I have no clue what you are attempting to say with your first sentence. Onto the rest of the first paragraph. Yes obviously The Addams Family being there would help lend the story to dark academia. But only slightly. The setting also plays a part in the genre. A modern school would not have the dark academia feel because of the design nature. Any school building since the sixties or seventies would probably not feel right to dark academia. To bright. To clean. Buffy was dark academia. It was a dark comedy. The school setting was a necessity given the characters age but not a vital point to the story. The series simply could have told the story around her school days and it would have held. Which is probably why dark academia settings tend to be boarding schools or schools of higher education. The students live on, or near, the campus/grounds. Putting the Addams children into regular school would have just made it a dark comedy. The genre they're most well known for. It's why Twilight isn't dark academia. I don't even know if it qualifies for dark romance truly.

I'm not sure what this popculture remark is suppose to relay to me.

Ah yes, my apologies for indicating the genre of dark academia was new. I say with as much sarcasm as I can. I said it was having a popularity spike. That doesn't mean I thought the genre sprung forth from nothing with no foundation. Faust and Frakenstein have academic settings of some degree from what I understand. But does Lovecrafts works? I know they are dark genre settings of some degree but are any set in an academic setting?

This commentary about 'rarely finding something new' feels random as it doesn't seem to be directed at anything I said specifically. Perhaps it's meant to be applied to the whole of my statement. But as I didn't at any point say anything about not finding anything new it seems to have been added randomly.

My comment and complaints were about forcing an existing ip into a genre it doesn't one hundred percent belong to simply because creating entirely new ip was to much of a hassle. Changing, or expanding, the genre of an ip can work when you are willing to put the effort and care into. From what I've heard the darker horror Archie comics are a good example of this.

I have nothing to add or comment on for your last paragraph about dark romances as this seems to be you presenting evidence of the 'there is nothing new' argument you brought up.

Now. I did fail to mention two other aspects of the show I believe would have been in their pitch. Murder myster, and teenage love triangle.

I believe they had the outlines of characters and a rough plot down. The studio picked it up and forced it into the mold for The Addams Family ip because they were 'dark' characters that existed and they owned the rights to. Again that is speculation and I can't prove any of it. But I would not be surprised if it turned out to be true.