‘Mad Men’ characters abound on Twitter

With a new spread in Vanity Fair, a glowing endorsement by Oprah and another major win at the recent Emmy awards, the popular '60s-era AMC television series “Mad Men” has become firmly rooted in the mainstream. But the show’s quirky characters have been showing up in another “stream” over the course of the last year, as well, thanks to a fast-growing “fan fiction” phenomenon on the microblogging site Twitter.

As with all things “Mad Men,” the in-character tweeting craze began with the show’s protagonist, ad man Don Draper, or in this case @Don_Draper, a Twitter account launched by Paul Isakson, from Minneapolis, who truly is in advertising and marketing

“The start of it was a bit of an accident,” says Isakson, who has tweeted as actor Jon Hamm’s smoldering character for more than a year. “I had the idea to create the account as season two was kicking off , but decided to sit on it to make sure I really wanted to do it.”

Then a funny thing happened.

Isakson mistakenly “followed back” a handful of people on Twitter while logged in as @Don_Draper and immediately, word got out that Matthew Weiner’s masterful creation was alive and well on Twitter.

@Don_Draper’s list of followers quickly began to grow — along with a good bit of speculation as to whether the account was officially associated with AMC or not — and a few days later, @Joan_Holloway and @PeggyOlson came on the Twitter scene.

The three accounts were briefly shut down as the creators of “Mad Men” and Twitter tried to sort out who these people were and why they had suddenly commandeered AMC’s intellectual property on the social networking site. But good sense — or perhaps good cents (hey, who’s to argue with free publicity?) — prevailed and the fan fiction floodgates were cranked open.

Calling all 'Mad Men' (and women)
At this point, there are close to 70 “Mad Men”-related accounts on Twitter, from big guns like Sterling Cooper agency ad men Roger Sterling, Pete Campbell and Sal Romano, to smaller artillery like Hollis, the elevator operator; Don and Betty’s son Bobby; and Chauncey, Duck Phillips’ long-lost Irish setter.

Secretaries, housewives, Sterling Cooper clients and secret personae (Dick Whitman, anyone?) are all represented on the site, with new characters popping up each time an episode airs.

When Betty Draper’s father Gene died a few episodes ago, @genes_ghost immediately appeared on Twitter.

Many of the show’s regulars have several incarnations. There’s not just @Betty_Draper and @bettydraper and @BettyDraper_, there’s also @BadBettyDraper, a slightly naughty version of Don Draper’s repressed wife, who instead of tweeting about meatloaf and maternity girdles, talks about drinking, smoking and reading “The Kinsey Report” to the kids.

The cast of creative characters even includes inanimate objects such as @BoylanSeltzer, a bottle of sparkling water that comments on the comings and goings of the ad agency and @TheAntFarm, a fictional “renegade” ant that began sharing office crumbs — metaphorical and otherwise — after Don Draper accidentally smashed open the insect farm during a meeting.

Tweeting as a Xerox machine
Bob, a 54-year-old computer scientist from Patagonia, Ariz., who asked that his last name not be used, tweets as @Xerox914, the agency's photocopy machine.

“I’ve been an avid ‘Mad Men’ fan since the first episode and was just enthralled by the realism,” he says. “And right about the time I discovered this whole second realm on Twitter, the Xerox machine showed up. So I elected to appoint myself as the machine. I used to use that model when I was in junior college and it always seemed to have a mind of its own.”

Some “Mad Men” tweeters have definitely taken creative license: @Gene_S_Draper, one of three Twitter accounts representing the new Draper baby (named after grandpa), sounds much more like a Brooklyn dockworker than an infant. But others work hard to stay true to their television counterparts.

“I usually watch the show with a laptop so I can take notes,” says Helen Klein Ross, a creative director and copywriter from Manhattan who tweets as Betty Draper and a handful of other characters.

“I’m very persnickety about the details. I want to be true to character, true to period, true to time. I want my followers to believe the Betty Draper they see on Twitter is the same Betty Draper they see on TV.”

Ross admits, though, the Twitter medium does allow for some breathing room.

“‘Mad Men’ exists in these caverns of silence, in the looks and the asides and the long draws on the cigarette,” she says. “But what people are thinking happens on Twitter. We give the audience a different dimension on the character. We fill in the gaps for an audience that isn’t used to having gaps.”

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