What the heck is going on here? I cannot believe they said Anna Nicole Smith was ranked higher on the 2007 scandal scale than Britney Spears. That is such a crock. I'll never watch Entertainment Tonight again. What a load of bull. Where do they get off saying . . . oh, jeez, wrong blog! Sorry!Uh, yeah, the Lawndale Lowdown, that's our topic. Right, here's the lowdown on the Lowdown. Ever since Lawndale High's school newspaper was introduced in "Quinn the Brain," with Brittany Taylor one of its columnists per The Daria Diaries, the paper has found a nice little niche for itself in fanfic as a constant source of trouble. In Canadibrit's "Grating Expectations," Thomas's "The Fascist Club," Richard Lobinske's John Lane series, Peter Guerin's "Lukewarm Metal," and Kara Wild's "Breaking the Mold" (plus later stories in her Driven Wild Universe), the Lowdown offers plenty of opportunity for students to get themselves into hot water with Ms. Li and their classmates, if not the legal system as well.
High-school newspapers are interesting entities. There is an interesting website for the National Scholastic Press Association on "Trends in High School Media" that details some of the controversies in which student newspapers become embroiled. This is not to mention the perilous path tread by students running an underground newspaper, as happens in Wild's DWU. But is this issue now passé with the rise of the Internet? Why print controversial things in the school paper when you can spam the entire planet with your views about the school administration and the mystery meat in your lunch on your own website?
A high-school newspaper will always be important. It's nice to have something you can read right in your hands that doesn't need batteries or a power cord to operate. However, Daria appeared right on the cusp of a large number of changes in the school system and society in general; the Internet's full impact was barely addressed. If the show had been made today, Quinn's essay in "Quinn the Brain" would have been published on the school's website for everyone on Earth to see. (Apparently the MTV Daria pages once made reference to there being a school website, but that material has been lost.) What would Quinn have thought then? Would Daria have blogged her opinions about school? Would Jane have posted her artwork at deviantART.com? Changes, changes, changes . . .
