What do dark and light dashboards communicate to users?

There are a couple of closely related answers about this on here, but none that gets to the question I'm asking.

Outside of a what a user brings to a design (preconceptions, mental models, etc.) what does a dark themed vs light themed dashboard essentially communicate to the user?

I understand that, as one specific example, a darker grungier look is probably going to resonate well with the RPG gaming demographic, but is there something more than just familiarity that would make this so?

Is there something fundamental, about working in a dark themed/light themed environment (dashboard), that can be described?