The Popularity Ladder

Reading: "Turnabout Confusion"

Back at work. No new news. So here's some more fan fiction commentary.

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As I'm reading "Turnabout Confusion", Daria continues to have no idea of what's going on. She finds her newfound popularity rather inconvenient. Jane has decided not to eat with Daria while she has all these hangers-on. Meanwhile, Stacy is giving Daria nasty looks.

Quinn is confronted on the roof by an angry Stacy Rowe. Quinn decides to reveal the existence of the bet, and tells Stacy that everything will be back to normal on Monday. Stacy counters by telling Quinn that Sandi plans to kick Stacy and Tiffany out of the Fashion Club, and put in Daria as vice-president.

Quinn explains to Stacy that Brittany is a highly unreliable source of gossip, and was undoubtedly primed. She tells Stacy to keep an eye on Brooke and Tori and attempt to determine their respective motivations for spreading gossip.

Sandi comes to explain to Stacy and Tiffany that the rumors are untrue...but decides that the best way to keep their cards hidden is to act on the rumors. Stacy's task is to feel out Daria for Fashion Club membership, and Tiffany's task is to support the rumor that Stacy and Tiffany might be kicked out of the Fashion Club.

Thinking to herself, Sandi thinks that Quinn might be behind the rumors, and swears that there will be a price to pay if she is....

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I think I've finally figured out the problems with "Turnaround Confusion". There is a lot of action going on, but none of it seems to go anywhere. It's like watching hornets buzz about a nest; there seems to be a lot of activitiy but none of it goes anywhere.

The story would be strengthened...a lot...by getting some sense of the characters' motivations. Cheerleader Dawn wants the cheerleaders to be the most popular group in school. The question, however, is why? Aren't the cheerleaders popular enough? Of course, everyone knows that popularity is important in high school, but one wonders why there's such a struggle to be the most popular.

Having never played such games in high school...or even witnessed them...reading "Turnabout Confusion" just gives me the feeling that I'm reading about a "Bizarro Universe" in which everyone is desperate for some sort of undefined power without defining why this power is so important.

Maybe Dennis needs to write a prequel called "High School Popularity and LHS" which would explain why being the MOST popular is so damned important. Although all of the plotting against Quinn indicates that Quinn really isn't that popular in the first place, or if she is, it's a popularity defined by fear of exclusion. If Quinn's popularity were due to her esssential likeability, it would be impossible to supplant.

I've tried to read about this whole problem of popularity. Paul Graham describes popularity as a "zero-sum game", whereas Philip Guo states that there is little upward mobility in popularity. That might be one of the problems I'm having, believing that a person like Quinn could suddenly become unpopular. I suspect that Quinn is one of those persons who is going to remain popular come what may.

Until I can wrap my brain around the problem, the story isn't appealing to me...but this doesn't guarantee that I won't come back to it later.

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Next time: A return to the world of "Apocalyptic Daria". My goal is to make it at least to AD22, we'll see how far we manage to travel.

Also: The entire time I've been reading "Turnabout Confusion", I've been tempted to call it "Turnabout Intruder", after the Star Trek episode. God knows how many edits I've had to make.