For the dorky girls of the 1990s and early 2000s, we were Daria and Daria was us. Daria was Daria Morgendorffer, the lead character of the cartoon of the same name, which ran on MTV from 1997 to 2002. When the show first aired, we saw what we thought of ourselves portrayed in pop culture for the first time – an intelligent, cynical and plain teenager who just wanted to be left alone.
So when MTV announced in 2009 that it would finally, FINALLY release the complete series on DVD, thousands of women in their twenties and thirties let out a collective joyous shriek. Eight long years of waiting, petitioning and begging had finally paid off. When the series was available to buy, however, I debated whether or not to get it.
I used to preen after someone would say how much I was like Daria. In high school, although my grades were good and I was generally left alone, the few friends that I had were at the bottom of the social totem pole. My ability to make more friends wasn’t helped by my constant dismissal of anything well-liked and the half-permed, half-straight waist-length monstrosity known as my hair. While a few friends yearned for popularity, I brushed our lack of social status off by claiming how we geeks would have the last laugh in the “real world” and congratulated myself for being above it all.
The post-high school world both was and wasn’t what I expected. Everything went well academically and careerwise. But after my initial shock at how nice people were, people started “having to go” after ten minutes of conversation. This was the real world, so why were people still keeping their distance? Like Daria in the show’s later seasons, I was forced to confront the reasons behind my attitude. Was I different from everyone else and everything was boring, or was it because I wanted to feel better about myself and was too afraid to try anything?
Eventually, I stopped rejecting everything. Although I still prefer reading at home to, well, anything, at least I was willing to check things out. I began to poke my head out of my shell, cut my hair, discovered eyeliner and, after several interventions by horrified friends, realized the virtue of not-ill-fitting clothes. More importantly, as I tried out things I would never have considered before, I began considering, even embracing, other perspectives.
Strangely enough, I found myself being considered well-liked and attractive. That brought its own set of problems – in that no one, especially peers who would have been my high school brethren, believed that I had any. Among some of those who proudly brandished their outsider status, I was a sheeple concerned only with my social reputation, even if all the evidence indicated otherwise. If I acted socially awkward, it was either because I was stupid or conceited, or the awkwardness was a sign of crippling confidence issues. They’d brag amongst themselves, convinced that they would have the last laugh over “my kind.”
Recently, after much internal debate, a fellow high school social bottom-dweller friend went to our reunion. She reported that although everyone was nice, things were essentially the same – the former popular kids hung out with their cliques, the not-as-popular ones with theirs. Yet she was also mad at herself. “Why did I waste so much time being intimidated by the so-called popular kids,” she asked, “when I’m just as hot and awesome?”
That was the beauty of Daria. She showed us dorky girls that we were awesome. She showed us that it’s okay to do out own thing, even if the world thought we should cheer up and smile more. But revisiting the series years later, I can’t help but cringe just a little.
I’m still debating whether to get the DVD.
