A few days ago I received an email from Twitter, informing me that I was being followed by Betty Draper. I followed back, and a few minutes later, Betty sent me a message, “You can’t sleep either? Thanks for keeping me company ;)”.
I’ve never been much interested in fan fiction or the fiction that inspires it, but there’s something about these characters moving in this medium that’s startlingly powerful. Both Mad Men and Twitter derive their stories and interest mostly from small revelations between carefully or carelessly controlled public and private personas (be it through multiple accounts or stolen dog tags). Like all fan fiction, the Mad Men on Twitter extend and bend the story beyond what’s possible in the stingy one-hour-a-week, one-way format of a TV show. But because Tweets are text and Twitter is a social space, @trudy_campbell and @harrycrane are able to avoid the visual dissonances that can befall a fat Batman at a comic book convention or a kitschy dinner theater performance at Disney’s MGM studios.
Within hours of @bettydraper’s email, I was following a dozen Twitterers in her orbit, including her daughter, her rival, her husband, his coworker, and his past. I followed as they converse with each other and us from 1963 – flirting, skirting, throwing dinner parties, and pouring gimlets, all using a technology that wouldn’t be invented for over forty years and whose only purpose is to capture “what people are doing right now”. @_PeteCampbell effortlessly closes the gap between his now and ours, simply by ignoring it.
Some of my favorite tweets:
“@ken_cosgrove I’ve got a stiff one for anyone who needs it. The Prosecco’s almost gone anyway. @Paul_Kinsey? @_PeteCampbell? Who’s ready?” – Sal_Romano
“Mrs. Draper is a cold, cold princess. Not much better than mom. I’m all alone.” – glen_bishop
Some articles:
- i am @bettydraper (Including dirt on her rivalry with @betty_draper
- Confessions Of A (Fake) Mad Man by @don_draper
- A Marketing Move the ‘Mad Men’ Would Love
- AMC decides to allow fans’ ‘Mad Men’ Twittering
- There’s Alka Seltzer in my Scotch (In which I trash Mad Men and AMC. What can I say, in retrospect, Season One was a necessary mess ;)