[tptacek]

My point is that Anthropic does not in fact have a lot of money riding on whether or not they use Zig, or probably really anything else that happens with Bun. In the meme, Anthropic is Don Draper, and the author of this blog post is Ginsburg.

[xyzzy_plugh]

I think that meme is dangerous precisely because the shallow interpretation is the opposite of the one the scene intends to convey.

Draper sabotages Ginsburg because he's threatened by him. In the elevator Don is masking his insecurities, as he deeply fears Ginsburg's talent. His own creativity, and confidence, has been crumbling. It's all ego.

[tptacek]

Draper sabotages Ginsburg because he couldn't possibly care less about Ginsburg and is irritated to be saving his feelings by pitching two different campaigns when he knows he has it in the bag. I know the Mad Men wiki says otherwise, but 51% of Mad Men wikipedians are wrong about this: Draper is being honest in the elevator.

Ginsburg's tagline wins Jaguar! (Joan clears an obstacle to them winning it, but they still had to win it). It's the most important account in the history of SCDP. Don doesn't care; he's overjoyed just to have a good tag.

And then, of course, the insecure Draper interpretation makes absolutely no sense here --- there's no conceivable universe where Zig is at the top of Anthropic's mind right now. Which was the only point to bringing up the meme in the first place!

[xyzzy_plugh]

I have no idea what the wiki says but this is a wild take. It's a lie through and through, but Don is so smooth he convinced you in addition to himself.

Time for a rewatch I suppose.

[twoodfin]

Coming to this unexpectedly awesome thread a bit late but…

Take away any questions of ego or rivalry: Don is obsessed with the youth of his era. Over and over again we see him trying to pick the lock of understanding how they see the world, just as his own youth is departing.

He absolutely thinks about Ginsberg—deeply—even if only from an anthropological perspective.