Still Thinking About Ken Cosgrove

Epilogue

The amount of brainspace I devote in any given week to Ken Cosgrove is, succinctly, absurd. As a writer whose energy was devoted for many years to a succession of non-writing roles, steadily increasing in responsibility and cachet and visibility, I perhaps see myself the most directly in his story. I got into ads in 2012; Mad Men had finished its fifth season, and I had been desperate to leave my first job at a nonprofit organization. I’d thought working in advertising would be fun (it was). I thought it would pay well (eventually it did). I thought I could do it for a few years until I got some writing published and could start working part time (LOLDEFINITELYNOT).

Advertising requires all of your attention for fifty-one weeks per year, and the only people who really understand that are the ones who work in it. That makes the industry incredibly insular, and also very difficult to discuss with non-advertising people. The industry drools over Mad Men because it speaks our language, minimally, but effectively, and makes us feel seen. Like The Sopranos or The Wire, it was slick and it was full of things that really happened and we wanted to be slick, too, like what we saw on TV. We were not gangsters and we were not cops and we were not soldiers or doctors but we were full of things that really happened, and we wanted to be mythological, too; like a great ad during the Super Bowl. Like Don Draper.