A few months ago I started following @don_draper on Twitter. As an obsessed fan of AMC’s Mad Men, it was fun to see what Don, his wife, Betty, and co-worker, Peggy, said after each episode. The tweets were always relevant.
I began getting requests from every character on the show, which made me think one person was behind all the accounts. It was sometimes surreal to get the requests because I’d recognize the name, but wouldn’t know how I knew it until I saw the profile pic. Having TV characters and my personal Twitter account collide felt strange at times.
Today, a friend sent me a direct message revealing the identity of Don Draper on Twitter.
The account apparently began as Paul Isakson’s experiment extending a TV character into social media in real way. His plan was to turn the accounts over to AMC as soon as the research was through.
As it turns out, Twitter shut down the account due to violations of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.
I was unaware of the DCMA, though obviously something like this exists online.
Eventually, a Web marketing team at AMC fought Twitter’s decision and got the accounts restored, giving a nod to the influece of Twitter.
Don Draper has nearly 4,500 followers, but only 391 tweets at the time I wrote this entry. I’d like to see him get more active. It would really be cool if AMC passed on clues to the show through the accounts, or answered questions from followers. Right now, the things I’ve read have been pretty generic and not adding anything extra.
I figured it was never really Don behind the account, so I’ll be waiting to see how AMC utilizes the accounts after the takeover.
