Datedness of Daria

"I don't really like to attach specific dates to events in this cartoon world... If I assign specific dates to events, the only purpose it serves is to get people upset about "violating canon," and I'm not sure what good that does anyone."

- Glenn Eichler in an interview

As with any television show there are specific elements that tend to limit the show to a certain chronological period. Daria is no exception, being firmly rooted in the period it aired, from early 1997 to early 2002. The TV series makes no references to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, for instance, though the Daria section of the MTV.com website has an essay (by Daria) that references those events. Her other essays in "The World According to Daria" discuss news topics from the late 1990s.

The argument could be made that any movie, television show or media creation becomes dated as technology, fads, and other products available at the time it was produced are by necessity reflected in the final product. An exception could be made for programs that deliberately try to recreate a bygone time period, or to evoke nostalgia. One would expect that that a movie made in the 2000s about the 1960s would reflect the lifestyle of the time.

Further arguments could be made that too much importance can be placed on time-specific elements and not enough importance on the exploration of universal truths that give movies and TV relevance beyond the time period of their immediate creation. However, there are certain parts of Daria that tie it to its time and place.

General
Except for Helen, none of the characters uses a cell phone regularly, which are ubiquitous today. Aside from Helen's phone, only a few cell phones are seen in the series, the first in "The Teachings of Don Jake," and it is a very large bulky device unlike the cell phones of our era. Jake has a more modest cell phone in "Daria!", which he throws out of the car window before his song, "Gah Dammit!". In "Legends of the Mall," Quinn is using a more compact cell phone when Daria tells her that Jake can't pick the Fashion Club up at the mall. Similarly, Helen's large, bulky cell phone gets replaced by a sleeker version more in line with the current models ("One J at a Time"), and Quinn uses a modern cell phone in Is It College Yet?

Almost every stereo system you see has an audio cassette deck on it, which were hard to come outside a thrift store by 2005 with the rise of MP3s.

Almost all computers have cathode-ray monitors as opposed to the flat-screen monitors which were just starting out at the time.

Helen and Jake are explicitly made out to be former hippies, and part of the 1960s counterculture movement, when they were teenagers and early 20s. The further into the past the show gets, the more dated this becomes.

Cafe Disaffecto
The local cyber-cafe was robbed, and O'Neill laments that now people are cut off from online contact. Even by the second season of the show, characters would be logging on from home and the Internet would become far more present. These days, a cafe would have wi-fi for laptops as standard rather than boast about being "cyber". Starting in 2010 in parts of the United States, "Cyber Cafes" referred to vitual gambling establishments.

Jane is seen checking out Daria's cassette tapes, playing them through a ghetto blaster with a tape deck.

Malled
While the name "Mall of the Millennium" does not necessarily date the series, in the late 1990's near the turn of the millennium the terms "2000" and "millennium" were used as buzzwords.

When Daria gets sick on the bus her and Jane's remarks about "It smells like..." "Teen Spirit?" refer to Nirvana's monster hit from 1991

The Lab Brat
Brittany was forced to carry a beeper by Upchuck. She would carry a cell phone if the show was set in the modern era.

Road Worrier
Jake went to Altamont Free Concert, which was in December 1969.

Trent refers to the music video for "Everybody Hurts" by REM, which ran in 1993.

Arts 'N Crass
The contest is about Student Life at the Dawn of the New Millenium - which has since been and gone.

I Don't
There's a banner reading "Bridal Expo '98".

That Was Then, This Is Dumb
The hippies' attempt to levitate the Pentagon is a reference to a real-life "attempt" to do so, during an October 21 1967 anti-war march.

Jane, in trying to get Jesse's attention, states that on April 1, 2007, the various objects people buy would take over civilization. This date has since occurred.

Jake and Helen spent a night in jail at Boulder in August 1969.

Daria!
Quinn carries a beeper in this episode.

Lane Miserables
Jake is confused about the comic strip "B.C." and its religious elements. Johnny Hart, the original writer and cartoonist for "B.C.," died in April 2007. As of this writing, it is unknown if Perri Hart and Mason Mastroianni will continue writing the strip from Hart's religious perspective.

(It is interesting to note that Hart died on April 7, 2007 - tantalizingly close to the date that Jane said various objects would take over civilization in That Was Then, This Is Dumb. Could he have been the only victim?  Did he save us?  Learn the truth next on Sick, Sad World!")

Speedtrapped
Quinn thinks they'll be back in time for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which ended in 2003.

Jane's Addition
The disk drive Mr. O'Neil is using to display the class's multimedia assignments looks like an Iomega Zip Drive, a replacement for disk drives that eventually dropped off in popularity due to inexpensive CD-RW technology. The zip drive could hold over 100 megabytes, which makes sense - the 30 seconds of music Daria and Jane wanted Trent would have almost completely filled a single one-megabyte floppy disk, no matter what format it was recorded in.

I Loathe a Parade
A 24 Hour Photo Store is seen on Lawndale's main street. These types of stores faded away with the rise of digital cameras in the mid 2000's.

The F Word
Brittany tries to discuss the Taliban's draconian rule in Afghanistan. By the end of 2001, the Taliban had been deposed and became an insurgency rather than a government.

Of Human Bonding
Arno says he missed a chance to be the first to balloon around the world. The deed was done in 1999.

Is It Fall Yet?
Daniel Dotson created Paper Plate Genocide in 1991. In the film, aired in 2000, he seems to be in his thirties.

Alison is the first and only character that isn't heterosexual to appear on the show. This is less likely to happen on a teen-oriented show these days.

Fizz Ed
Jodi is asked to point out the location of a country on a map, but she points out that the map is outdated - the country in question (Chechnya) became independent in 1991 and the map was published before then. This makes the map seem even more dated today.

Sappy Anniversary
The Buzzdome 'B' story makes the most sense if it occurs before the tech stock bubble burst in the fall 2000. Amusingly, this story came out after the bubble had burst so this story was dated when it aired!

Jake doesn't understand the most basic things about computers or the Internet because he's old. The further we go into the future, the more he'd have been required to use a computer and the Internet for work.

Fat Like Me
To start Sandi's exercise program to lose weight, Quinn inserts a VHS videotape into the player in Sandi's room.

The Story of D
The plot revolves around Daria sending a short story to Musings Magazine, a literary magazine with some prominence. There aren't many magazines that run short stories still in existence circa 2011 and the ones that do would not be known to the general public.

My Night at Daria's
An angry Jake says the Vietnam War was "winding down" when he was eligible for the draft.

Is It College Yet?
The film opens with a montage of iconic moments and fashions of 20th century American colleges. The montage ends with the late 80s, whereas even a few years later the show would've had the grunge period of the early 90s.

At Lindy's party is a poster for "Cyber Doo 2001 Film and Multimedia".

Jodie's grandmother was one of the first female students to be accepted into Turner, a historically African-American university. Her father (a 50 year old man) says he "had to" go to Turner instead of a more elite university, implying that as a black man he couldn't get in to the more elite universities. The further ahead we get from 2002, the less likely it is that Grandma Landon would've been one of the first female students and the more likely it is that Andrew would've had other opportunities.

In the "future egos" the Three Js are shown running JRL, a parody of MTV's Total Request Live - a show that was cancelled a few years after the movie aired.

The Daria Diaries
Helen and Jake's commitment vows are dated June 26, 1975.

Jake won't be drafted into the Vietnam War because he's going to Middleton College.

Upchuck's website Ultrasuave Universe lists Agent Scully, Teri Hatcher from The New Adventures of Superman, and Aeon Flux in his Gallery of Feisty Babes. These are all actresses and characters from sci-fi shows from the 1990s.

Anthony DeMartino used to be a beatnik.

The Daria Database
The "Middleton Musings" state that Jake and Helen are from the class of 1972 and recently celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary (which would be June 26, 1998).

Kevin and Brittany are clearly amazed by the idea of email.

The brochure for Jim's Paintballing Jungle has a themed arena based on the Bosnian Wars.

Angela Li wrote a letter to Texas Governor George W. Bush, praising his views on capital punishment (controversial in the late 1990s) and hoping he tries to become the Republicans' next candidate for President.

The Morgendorffers' fridge still has a "Vote Dukakis" bumper sticker stuck on it, a candidate who ran in 1988.

Trent has a portable CD player under his bed which broke in 1994. By time of writing, he'd have been a toddler then.

Lawndale High is burying a time capsule of the year 1998.

Beavis and Butt-head
Mr. Van Driessen is an aging hippie.

Stewart Stevenson is a fan of Winger, a band that broke up in 1994 (then reformed in 2001 and broke up again in 2003).

Butt-head says they'll be as cool as the American Gladiators in "Babes 'R' Us", a show that ended in 1996.

"Citizen Butt-head" has Daria and B&B meeting President Bill Clinton, soon after he was elected; Daria refers to a campaign promise he made. He was in his second term when Daria started and left office a few months after Is It Fall Yet?.

Coach Buzzcut was a Vietnam War veteran and has a flashback in front of Daria in #21 of the comic.

Highland High buries a time capsule of the mid-1990s in the final issue. (Daria didn't think much of the idea that time around either)