The Darren Rovell Skewer That Had Me Laughing Out Loud
A little while after I joined twitter I stumbled upon Darren Rovell’s timeline. I’m not much into business news and I rarely watch TV (outside of reality trash) so I had no idea who he was. He quickly became one of, if not my favorite, follow. He was full of good information and random sports business stats. In fact, there are lots of blog posts from spring and summer last year where I linked to Rovell’s twitter page. For example, when he calculated how much Brett Favre’s sexting fine actually cost him in real dollars. I love that sort of stuff.
But then Rovell got more popular. The NFL lockout became the story of the day and suddenly Rovell wasn’t just spewing this or that about financials, he was commenting on labor and the sport itself. Something that, judging from his tweets, he seemed only vaguely familiar with and had no interest in learning further. His follower count skyrocketed during that period and then he ended up getting a show on NBC. EGO OVERLOAD. I stopped following him right before Chuck Todd and other members of the media began to complain about Rovell DMing them and subsequently unfollowing-or worse, never following in the first place.
Last week, Rovell threw a hissy fit when a Playboy sports reporter wouldn’t take a photo with him. He then dangled his 175K followers (a count that now surpasses 178K) in front of her face and quickly became the Twitter village idiot. That’s quite a feat given the amount of stupidity on twitter. Between Roland S Martin and Toure alone there’s enough stupidity to write a really really long stupid ass book. Rovell was so insulted by Jamie Edmonson’s NERVE to refuse a photo that he went on to insult all the playmates basically saying they weren’t up to his standards. After that, to prove his point that ugly girls are ruining the playboy brand he pulled some playboy publication numbers showing the pub in decline.
And that episode pretty much encapsulates while I no longer follow Rovell. If you have 178K followers and you take the power of social media seriously then you know it’s irresponsible to connect those two things no matter how hurt your feelings were that one of the models wouldn’t take a photo with you. Sure, ugly girls are hurting the brand-not the fact that porn is basically available everywhere for free now-including most sports web blogs. You can barely find out a box score without running click first into a pair of breasts. Even if the models weren’t attractive, Rovell has no proof that the decline of the pub didn’t come first. Maybe Playboy’s lack of popularity has affected its ability to attract top naked…talent? Or whatever.
Since the Edmonson episode, those who are aware of Rovell (and I say this because most people still don’t know who he is despite what he thinks), have been having a good old time mocking Rovell and his tendency to measure everything in dollars and cents, misunderstand the simplest counterpoints, and shout for no reason.
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This particular post had me laughing out loud cause this is exactly how I picture Rovell in my mind. You should really read the entire post-again assuming you know who he is-but if you can’t this excerpt is good:
Darren Rovell Goes to the Cleaners
Rovell: I WANT THEM MONOGRAMMED.
Kim: I can do that.
Rovell: AND IF I LIKE YOUR WORK, I MAY MENTION YOU ON TWITTER TO MY 175,000 FOLLOWERS.
Kim: Well I’ll have to do a good job, then.
Rovell: (folds arms, closes eyes, nods repeatedly)
Kim: Monograph on the cuff?
Rovell: YUP.
Kim: And what should it say?
Rovell: @DARRENROVELL.
Kim: Pardon me?
Rovell: @DARRENROVELL.
Kim: You’re losing me.
Rovell: IT’S MY TWITTER NAME.
Kim: I see. And what does that mean?
Rovell: GRRRR. CLEARLY YOU ARE NOT ONE OF THE 175,000. I WANT IT TO BE THE “@” SYMBOL, FOLLOWED BY MY NAME, WHICH IS…
Kim: Darren Rovell.
Rovell: DARREN RO…yes.
Kim: Here’s the problem, Darren – a monogram is normally only initials. Two, three letters max.
Rovell: (counts to self) @DARRENROVELL HAS 13 LETTERS.
Kim: Exactly, that’s the prob…
Rovell: THAT’S IF YOU COUNT THE “@” AS A LETTER, WHICH I THINK FOR OUR PURPOSES, WE SHOULD.
Kim: I agree. But regardless…
Rovell: BUT I WOULD EXPECT YOU TO MAYBE THROW IN THE “@” FOR FREE.
Kim: I’d be happy to, Darren, but my real concern is ruining the shirts.
Rovell: I DON’T WANT YOU TO RUIN THEM.
Kim: Of course not. But a monogram that long, it’ll look kind of silly.
Rovell: …
Kim: Know what I mean? How about we just go with “D.R.”?
Rovell: I DON’T WANT @DR! @DR BARELY HAS 700 FOLLOWERS! I HAVE 175,000!
Kim: Not “@DR”. Just D period R period. The classic look.
Rovell: CLASSIC? WHAT PART OF A SYNERGISTIC SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND?
Kim: Uh…all of it?
Rovell: SO ARE YOU SAYING YOU WON’T HELP ME?
Kim: I want to help you, but I don’t want to mess up your clothes.
Rovell: ARRRGGGH. (whips out Blackberry)
Kim: Darren?
Rovell: (types furiously)
Kim: (shrugs shoulders)
Rovell: HERE! (shows Kim a tweet reading, “Kim’s Laundry – Worst customer service I’ve ever received! Not how a small business survives.”)
Kim: Hey! That’s not nice.
Rovell: NO IT ISN’T. AND IF I PUSH THAT ‘TWEET’ BUTTON, GUESS HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE GONNA SEE IT?
Kim: 175,000?
Rovell: PLUS RETWEETS.
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