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Ask HN: Does anyone else notice Joe Rogan using dark pattern advertising?

4 points by jesuscript ↗ HN
This is a good example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EgPGQmhWag

This is obviously a Dan Carlin ad. I noticed one recently where he just asks the guest about their glasses, and the guest proceeds to straight up advertise a website that sells those glasses.

It feels like a very disingenuous way of advertising and it's happening more and more.

14 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 40.4 ms ] thread
verdverm
Are the guests being paid? Can someone not share a good buying experience and recommend it to others without it being seen as an ad?
jesuscript
It’s highly consistent. I can point to several examples. He is using a very manipulative tactic by not taking an ad break and baking the ads into the show like this.

It’s the podcast version of product placement.

verdverm
Joe talks about a lot of products and people, things he likes, he shares. The clip you shared was most definitely not an ad. You are seeing things that are not there. You have no proof, only speculation. When in doubt, assume the least nefarious.
jesuscript
Are you sure?

Here is another: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx92Xbubch8

They pretend like it's not an ad. It's pretty wild.

ether0
Timestamp please. Or, are you just promoting JR's show?
jesuscript
That’s the thing, it’s baked in. He has the guest go off about some random historical tangent. Then brings it around to the sale, which is a certain another history podcast that sells for just one dollar an episode. That’s the bit he puts out on YouTube, so the ad gets even more play. He only puts up specific parts of the whole Spotify show onto YouTube, and he managed to pimp this one.

I wonder how much he charges for ad campaigns like this.

He’s done this plenty of times.

Another example:

Guest randomly talks about low credit, Joe: Where do you even find your credit score, Guest: Credit Karma is pretty good, it tracks your credit for free

ryanwaggoner
Who knows, maybe this is an ad, but I seriously doubt it. You're making baseless accusations with no evidence, that don't even make much sense to me. You've seriously never recommended something to a friend without being paid for it?
jesuscript
I don't run a show with 11 million viewers every other day. These aren't simple "recommendations", and he's not a simple friend. He's plugging stuff for money, in a opaque way.
ryanwaggoner
You have no idea if that's true. <shrug>
jesuscript
Are we all this fucking dumb man, you can’t tell these things are ads? You think this stuffs okay to do?

Followed by him talking about targeted ads

https://youtu.be/ohB4lC8Q4Sg

This guy has no respect for us lol.