Daria and it's Effects on the American Teenager

Thanks to the recent release to DVD and Logo taking it on, Daria has had a bit of a comeback. All my girlfriends watched this show, if you were a teenage girl in the late nineties there was something about her and best friend Jane you identified with.

As a bushy haired brunet outcast with glasses I was equated with Daria quite often. I clearly remember a boy on the bus home telling me I should find myself some combat boots and a green jacket. Secretly I identified more with Jane, to this day I never considered myself a brain and my horrendous spelling can attest to that, but I often found myself working on odd art projects in my spare time.

Laying on my couch in the afternoon it was all too easy to fall into the world she lived in. Everyone gets annoyed with their teachers, and knows someone that might be considered too dumb to live, but still manages to make the grade each year. Your parents drive you nuts, you don't want to be caught dead around your siblings and your friends are the only people who really understand you.

It's really no wonder Daria spoke to a generation of adolescent females just wanting to be accepted for who there are and not the clothes they wear or who they hang out with.

Daria did something no other brain up until then had been able to do. Not Lisa Simpson, not Urkle (is it sad that I can't think of a third example), Daria made smart, cool.