I had never heard of this guy before the most recent debacle and I'm on the internet a lot. So at least it's good that his reach wasn't really as far as it might seem.
I agree. I personally don't have anything filtered out though. I just don't use Twitter, which I take it is where most of the talk about this guy was. I also really specifically used (until recently) /r/all to make sure I'm getting what is hopefully a representative survey of what other people care about and are talking about and I also just check the regular news. It's important to me to get a well rounded view on things.
I've definitely heard about most of the other edge lords though. Chowder, eyebrows mcgoo, the one that looks like a hipster bartender, and the one that looks like a hobo with dead eyes.