Ever since Betty Draper (January Jones)'s drastic weight gain in season five of AMC’s Mad Men (she has since been dubbed “Fat Betty” by fans), memes have sprouted on the character, from a parody Twitter account to even a YouTube mash-up of the character's eating habits. In a new Tumblr that cropped up on the internet last week, Mean Mad Men, an image of a heavier-set Betty is compared to no other than Regina George, the queen bee of the 2004 comedy Mean Girls. A character who also increased her poundage despite her obsession with burning carbohydrates, a photo of Betty is paired with the well-known quote from the film, “Is butter a carb?”
“Personally, as a Mad Men fan, one of the most interesting parts of the show was Betty’s weight gain,” Taylor Pearce, creator of the Tumblr account, told The Daily Beast. “It was one of those moments that in some way humbled Betty Draper's character. She’s always been the beautiful character, but not the nicest person.”
“It’s a perfect mash-up character comparing Betty and Regina,” she continued. “Betty is the character you’d love to hate.”
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The blog, created by the 22-year-old recent college graduate, pairs image stills from Mad Men with seminal quotes from Tina Fey’s Mean Girls. The other sexy heavy hitters of the show, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks), are likened to the Mean Girls popular chick squad, the Plastics. In one of the photos, Don—whom Pearce refers to as a “stone cold fox”—sits in a bright red convertible with his posse, and is captioned with the Mean Girls line, “Get in loser, we’re going shopping.”
Pearce, who is currently unemployed and studied media studies at Western University in Ontario, Canada, decided to share one of her image mash-ups on Facebook with her friends. The response was overwhelming and so she decided to start Mean Mad Men. Within a week, she accumulated thousands of followers and had 50,000 hits on the site. The Tumblr account even went international as she noted that a website in Paris wrote an article about her humorous photos.
But don't worry, Pearce's creations won't stop with season five, noting that she's looking forward to updating her Tumblr account with new story plots yet to unfold in the upcoming Mad Men season (April 7).
When asked about her new internet fame, Pearce said, “This must be what it feels like when Sally [Don’s daughter] gets a great hug from Don on Tumblr.”
