The man has long been irrelevant, but he changed our culture. For the worse
There was a time when Howard Stern insisted he was the King of All Media. Those days are long gone as his show slides away into oblivion. The 71-year-old former shock jock hasn’t been relevant or interesting in a while and much of that is because the tactics he pioneered became commonplace in the age of the podcast.
Stern long ago ran out of ways to shock listeners and his turn toward wokeness killed his old appeal to his army of rabid fans. It’s been a long time since Howard Stern was politically incorrect, edgy or anything except an echo of the media.
But what Stern was, unfortunately, was a a missing link between the old radio shock jocks and the new podcast influencers. We wouldn’t have the social media dystopia we do without Stern’s egotism, destruction of broadcasting standards and obsession with getting the attention of the audience any we he could. Long after Stern lost interest in pretending to be something and someone he wasn’t in order to make money and get attention, the influencer podcasting marketplace is full of sociopaths who eagerly learned from him. Much like Gawker’s fall, Stern’s cultural demise is overstated. Sure the man himself has long since been irrelevant, but he changed our culture. For the worse.
Howard’s end is long overdue, but so is everything he stood for.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
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