Call Her Daddy, Joe Rogan and The Evolution of The Gatekeeper

When I was 13, a casting director found me and thought I was entertaining. They recommended that I audition for a part in a movie. I didn't get the role. He told me to take a few acting classes. One day, I would have my "big break." Big break was a funny word to hear more than 10 years later. I don't need a casting director to put me on TV or in the movies to make me famous. I can create a YouTube video and go viral. The concept of the "gatekeeper" is gone. Now anyone can reach a mass audience; all it takes is a connection to the internet.

Let us talk about two stories this week. First, Joe Rogan, host of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, signed a deal worth more than $100 million to only publish on Spotify. Second, Barstool Sports, a sports and culture blog, and the publisher of Call Her Daddy, a raunchy podcast about two women living in New York, got into a public contract dispute with the hosts of the show, Sofia Franklyn and Alexandra Cooper.

For those of you who don't know, The Joe Rogan Experience and Call Her Daddy are two of the most popular podcasts in the world. I don't want to discuss the details of these issues, but rather the more significant issue at play. How the internet changed the gatekeeper?

Kurt Lewin coined the term gatekeeper in 1943 when he published, Forces Behind Food Habits and Methods of Change. The gatekeeping process is fivefold:

1. Information moves step by step through different channels.

2. Information must pass through a "gate."

3. Forces govern channels.

4. Several channels may lead to the same end result.

5. Different actors may control the channels and act as gatekeepers at different times.

So what does this mean?

1. A news company gets a lot of stories.

2. Only a limited amount of stories are published.

3. Several factors determine if a story is published.

4. The stories are shaped to conform to the medium in which it's being presented. Eg. A limit on the word count for a newspaper.

5. The people within a news company determine if a story passes through.

The internet has shifted the power of gatekeepers. It went from a few to many dynamic to a many to many dynamic. Now audiences on social media platforms determine if a piece of content goes viral. Yes, the algorithms play a role, but the audience still needs to like the content. The audience is now the gatekeeper, not the journalists or media publications of the past.

People can publish anything to any platform (yes, there are exceptions, but for the most part, this is true). This has created its own set of issues. There used to be quality control on content. Traditional gatekeepers made sure there was a standard. The standard is gone.

Audience gatekeeping has allowed controversial content to thrive. Call Her Daddy, and The Joe Rogan Experience are prime examples. Both are now multi-million dollar brands profiting off of the very content traditional gatekeepers shied away from.

Platforms like YouTube, Spotify, and iTunes do have restrictions, but for the most part, they have ushered in a new era of brands that have democratized content. Content that no one would've ever anticipated. Content that covers the far reaches of the internet, no matter the niche. I can't say what the future of content looks like, but the traditional gatekeeper is gone. The future of media and the crowning of celebrities will be shaped by a new gatekeeper: the internet audience.