Why Jordan Peterson Shouldn't Have Joined the Daily Wire

Confusion always leads to a conundrum.

On July 12th, 2022, the CEO of the Daily Wire, Jeremy Boreing, announced major changes to company policy. Coming in the aftermath of the bombshell Chris Rufo reporting at Disney around kids programming, it was high time for a company like the Daily Wire, in their opinion, to counterstrike with their own set of values. This announcement, which had been planned, was expedited by the Disney controversy. In addition, the company had recently just hit over a million paid subscribers, an amazing feat that made the biggest conservative media company in the world a nine-figure business.

When on camera, Boreing had three major announcements. The first, in direct correlation with the Disney LGBTQ blowback, was a major foray into children’s programming, called Bentkey. The slow slide of kids television into left-leaning orthodoxy had started to gain a lot more attention, which was causing much strife and tension between the parents and the entertainment companies. No longer could someone just flip on something like Disney+ and give their minds a break. Now, they feared everything, and had to watch every move their kids make with what had once been the most family-friendly brand in the world.

The second was a change in the delivery of the content on the Daily Wire. Now, the service that the Daily Wire would use to deliver all premium content, including their documentaries such as What is a Woman? and their uncensored podcasts away from platforms such as Facebook and YouTube, would be called DailyWire+. In the same mold as many streaming companies, the Daily Wire wanted to evolve to position themselves as a juggernaut in the streaming wars, which they could not do if their product was not up to snuff. With DailyWire+, the company would have a platform that could compete and grow with the most dominant players in the industry.

The third announcement, and perhaps the most culturally-significant, was the Daily Wire’s biggest talent acquisition of all time- Dr. Jordan Peterson. Peterson, who had known the company’s founder, Ben Shapiro, for nearly a decade, had always rode sidecar to many of the things that the company had done. Peterson and Shapiro had many things in common, but had never directly collaborated on anything before. Now, that has changed, bringing one of the world’s biggest cultural heavyweights formally onto their team.

The Peterson announcement was a shot heard round the world. This was a massive statement made by both the Daily Wire and Peterson, a shot across the cultural bow that told the world they meant business. Peterson, the biggest, most famous, and most important public intellectual in the modern world, had never explicitly stated himself to be a conservative, preferring the label of an aggrieved traditional classical liberal. But now, with the Overton Window shifting as such, he had drawn a new line into the sand.

Many celebrated this, as they probably should have. Conservative media had always had trouble getting a jumpstart. With Peterson, who had a wide-ranging audience of the usually-lowest-engaged audience, young men, the Daily Wire had a massive opportunity to appeal to new markets. In addition, Peterson was hardly a political figure at the time, primarily using his platform to talk about self-development for young men in a way that resonated with people across the world. There was no greater powerhouse for young men than Peterson, which is why the Daily Wire made such a big deal, as they should have, on signing him.

On the other hand, however, the Daily Wire’s signing of Jordan Peterson turned out to be something else, something that no one, including both parties, saw coming- a travesty. Even though their collaboration was largely, and still is largely, viewed as a positive, there was a notable tradeoff that not a lot of people had paid attention to, but must be analyzed to see if the long-term benefits are worth the short-term costs. The primary one, and the one that gives someone like me the most concern, is the following:

It put Jordan Peterson, whether he intended to have it happen or not, in a box.

Before we get to an expansion on this point, it’s very important that we tell the intentions of both parties honestly. With the Daily Wire covered, it’s important to understand the reasoning behind why Jordan Peterson made the bold move of aligning himself with such a definitive brand like the Daily Wire. Peterson, one of the smartest individuals in recent memory to ever hold cultural clout, does not make decisions like these lightly. Everything he does is done for a reason.

The primary reason Peterson signed with the Daily Wire was not, to the contrary of many who commented on it, ideological. I don’t consider Peterson to be a true conservative in the sense that someone like Ben Shapiro is one. He is not in philosophical lockstep with the traditional Right, even though a lot of his ideas, particularly since joining, have swung more-so in that direction. His philosophy is far more nuanced than a simple political temperament.

Rather, Peterson signed with the Daily Wire for business. His business partnership with the Daily Wire was to help, primarily, with two bottlenecks- distribution and resources. Peterson, for the last couple of years, had been a one-man band, someone who had strung together a ragtag group of employees to help him get his message to the world. This was successful for a time, and helped Peterson just enough to where he could keep up with the massive demand of his rapacious audience.

But Peterson had outgrown that structure, and rapidly at that. He had big plans, including the revisitation of his Biblical lecture series that had been shut down by Cambridge and more series that made his outlook on life more concrete. But Peterson, already stretched thin, did not have the time nor the willingness to take on a CEO role in the backend organization of the matter. He needed to up his game, but didn’t have the bandwidth to do so.

Enter the Daily Wire. The Daily Wire, having done an excellent job at supporting the growth of their own content creators through deliberate hiring and scaling practices, had the infrastructure to help someone like Peterson take his ambitions to the next level. From a business perspective, it made all the sense in the world. Both parties, in theory, won. Peterson got the help with the dispersion, elevation, and quality enhancement of his content, and the Daily Wire got Peterson associated with their brand. Everyone, including their audience, was happy.

Yet, from an ideological perspective, I’ve begun to doubt this claim. From an ideological perspective, I don’t think this move was a good decision for Peterson to make. The reason behind this has nothing to do with either the Daily Wire or Peterson specifically. For full transparency, I work on a contract basis with the Daily Wire on Peterson’s team, and was labeled his biggest micro influencer on Instagram by their internal paid marketing team. I’m proud of this label, and stand by it.

I have my issues with the Daily Wire, as I’m sure most free thinkers do. I don’t agree with everything the company does, nor everything their main content creators say. This, at least to me, is healthy and normal. I have not bent my content one inch since agreeing to work with them to help evangelize Dr. Peterson’s work, and will not do so at all, regardless of my status within the company. That said, I believe the emergence of the Daily Wire to prominence is one of the best things to happen to modern media. It has forced everyone, regardless of ideology, to step their game up and make themselves better.

Peterson, like all people, is human, even though to some he has taken the form of a god. People, Peterson included, are suspected to be biased, especially from people who treat them well. What I’ve noticed since the signing of Peterson by the Daily Wire is a slow, but not unnoticeable, drift in his thinking to align with a certain conservative bent, which shows in the ways that he talks in his content. This is not to say that Peterson, as all people, cannot change his mind- he can. But to say that he hasn’t changed at all since joining forces with the Daily Wire would, to me, be inaccurate.

As said, I have disagreements with both parties, even though I work with helping to spread Dr. Peterson’s content he has done with the Daily Wire. I get their alliance. I understand why they decided it was a good idea to work together. But, with that said, I believe that some differentiation is necessary to avoid audience capture and groupthink, as it is with most people. You saw this when both Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly were cut loose from their former cable news professions. Their minds got clearer. Their thoughts got more independent. Their influence got bigger. When they were let go by Fox and NBC, it gave them permission, by necessity, to become free agents and independent actors.

I believe it is this factor that has caused Peterson to slightly taint his ideology since the announcement of the Daily Wire partnership. He, understandably, feels indebted to the Daily Wire for investing in him and promoting his content. This is a good impulse, one that we should be wise to both acknowledge and follow. But feeling indebted to someone and acting indebted to someone by somewhat watering down its message, by slightly dulling your teeth, are two very different things.

The fact of the matter is simple- Jordan Peterson and his message are simply too important to be limited to the realm of the political. His message is not one of politics. It’s a mistake when someone foolishly claims that it is. Rather, Peterson’s message is one of development, of growth, of calling yourself to the highest aspirational nature you can manage. I know a good amount of liberals, particularly liberal men, who have been helped by Dr. Peterson’s work, as conservatives, particularly conservative men, have been helped by Dr. Peterson’s work. This fact, particularly in our divided world across politically-drawn lines, is one of the greatest achievements of modern thought leadership, one that should be carefully examined and studied for duplication and replication.

Jordan Peterson has done something remarkable- affected an incredibly diverse group of people in such a profound way that millions are living better lives because of his one unifying message and narrative. He is, in my opinion, the most important cultural figure in the thought leadership space of my lifetime. Frankly, I don’t believe the contest to be close, even with the rise of people such as Dan Bilzerian and Andrew Tate, who have a far sexier delivery than an older man in a stuffy three-piece suit.

Given this, Peterson deserves to have his message spread, unfiltered. Unfortunately, I believe his partnership with the Daily Wire, unintentional as I believe it to have been, is hindering the growth that he desires, and that his audience deserves. In a world ever-more infected by political biases by the day, the message of Dr. Peterson should be one of the few bright spots, one of the things that should not have to suffer from the pettiness and strife of tired political drum beating.

Fortunately, I believe this to be happening more with Dr. Peterson, most notably his heading of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), which serves as a counterweight to the World Economic Forum. I was fortunate enough to be invited earlier this year, and I can’t wait to see it for myself. Peterson would do well to put his efforts to those causes, and not get caught up in gender-neutral bathrooms and border policy. He’s too important, too essential, for those issues.

The hope of people like Jordan Peterson, and the few that are like him in our culture, is that he remains uncorrupted and undistracted by all the things that could potentially come back to bite them. We need more good men who talk to people about how to make themselves better. Particularly in the past months, we’ve experienced a very unique acceleration of unity, one that I hope continues. It is people like Peterson that will lead the charge with dignity, values, and virtue- if they push forward properly. If they don’t, they will simply be another example, another person who foolishly took the bait of worldly ideologies and the false claims they provide.

We have a unique opportunity ahead. It would be a shame if we, and our leaders, wasted it.

Own the Day,

Sam