It irks me when someone writes a post talking about a person as if everyone is supposed to know them. I look at it as low effort nerd signalling: "You don't know about Gwern? Pshaw."
Only if you choose to take it that way. All the names were like that to me when I joined years ago, but I just looked them up, or not, as I went and now the discourse is almost always legible. As is usually the case if you want to be part of something interesting on the internet, lurk more is the first step.