What is the point of "Daria" fandom?

One might conclude that this is a snarky question, the sort of question you ask after a bourbon or whenever you come to the conclusion (in your darkest hours) that the activity to which you have devoted hours looks less and less like joy and more and more like a massive waste of time. This is the question a parent might ask a child: "What is the point of watching all those 'Sailor Moon' episodes, anyway?"

However, I ask it as a serious question: What is the point of "Daria" fandom?

Right now, "Daria" fandom has two main message boards: the Paperpusher Message Board (in a few years, people are going to be asking Kara Wild, "Why did you name it the Paperpusher Message Board?") and the Sheep's Fluff Message Board. And one thing that any outsider would notice is that only a small part of each message board seems, at first glance, to be devoted to anything regarding "Daria".

The SFMB does use the word "Dariacon" and does mention a few characters (Jane, Brittany) in its message board topic headers, whereas the PPMB reluctantly admits that it is a "Daria" message board -- in the foreign language sections. Any mention of Daria beyond these lone signposts would be found only inside the forums. It's as if there were a swimming pool, with the odd feature that one could only tell if there was water inside by taking a blind leap and praying not to break one's legs.

A non-fan would not know that there's a history behind the PPMB having board topics free of any mention of Our Heroine -- with the show off the air, Paperpusher made the deliberate decision not to discriminate, not to say, "You're only allowed to talk about 'Daria' here." He wanted the boards as open as possible, so that people did not feel as if they needed to watch 65 episodes and 2 movies before they could begin posting.

I think Thea Zara made the same decision, for the same reasons. Myself, I had a different opinion. During the time when I only posted at the Scorched Remnants Message Board, I considered myself the Wyatt Earp of the board, unafraid to turn my guns on anyone who wanted to turn the purity of "my" message board into a message board on My Personal Problems or My Political Opinions or My Thoughts on English Architecture. If you weren't talking about "Daria", I wasn't interested in listening. Which was indeed a shame, since the SRMB missed a lot of interesting conversation.

And yet, a lot of our "Daria" message boards have very little to do with Daria, for good or for bad. On both boards, non-"Daria" discussion outnumbers "Daria" discussion by a factor of about 2:1 (unsupported statistical guess). I had a chance to look at another message board of another fandom. They seemed to be doing better, their signal-to-noise ratio was about 1:1.

Which leads me to wonder: What is the purpose of "Daria" fandom?

Looking at the message boards, it appears that both boards are places for "Daria" fans to discuss ... well, anything. Do you like "Daria"? What else do you like? What are your political opinions, your "deep thoughts", what movies have you seen? What kinds of personal bonds can we form? How's so and so doing? What kind of dirty, erotic thoughts do you have, and do you care to share them? Where did John Doe go, he was so active on the boards only months ago? Oh, and by the way, what do you think about That Chick With the Glasses?

I remember reading somewhere that you could divide fandom into four parts. My memory isn't so good, since I can only remember three of the pieces.

The first part is made up of the True Believers. For these people, Fandom Is A Way Of Life. They are the Daria Defenders, the people who believe that Daria is the One True Goddess ... and that people should be converted, by sword if necessary. They take "Daria" fandom seriously (and perhaps, too seriously). Very hard bunch of people to get along with, because they can only seem to talk about "Daria" to the exclusion of anything else. (I number myself in the first group.)

The second part is made up of those who believe Fandom Is Just A God-Damned Hobby. "Daria" fandom has its place in the world ... but that place isn't everything. They'd really rather have a lot of fun than talk about "Daria". While Group One draws up its charts, Group Two is busy drinking in the backroom, telling jokes, and having a high old time. I'm sure many "Daria" fans proudly call themselves members of this group, because if fandom isn't enjoyable, then what good is it? They don't find joy in picking through minutiae like the first group.

The third part is made up of ... well, it's really hard to tell why these people got into "Daria" fandom. These are the people who NEVER seem to talk about "Daria". One wonders if it's because they don't feel they could say anything that Groups One and Two haven't well covered, but one also wonders if they don't have anything to say at all. I'm sure we could name a few message board posters who seem to post about ... well, about nothing but their problems and the government and movies, and you could find ten thousand words by these hangers-on and "Daria" not deserving of mention even one time. Like I said (but it bears repeating), you wonder how they got here at all.

All three groups are in a sort of detente. You'll find them in just about any fandom. No one group makes up the entire fandom. But something might seem very strange if one of the groups went missing.

So what is the point of "Daria" fandom?

Is the point "Daria"? Is the point the social experience, where "Daria" is the core of that experience? Is the point the fannishness, the feuds, the in-jokes, the secret histories common to all fandoms? Is "Daria" the reason people get together, or is it just an excuse that people use to get together and form social bonds? Is "Daria" the medium, the message, or what?

Oh, the strange things that go through my mind ...