Fake people abound on Twitter. Fans tweet as Darth Vader, Malcolm Reynolds, Stephen Colbert — actually, it’s hard to tell with Colbert.

And fans of the hit AMC show “Mad Men” stepped up and did the same, creating Twitter accounts for Don Draper, Betty Draper, Peggy Olson, Joan Halloway, Pete Campbell, Roger Sterling, Bertram Cooper, Paul Kinsey, Salvatore Romano, Harry Crane, Bobby Barrett (and more), and posting in character. It was a fun addition to the show, especially since most of the faux-Men were pretty darn good at it.

And everything was fun… until apparently AMC noticed and asked Twitter to bring them down. The guy who was channeling Paul Kinsey blogged about it.

No big deal, no lawsuits, no one yelling, and the fans knew this was always possible. But then the cool thing happened: AMC let them back in. According to this article, AMC’s marketing people said it was a good idea:

See, in Web marketing parlance, the Twitterers assuming the names of Mad Men characters are actually “brand ambassadors” meant to be cultivated, not thwarted. “Better to embrace the community than negate their efforts,” says a Deep Focus spokesman.

So yay for 140-character fan fiction!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 10:10 am.
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