On Dorian’s popularity in the fandom

I saw someone say online that they were reading the books as they were released and that NO ONE in the fandom gave a hoot about Dorian. She even said she met SJM and told her Dorian was her fav and she said "I don't hear that a lot"... (obvi just saw this online so who knows if she actually met her but regardless).

Someone who was around back then can you please confirm or deny that Dorian was slept on by the fandom back then? I still think he's underrated because the bat boys (unfortunately) outshine every MMC for most people but I am shocked to hear that Dorian wasn't as popular as he is now when the books were coming out esp since the bat boys didn't exist. Nowadays every time I see a rank your SJM bfs dorian is almost always in the top 5 so that was very surprising to me.