Buzzdome.com

An Internet company depicted in "Sappy Anniversary." Jake Morgendorffer goes to work for "Buzzdome Dot Com" for a brief period but is fired when he blows an important presentation&mdash;then is rehired as a consultant, taking back his old job. Buzzdome presented a variety of interesting characters that have been little used in Daria fanfic: the 24-year-old ultra-rich president, Noah Barkman; redheaded Nora the information architext; Xiangdong (Zhengdong?) the interactive strategist; Sameer (Zameer?), the "brain trust"; and the maladjusted consumer-service rep, Jacklene. (Note: The correct spelling of some of these characters' names is in dispute.)

What Buzzdome.com did, exactly, was not clear, and the lack of clarity was part of the point of the subplot. One employee, when asked by Jake, responded: "We help other dot coms maximize their potential, and expand the virtual marketplace." And, upon a quizzical look from Jake, responded more candidly. "Look, I make big money, to sit around and daydream. I'm not about to rock the boat." The company's unclear mission and stereotyped employees/co-owners were intended to be a parody of the then-current dot com craze.

Buzzdome.com doesn't often appear in Daria fanfic. One example is The Angst Guy's "A Knight to Remember," which postulates that the company was swept away in the so-called dot-com crash in 2000, and offers possible reasons for that. Noah Barkman is the organizer of the "Cannonball Run" race featured in DJW's story, The Dammitall Run.

Buzzdome.com Comments

 * "The Daria Temporal Analysis Project" by Richard Lobinske, which places "Sappy Anniversary" before the dot-com crash.
 * January 2006 interview with Anne D. Bernstein on DVDaria that discusses Buzzdome from the episode writer's viewpoint.