Name: Scott Rogowsky
Age: 35
Hometown: Harrison, N.Y.
Now Lives: Self-isolating in a one-bedroom apartment in Chelsea. “I feel like one of Joe Exotic’s tigers,” he said.
Claim to Fame: For a hot minute, Mr. Rogowsky was the host of HQ Trivia, an app-based game show in which participants could win big cash prizes. The game was so popular that, in 2018, he was invited to visit the owners’ suite at the Super Bowl. “Joe Biden shook my hand. Keegan-Michael Key — he said he loved HQ,” he said. “It was wild.”
The gig didn’t last long. Although the app attracted 2.4 million players, the game faded and finally ended in February. “The short answer is it was a very poorly run operation,” Mr. Rogowsky said.
Big Break: After graduating from Johns Hopkins University in 2007, Mr. Rogowsky interned at The Onion. “I didn’t get paid,” he said. “But they always say, ‘network, network, network,’ so I did.” There he met Nick Gallo, a photo editor, who spearheaded content development for HQ trivia a decade later.
During those years, Mr. Rogowsky was performing stand-up comedy and making funny YouTube videos. When the HQ Trivia host gig arose, Mr. Gallo thought of the former intern.
Latest Project: Since the coronavirus crisis began, Mr. Rogowsky has been selling his large collection of vintage T-shirts on Instagram (handle: quizdaddyscloset) to raise money for charities, including Citymeals on Wheels.
“I had too many, and I couldn’t possibly wear them all,” he said of his love of thrift store finds. “It truly became a hoarding situation.” He was also hosting a nightly talk show about baseball on DAZN, a sports streaming service, though that has been suspended.
Next Thing: He recently started “IsoLateNight,” a 45-minute livestreamed comedy show on which he shares jokes and interviews celebrities who are self-isolating, like Mo Rocca. “It was born out of this crisis, and I’m leaning into it hard,” he said. The show is at 9 p.m. three times a week on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Twitch.
Lifelong Hoarder. Vintage T-shirts are not the only thing Mr. Rogowsky collects. He has stickers, stamps, coins, gems, minerals, Wheaties boxes, comic books, even Beanie Babies. Baseball cards may be his most cherished items. He has more than 100,000 of them, 5,000 of which are signed. His “OCD Dream,” as he called it, is to get every unsigned card autographed.
