What do President Trump and Mark Zuckerberg have in common? They’re getting into the ring with Joe Rogan.
Joe Rogan. Theo Von. Andrew Huberman. If these names sound familiar to you, you’re probably among the tens of millions of people who tune in to the “brocasters,” a loosely defined coterie of podcasters who put men and masculinity front and center.
The term — which calls to mind hourslong interviews with frequent references to health supplements, classical philosophy or mixed martial arts — has broken through on social media over the last year, as clips from brocasters have become harder to escape than a full nelson.
Though Mr. Rogan and Mr. Von had been peripheral figures in American pop culture for decades — Mr. Rogan hosted NBC’s gross-out game show, “Fear Factor,” starting in 2001, and Mr. Von made his debut on MTV’s “Road Rules” a year earlier — both podcasters hit critical mass last year when they interviewed Donald J. Trump during the run-up to the presidential election.
How it’s pronounced
/brō-ka-stər/
On average, Mr. Rogan’s podcast reached over 20.1 million listeners a week last year, making it the No. 1 podcast in the world for the sixth straight year, said Melissa Kiesche, a senior vice president at Edison Research. And its audience increased in the last quarter, during the election season.