Mad Men

About

Mad Men is an American period-drama television series that follows advertisement writer Don Draper as he builds his career and juggles his family life in New York City during the 1960s. It premiered on AMC in 2007 and will conclude in 2015 after its seventh season.

Premise

Don Draper grew up poor and mistreated, but after stealing the identity of a late soldier he worked with during the Korean War, he reinvents himself and becomes a wealthy ad writer. Though he has a wife and small children he has many affairs, and continues them after he divorces his first wife and remarries. The show also follows his co-workers at the ad agencies he works at, including Peggy, his de-facto protege, Pete, who aspires to Draper's career and shares some of his family problems, and Joan, the beautiful and ambitious secretary.

History

Mad Men was created by Matthew Weiner. It premiered on AMC on July 19th, 2007. Its seventh season, which will be its last, is scheduled to premiere on April 13th, 2014.^[11]

Reception

Mad Men earned a 8.7 on IMBD^[8] and a 77 on Metacritic.^[9] It has been nominated and won many awards during its six season run including winning three Golden Globes for Best TV Drama and four Primetime Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series.

Online Presence

As of February 2014, Mad Men's official Twitter account^[1] has over 170,000 followers and its Facebook page^[2] has over 2.5 million likes.

Fandom

There are numerous fan run blogs dedicated to the Mad Men fandom including fuckyeahmad-men^[3], madmenwiththingsdrawnonthem^[4], and madmendaily.^[5] As of February 2014, there are over 100 Mad Men fics on Fanfic.net^[6] and over 15,000 submissions on DeviantArt.^[7]

Related Memes

Opening Credits Parodies

Mad Men's "Opening Credits Parodies": are a series of spoof videos based on the animated opening title sequence for the show. The parodies typically feature silhouettes of fictional characters falling past glass facade reflections of memorable scenes from their respective TV shows, films and video games.

Draping

Draping is a photo fad based on a still from the opening credits of the show. Named after the show’s main character Don Draper, it involves sitting with the back facing the camera and the right arm draped over the object the subject is sitting on.

Sad Don Draper

Sad Don Draper is a photoshop meme that involves taking a screen shot of Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm) crying and putting it over a photo of something sad (or comically not sad). On September 5th, 2010, an episode of Mad Men titled "The Suitcase" aired. During one scene in the episode Don Draper breaks down sobbing, a screenshot of that scene is used for the meme. On September 7th, the Tumblr blog saddondraper^[12], which collects and posts Sad Don Draper photos, was created. On the same day Refinery29^[13] reported on the meme and on September 8th, Funny or Die^[14] compiled the best of the meme.

'80s Don Draper

On April 24th, 2013, a Twitter account^[11] called 80sDonDraper was created. The Twitter's avatar is of Jon Hamm, who plays Mad Men's Don Draper, in a stereotypically 1980s hair cut and outfit. The tweets parody Draper's sales pitch pronouncements, adding an '80s theme to them. As of February 2014, the account has over 52,000 followers.

Search Interest

External References