He was on News Radio with Phil Hartman in the mid 90's and hosted fear factor. He's been around for some time now, definitely longer than most of his audience can recall.

He hosted Fear Factor back in the day. He also replaced the host (iirc) for The Man Show. He was involved with UFC as a commentor or broadcaster.

His podcast is also one of the top downloaded worldwide and has been for years.

He still is involved with the UFC and is their primary commentator, although he now only calls fights that happen in the US.

Now I feel old as my first thought is 1995's NewsRadio.

No, you're correct. That should be your first thought :) Newsradio was amazing. I still rewatch episodes of it from time to time.

Yes...I read the article.

Then it's hard to imagine why you think your age has anything to do with you not knowing who he is. He's been a public figure for more than two decades.

haha yeah he's pretty big, I first heard about him through his Jordan Peterson interviews, but he's pretty good. He's had sports nutritionists on both for and against keto etc, Alex Jones was hilarious and eye opening, so was Tom Delongue (the guy is nuts), James Damore, a number of comedians, Kevin Smith was great, and yeah he just lets them talk, you're free to form your own opinions, it's kinda refreshing and nice to fall asleep to when most youtube vids (even the talky ones) are shrinking to ~10 minutes.

No worries you are not alone, I presume he is mostly known in the US (Fear Factor, The Man Show, UFC - what are those? I didn't spend much time in front of TV in last 15 years, there was/is life to be lived).

Nobody expects for example americans to know some french or spanish comedians/hosts, and HN is predominantly american website.

He seems interesting but the lengths of podcasts mentioned in the article are showstoppers for me - I can't imagine dedicating 3-5 hours to this (and I can't properly listen to such conversation and do something else). That said, I got motivated to watch the Musk part, mainly for the Musk himself.

The article, albeit with its flaws, mentions interesting point - his popularity being the result of these uber-politically-correct days, where masculinity is often frowned upon, and white western guy should feel guilty for being who he is/was and keep apologizing (I am not western and not american so this is a foreign feeling to me, but I get where it comes from). Every action makes reaction, a nice example of this general principle.

I had heard about him a few times and I avoided listening to it for the same reason, the show lengths were a complete non-starter. But I decided to give it a try and for the topics/guests that I found interesting the show lengths seem actually necessary to dive into the depth and breadth of topics that are covered.

I personally only listen to the episodes where I have an interest in the topics or the guests themselves i.e. the intellectuals, nutritionists, incredible athletes, and scientists. In this way I use the podcast as more of a medium to experience the guests rather than listening for Rogan himself (although I do appreciate his generally progressive views and genuine intellectual curiosity). Even if I tried I can't imagine devoting 3+ hours to a comedian or MMA fighter talking about whatever.

I think the author touches on this in the article, the audiences of the podcast are quite diverse and many are only interested in a subset of the content. The diversity and neutrality of Rogan allows it to act as a neutral medium to be exposed to an in-depth view of a variety of topics and people that you would not have the opportunity to experience otherwise.