Hunting for Planet Daria

Last night, sitting at home with yet another head cold, I decided to try one more time to find an ancient copy of the legendary Planet Daria website. I used the WayBack Machine at archive.org and Google's 2001 archive searcher. And I found it (see pic at right). In other words, there was nothing there except an apology from the former webmistress, Rowena Stubbs. How could a site that was so popular disappear so completely, even from the archives?

Now, as I understand it, Planet Daria existed for only two years (1997-1998), but in that time it was outrageously famous. Every single link to it that I can find on other people's ancient websites praises it to the skies as the best possible Daria fansite. (This was before Outpost Daria, of course.) About 1998 or so, a 14-year-old girl named Starr reviewed Planet Daria for a website called SmartGirl.com and described it in some detail (click here or here). Another source says it had episodes, song lists, sounds, pictures, postcards, "etc., etc." A rating system was also available for stories.

The curious thing is, of all the links I've found to the old Planet Daria (not the Australian blog of the same name), it's rare to find any two that are alike. Here are some of the web addresses I've uncovered that supposedly went to Planet Daria:

• http://freemall.com/daria/
• http://home.earthlink.net/~arowena/daria/
• http://welcome.to/daria
• http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Academy/4517/
• http://www.geocities.com/~planetdaria/
• http://www.opni.com/~rowena/daria/
• http://www.opni.com/~rowena/daria.html
• http://www.the-wall.net/~daria/
• http://www.the-wall.net/~daria/main1.html
• http://www.the-wall.net/~daria/main2.html
• http://www.the-wall.net/~daria/guide/guide.html
• http://www.the-wall.net/~daria/l1.html

All this from 1997-1998? Many of these pages (retrieved using the WayBack Machine) have the same apology for not keeping up the site, so I guess it's the same place.

One of those addresses (http://welcome.to/daria) was also used by a site called The Daria Craze (ex-Low Self Esteem) in April 1999. (Click here and remember to enter your name!) At the top of the screen, however, are the words "Planet Daria." What's up with that?

Did anyone save anything from Planet Daria, like the logo or comments or anything? I know Outpost Daria has much of Planet Daria's content (thank God), but what about stuff showing what the site actually looked like. Anyone save a page from there? Anyone know why there are so many addresses for Planet Daria? Was there more than one?

Chat about this if you would. Wish I'd gotten into watching Daria a lot earlier.

(P.S. I've added a LOT more ancient websites to the "Blast from the Past" section at the bottom of the left column. Enjoy your stroll down Memory Lane, old-timers.)