Mad Men
POPULARITY: Defined AMC; first season premiered to less than a million viewers, but fifth season premiere almost quadrupled that; Netflix paid $1 million per episode for streaming rights. Inspired Banana Republic clothing line and spike in mid-century fashion, in general.
FACEBOOK FOLLOWERS: 2.2 million
TWITTER FOLLOWERS: 112,000
FAN NICKNAME: Too cool for that.
MAIN HANGOUTS: The essential Basket of Kisses, Footnotes of Mad Men
AVERAGE DEMOGRAPHIC: Rich people. Almost half of Mad Men's viewers make more than $100,000 per year. A MM fan likely season-passes all the edgy cable dramas, too: If they are talking about Don Draper, they're likely still talking about Omar Little, Walter White, and Tony Soprano too.
DEVOTIONAL PROFILE: Mad Men fans watch and re-watch episodes, deconstructing the show on multiple levels. They can pick a moment — say, a shot of a weeping, bereft Don — and transform it into a goofy meme (Sad Don Draper) literally overnight. They spot and revel in recurring moments or behaviors, creating such rallying points as Pete Campbell's #####face, or a music video of Pete getting punched. (And plenty of non-Pete stuff too.) But these examples belie the great seriousness with which these devotees can pore over and analyze the show, with a level of inquiry that borders on the Talmudic. There are college courses, meticulous fashion blogging, and a dozen podcasts. Late every Sunday night, the Internet is turned upside down and shaken to find the historical touchstones from that evening's episode. Every imaginable outlet recaps the show, and viewers devour many of them per episode, searching for the writer who "gets it" in the same way they do.
Being a Mad Men fan is like part of your identity: It reflects well on you, and it makes you part of an elite, discerning club. It's no surprise that many are still using those "Mad Men Yourself" avatars as their Facebook and Twitter profile pics. And, appropriately, Mad Men fans also show their love the way any good ad man would want them to: with buying power. After Jessica Paré sang "Zou Bisou Bisou" on the show's fifth-season premiere, the show put out her performance as a 7-inch. And people totally bought it.