote regions during the 2000s but community initiatives and the introduction of low-aromatic Opal fuel have helped significantly reduce its prevalence.
Rogan was introduced to the song by American online commentator Andrew Wilson (pictured)
Thompson highlighted that the song was written with children in Indigenous communities leading the creative process.
‘We sat down with the community, used their own language, and gave them a platform to express things they could do,’ he said.
‘When you have no lived experience, it’s easy for the squeaky wheel majority on the internet to look from the outside and comment on things they know very little about.
‘I don’t come into these communities as an outsider handing down rules – I come as someone who walks alongside them.’
During the podcast episode, Wilson and Rogan compared petrol sniffing to the ‘crack epidemic’ and suggested the Australian government ‘makes deals’ with Aboriginals to give them land.
They also claimed that when young Aboriginal Australians undertake a walkabout rite of passage they ‘go out to the middle of the desert with warm beer’.
