Most people don't know what the kernel is, but they do see user space, and that was largely GPLed for a while. I think IBM ran some super bowl ads about how amazing Linux and open source were, about ten years ago.
Also, stuff like raspberry pi and ssh exploits (yes, BSD, I know) also show up in pop culture. The Matrix and Mr Robot come to mind. During the end of the dot com boom, I think people were largely aware that Apache + Linux were what things ran on.
