There are tons of red flags when it comes to dating.
But for Hope Walz, daughter of Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, one stands above all the rest: what celebrities a guy follows on Instagram.
Specifically, whether or not he's a devotee of podcaster Joe Rogan, the #1 podcaster in the world and the darling of scores of men with questionable politics, especially those who support Donald Trump.
In a TikTok, Walz called it her dating "litmus test" and said it has "never failed me."
Walz said it's not just her who uses this red flag test, but her friends do to. In her TikTok, she explained how she and her friends do it.
“A litmus test for me and my friends for like years now has been if the guy we’re talking to follows Joe Rogan on Instagram, they’re a red flag and we should probably stop talking to them."
But she hasn't been doing this blindly—she's actually put the theory to the test by continuing to talk to a handful of Rogan fans, and it has always proven the theory.
"The times when they do follow him on Instagram and we haven’t stopped talking to them...it’s never ended well.”
Rogan is of course the most popular podcaster on the planet, so omitting guys who like him omits a lot of potential suitors.
But who can blame her? Rogan has used his The Joe Rogan Experience podcast to platform everyone from white nationalists and conspiracy theorists like Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes and former InfoWars nut job Alex Jones (though he cleverly deleted such episodes when his show moved to Spotify), to Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
For Walz's part, she did say that her "litmus test" is often disappointing, but for her it ultimately comes down to shared values—or a lack thereof.
“If they follow him we’re like, yeah, this person probably isn’t a great person and probably our values don’t align so we’re gonna move on from that. And honestly it’s worked out well for all of us.”
On TikTok, many women firmly agreed that Walz was onto something with her method, and several had other right-wing media figures they consider red flags too.
Rogan's enormous audience is overwhelmingly men, so this method certainly isn't going to expand your dating prospects.
But when it comes to finding out you lack common ground, better sooner than later.
