Joe Rogan interviewed Elon Musk for his podcast in September 2018 – the interview created headlines around the world when Musk smoked a blunt containing marijuana during the course of the broadcast.

This incident overshadowed what was a fascinating interview with one of the brilliant minds of our generation. In addition to him being a uniquely strange individual, Musk’s ideas and views on where we are headed as a civilisation made me sit up straight in my seat. The podcast covered many topics, one of which was individuality and how Musk, at 5 years of age, hid his ideas and thoughts from his friends and family, worried that those ideas and ultimate brilliance would be seen as so different and divorced from what was considered normal that he’d be taken away.

Listening to this section of the podcast, it reminded me of the prophetic quote from the late John Morrison, “You laugh at me because I am different; I laugh at you because you are all the same.”

The run up to last weekend’s All Ireland Final replay was dominated not by interesting and engaging personal pieces on those great warriors that took to the field last Saturday, but instead by the fanfare that surrounded Joe Brolly and his departure from the RTE game-day panel. 

On Saturday afternoon, Joe posted a picture of himself and his good friend Shane Finnegan (who he donated a kidney to back in 2012) enjoying a pint of the black stuff with the caption, “One door closes. Another one opens.”

Joe’s opinions have been the subject of much debate in the GAA fraternity, and in the age of the 24/7 need for content – and when county teams and players have larger PR teams than a presidential candidate – they have become front as well as back page news.

The lack of engagement by County teams and their management has created this substantial void which the increasingly swamped sports writing sector is trying to fill. I put the blame for this disconnect at the door of County Boards, Inter-County Managers and the completely unnecessary PR teams they employ. Talk about money for nothing.

I followed the build up to the replayed final from McCarthy’s Irish bar in Monte Carlo, where I tweeted that the only colour on Saturday’s panel was provided by Ciaran Whelan’s suit. During the pre-game section, I sat beside an elderly Leitrim man and his wife who, following 15 minutes dedicated to the referee, stormed out of the Pub shouting, “A load of bullocks”. His wife just laughed. He duly returned 15 minutes later having disposed of half a packet of Benson & Hedges and leaning across his pint he whispered to me, “Have you ever seen a referee kick a point in your life?” Fair analysis.

In a recent interview with Kieran Cunningham, Joe described himself as “a celebrity loner,” going on to comment in the beautifully depicted piece that, “It’s the expression of raw opinion that catches people‘s attention.” The RTE bods may well be feeling the heat from Sky’s fancy touch-screen and stat charts but give me a bit of opinion and argument any day of the week – leave the stat charts to the auditors.

In this social media age, opinion and vibrant debate have now fallen victim to mundane balance and the fear of offending the PC brigade; everything now has to be sanitised. People are being castigated for forming an opinion and proffering views which don’t abide by the opinion of the masses.

I firmly believe this sterilization of open debate has attracted fair-minded people to populist ‘strong man’ type leaders: think of Trump in the states, Bolsonaro in Brazil, Le Pen in France and Orban in Hungary. People want a forceful opinion (whether they agree with it or not) and the ground swell in populism is, to my mind, a direct result of this pandering to the masses and the constant orchestration of offence being taken.

Joe is by no means the perfect pundit, evidenced by his ill-advised gag about Marty Morrissey some years ago which he quickly apologised for and has since spoken about his regret at the incident, but his obvious absence on Saturday left the panel flat and lacking in that secret ingredient that only the chosen few possess, box office! In the enduring words of Eamon Dunphy, “It’s showbiz, baby!”

At the end of the podcast with Musk, he and Rogan discuss the difference in thinking that drives him to constantly try to change humanity for the better.

With Brolly gone from the RTE studio, that difference in thinking and outlook have gone as well. Of course anyone can learn to swipe and draw arrows on a screen but as Elon Musk attests to, one’s individual freedom of thought can never be replicated, and opinions that challenge the mainstream should be encouraged. Brolly, as a proponent of both, will only be missed now that he is gone. In time, even Tyrone Gaels may agree with such sentiment.