Lawndale Commons
Lawndale Commons was a Daria fan supersite run by Michelle Klein-Häss. Founded in 1998 at the www.2cowherd.net/catseye/thecommons/ web address (later moved to www.lawndalecommons.com, then www.lawndale-commons.com, then www.msgeek.com/lc/), it consisted of a message board, chat, artwork, links, news about MTV, and specially selected fanfiction. The message board was the biggest draw, following the demise of older message boards. It required users to get prior approval before posting and consisted of threads of posts in a long string. Older posts would be pushed to the bottom and eventually destroyed by the board's innate "meat grinder" style. Michelle Klein-Häss, with the help of one or two moderators, kept the message board under control. This drew some criticism from other fans, who felt that they should be able to speak freely. This criticism grew more heated, to the point that one user's insults prompted MKH to yank the message board on December 6, 1999.
LC continued without the message board for some time. The final update on this website was on March 31, 2003, after the show left MTV and the "Nogginized" version was being aired, to the dismay of many. Portions of the site may be accessed using The WayBack Machine.
Note that the coat-of-arms for Lawndale in the logo is fairly complex and indicates the community was founded in 1872. It is not clear if this image was lifted from an earlier version of the MTV Daria website and is in some way "official." The image does not now exist on the MTV site.
External Links[edit]
- A Question of Gratitude, an essay by Michelle Klein-Häss
- An Appeal for Sanity, an essay about the shutdown of the message board at Lawndale Commons