I’ve met (Darren) Rovell a few times, and I find him to be a generally affable, professional, intelligent human being. He has a certain well-hello-people-who-are-not-me-but-are-obviously-just-here-to-see-me vibe to him, but I just chalk that up to an occupational hazard of appearing on television regularly. And all told, the guy has always done good work (in addition to the Nike press releases and Fathead sales updates, of course); he’s a legit reporter. But something about Twitter has caused him to lose his goddamned mind. He’s asking people to send him pictures of their lunch, showing up in public with his Twitter handle on his back and, perhaps most infamously, installing himself as a sort of Twitter cop, with his rules of Twitter and his scoldings of those who disobey his laws. I’m fairly certain Rovell considers a moment he’s not on Twitter to be a wasted moment.

This, of course, has been nothing but rewarding for Rovell: It just got him his own TV show. It might be just that, as frustrating as he is (and I honestly can’t follow him), he’s just better at it than the rest of us are. He has simply transplanted his life and personality onto Twitter in a more efficient way than anyone else.

William F. Leitch, Deadspin, December 22, 2012

Yes, well, who knows? Perhaps someday Rovell will have one of those grand epiphanies — y’know, like the sort Screech experienced when he left Deadspin because (in his words), “I was starting to worry I was becoming more a blog than a person.” In the meantime, taking the latter to task for insubstantial tweets is kind of like expressing disappointment in Korn’s foray into dubstep. Much as there’s something slightly screwy about taking to the internet to declare Darren Rovell has been too zealous in his embrace of social media. I’m not so sure an unchecked boner for blogging and tweeting is contributing to an (even) dumber brand of discourse. Or to paraphrase the gun lobby, “Twitter doesn’t bore people to death. You do.”