The Problem with Dark Academia
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- čas přidán 9. 07. 2024
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Let's talk elitism, mental health, racism and more in this Dark Academia internet aesthetic deep dive!
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I need an aesthetic for overworked gay millennials who were "going places" in high school but now havent been able to commit to sit down and read a book for 10 years and now rely on audiobooks and podcasts to maintain the joy of learning while doing the dishes and cleaning the house every single day. Everybody, help me come up with a name.
This is usually just called gifted kid burnout
@@musicbyella3769 oh it's so cool it does have a name. What about the part where there's a lot of dishes to do though? That's a great deal of the aesthetic
How someone in the future will romanticize this : " A drained soul wandering the house and stumbling onto a pile of dishes. They quickly scurry to wash them , remembering their mothers stern instruction. They wash away the dirt and grim of their day, escaping into a fantasy world as they daydream admist the words of the audiobook they've been obsessed with.
The aesthetic of ✨ b u r n o u t ✨
@@loverrlee right but it heavily needs the part of the house chores in the name
"for three years when I was 18"
Rowan is a vampire confirmed :P
Please don't just out people as vampires like that. Some vampires are very private and happy to let people think we are a bit forgetful and just have weird sleeping habits.
I believe you mean she WAS a vampire. Apparently, someone helped Blade find his cure for vampirism and he gave some to Rowen.
@Ssilnah please, that was deeply funny and upsetting at the same time. I laughed while shaking my head.
@Ssilnah Oh, about 40 ye--
I mean I have only been 18 for 2 years.
@Ssilnah omg the tvd flashbacks 😔🔫
I went to a very prestigious high school in Sweden, that would've perfectly fit into the dark academia aesthetic - upper class people trying to pass as lower class, with most students being at the top of the class prior to starting high school and suddenly realizing how impossible the work load would be, all whilst being brainwashed that the "culture" of the school was worth developing depression and other mental health problems. The in-official motto of the students were "dark, difficult 17-yearolds who read Kafka and drank their coffee black" (it sounds better in Swedish lmao).
We had both teachers and students who sadly committed suicide due to mental health issues most likely caused by the pressures of the school during my three years there - the school was known for it being very common... It's awful romanticizing these aesthetics without acknowledging the actual deep rooted problems that come with them as well. Thank you for this video Rowan!
Vänta är det södra latin?
Pratar du om Södra Latin? Jag gick också där, men hade en väldigt bra upplevelse! Antar att det skiljer sig lite mellan de olika linjerna också. Dessutom började jag efter hela ”självmordsvågen”, så när jag gick där fanns det ett ganska stort fokus på mental hälsa osv. Men tycker att det finns både bra och dåliga grejer med skolan.
@@agnes4606 Japp!
@@agnes4606 Vad skönt att höra! Jag tog studenten för 5 år sen, det märktes att det började bli lite bättre men förväntningarna på eleverna (och lärarna!) var bara för höga ibland. Är ju dock inte ovanligt på andra skolor heller, tyvärr.
What's the motto in Swedish?
“People who are fans of cottagecore don’t necessarily want to go live on the countryside, for example” cracked me up so much, I was trying to explain cottagecore to my mom and her wife (my stepmom) the other day because they have a small farm that is, for sure, super cute, but talking to two women who Live In Shorts and Galoshes about the appeal of linen dresses and stuff was admittedly really funny. As a broke ADHD-haver who adores learning but got screwed by the educational system I feel similarly about DA, where I absolutely get half of it but the other half is a total mystery 🥴
Your mom and you're step mom's life sound like a dream 😭 they have the perfect cottagecore life??
"As a broke ADHD-haver who adores learning but got screwed by the educational system" Wow are we the same person?? hauhahahauauaahauahuahuah
lol i want to live in a cottage and go to the riverside and stuff and love cottagecore BUT at the same time i love other aesthetics too!
I was trying to explain cottagecore to my wife yesterday because she'd never heard of it, and eventually landed on "fetishization of rural life as an aesthetic, without actually wanting to do the work."
@@m0L3ify Sounds about right.
Me, who thought it was just a way of dressing and decorating your room:
😐
Yeah, I thought it was like... a music subgenre? 😅😂
Im pretty sure it is. People are just taking these internet aesthetics way too seriously. I think we should let people enjoy stuff
I honestly thought Dark Academia was like..Harry Potter meets University. Magical maturing young adults who had lost their rose colored glasses and became more cynical. 😭
@@CowCowDee you have no idea 😐lol
@@AlottaBoulchit because it is.
Chaotic academia is just undiagnosed ADHD
IKR
Oooooh that one hit me right in my mess of a brain
oh wow, it's callout hour, huh
YES!
Diagnosed ADHD here, I was paying attention to the part of the video where “Dark Academia” was defined, is “Chaotic Academia” a thing also and if so, where’s the definition? Looking for a description fitting someone who lives half their life on Wikipedia and the other half watching educational CZcams (PBS Eons, Extra History, PBS Spacetime, Ants Canada, VSauce, SciShow, Animalogic, etc).
As someone who paints miniatures (yes, I paint tiny plastic, metal and resin figures of monsters and fantastic creatures), as well as someone who studied art history, I have one tiny nitpick about your comment about the marble statues. They have absolutely been stripped clean, and the traces of pigments left on them are often extremely garish and bright, but something no one seems to mention is that these are likely the base coats or underpainting. Base coats are even, smooth layers painters apply over the original material to hide the colour of the original material and form a strong base for the paint used in later techniques (which tend to require thinner and more delicate layers) to adhere too, as well as distinguishing different areas of sculpture from one another (for example, skin, different clothes, hair, etc). These layers are the most durable, less likely to rub off over time, and bottom layers of paint, the first layers applied. From there, you apply all your shadows, highlights, texture (as created through use of various colours, like the hint of veins under the skin, or delicate tinting of some areas more reddish than others, or creating the illusion of leather texture). These layers tend to be much, much more fragile, you tend to thin your paint for this (which, if you aren't careful with how you thin your paint or how much you thin your paint can even lead to the agent binding the pigment losing integrity and badness to the point that this is something shared very frequently with new painters). Now, I work with acrylic paint, which obviously didn't exist back then; I remember learning ancient Greeks used tempera (egg) based paints, which I've never used. So there would be some difference in techniques I'm sure, but there are people in mini painting circles that use oil paints, and for the most part the thinning paints is the same. If you use thick paint and layers (which generally has a stronger bond between pigment and medium, and just doesn't rub off as easily because there is simply more paint to protect the original material), you can and will obscure detail as you layer up, so it's likely the ancient painters preferred thinner than thicker coats over all.
Obviously, none of this can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, but what we know of ancient Greek paintings from what has been described about them by writing of the time is that they were obsessed with realism and painters knew how to portray realistic textures, lighting, and perspective in two dimensional paintings. So there is no reason to believe that painters working on three dimensional objects weren't as equally skilled. The Romans were obsessed with verisimilitude taking it even further, so it's incredibly likely they employed highly skilled painters to make their statuary as lifelike as possible as well.
Um, sorry, just a pet peeve of mine. TLDR; the garrish colours were likely what we in the miniature painting community refer to as the ugly phase, the point where you have the most basic form of the colours set out on a form with no shading, highlights, or details at all.
Thank you for writing this. I would assume - without any proof of course - that if you paint the walls of your house and paint your statues that both should look good together and have a similar level of detail. Otoh, if a statue is part of the roof decoration, you might need a somewhat bolder treatment, both to make the colors more durable and easier to see from afar. Subtle details will get you nowhere, if the statue is 10 meters above your head, but neither will the garish colors look garish from such a distance.
To avoid misunderstandings, I am not disagreeing with you. I just wanted to add that it‘s also important to know in which context an object was used to get an idea if the garish pigment found also gave a garish impression to the people using it.
@@anska7475absolutely depends on context, and certainly even in miniature painting as a hobby there is a sort of difference in level of painting based on what the miniature's primary purpose is. For context, most minis are 28-32mm scale (meaning a hero figure of a human is about 32mm tall, translating to a roughly 6" person if it were actual size). If you're painting for an army for a table top wargame, you probably aren't going to paint to the highest level of detail possible because the vast majority of the time no one is closer than a few feet from them; blends don't need to be as smooth, techniques like edge highlighting are particularly useful. Miniatures painted for competition require a different standard as they are often viewed close up in photos and in person and require a much more delicate and subtle touch.
That said, remember issue of scale. Statues of ancient Greek Gods or mythological heroes would likely be exaggerated in proportion (not just internal proportion, like the number of heads that make up the total height of the figure, but in proportion to an average person). A quick google search told me the average ancient Greek was 5'7" (I honestly have zero idea if this is accurate, but let's just use this figure for sake of convenience), it's likely a statue of a god would be well over 6" tall from top of the head to bottom of foot, heroes were likely exaggerated as well; this would not just inspire awe, but also make them more visible from a distance. If you're standing ten feet away or ten feet below a statue that is more than six feet tall, you're still going to see a ton of details. If a statue is going on top of a building you're likely to use techniques that are a bit more bold, but usually those techniques rely heavily on contrast rather than overly thick paint; which could explain the vibrancy of the colours used for sure, I just think those base layers, the little bits of paint we have left, tell the full story.
When I say the colours look garish, I'm talking about two factors. One is the hue (some of them are fine, some just don't seem to sit against each other very well, and while this can be subjective, I also know that there are a lot of tricks painters use to tie colours that don't play well together at first into a cohesive whole, and the vast majority of those techniques involve later stages in the painting process), and one is the flatness and lack of depth to the colour. For instance, the skin and eyes on the kind of restored examples looks very flat and dead and hits the uncanny valley hard. That's because both skin and eyes (irises as well as sclera) aren't flat simple colours. Our skin has a ton of subsurface scattering reflecting a lot of different hues depending on so many different factors, but not the least of which are how many blood vessels are under there and how deep; for instance, noses and cheeks tend to have more red in them. Sclera have tons of blood vessels running through them, the white is really these semi translucent layers that become more opaque and have blood vessels layered in them at different depths. When you take a matte paint and paint a single hue down, it doesn't and can't look like real skin, or even the actual illusion of anything close to skin. Textures in cloth have problems as well, because cloth is made of thousands and thousands of strands woven together to form a whole. There is no way you can convince an ancient Greek painter of any skill painted up a dead eyed statue, with one flat colour for all the skin, and called it a day; sure, it's better than nothing, but it's almost fighting the dimensionality of the piece.
This is a pet peeve of mine too, although of course I don't begrudge Rowan for repeating a fairly widely accepted theory. People seem to like to use it as a gotcha: "hey guess what, the ancient greeks were secretly tacky." Having seen images of ancient Greek paintings like the ones you described it seems more likely to me that the statues were painted with an equivalent level of detail to be as lifelike as possible. It just seems so weird to me that we can see these beautiful, detailed, highly realistic works of sculpture but then assume that the society that made them weren't talented enough to do more than paint them in flat block colours.
Thing that gets me is that the colorful greek statues are hardly a new revelation...you get the story about the painted sculptures the first day of art history class no one in academia has been hiding this
TLDR Cel Shading layer?
I'd say that the aesthetic and lifestyle that comes with Dark Academia are, for the most part, disconnected from real-world classism, etc. that was rampant in the time period that the style is based on. It's rooted in escapism and a romanticised take on education and a passion for learning. The reason that it's quite euro-centric is because the aesthetic is rooted in European fashion, creative works and architecture, like old British stone college buildings with moss and ivy growing up the walls and black-rimmed single-pained windows looking out onto a cobbled courtyard, the classic British rainy weather and consumption of teas.
But, that doesn't mean that POC can't adopt this style for their own though, and of course, there's no rule that the androgyny of the style can't mean boys in skirts. The aesthetic is euro-centric because that's the basis of the style, but that doesn't mean it can't be added to or that POC can't join in. I don't think there's anything inherently bad about Europeans embracing elements of their culture and history and adapting it for the modern day. But, it is definitely important to be aware of the views of the time being outdated and harmful.
You are right about the mental health implications though, as a lot of people do get obsessed with grades and running themselves ragged to feel accomplished, burning both ends of the candle. Though, that doesn't come with Dark Academia specifically, that is an issue that comes with the high-pressure environment of elite schools and colleges in general and it is amplified for those who were considered "gifted" when they were younger.
I can say from my own experience (I don't have a Dark Academia style, but I am very-much a chaotic person who works constantly. I write, make art videos, illustrate, make a comic and work a part-time job), as someone who went to art school, there is definitely a lot of stress and pressure that comes with higher education regardless of aesthetics. I would have break-downs every couple of months over deadline stress, and I sometimes found it hard to wind down and focus my energy into self-care when I needed to. Finding that balance can be very difficult and I certainly didn't have it figured out myself.
EDIT: Just to add to this, I will say that I think it is romanticised and that Dark Academia is used by many who are from lower class families, who dreamed of being able to attend a fancy, elite school, to have the opportunity for a better or more renowned education/degree. In the hopes that by working hard and becoming this hard-working, dedicated, chaotic individual will allow them to get into a well-paying field and break out of poverty (without having to let go of creativity and passion along the way).
Completely agree with you.
nicely said
Exactly, people try to search for problems when there are none. DA is inspired by the prestigious universities and schools in Europe, but I have seen ZERO people saying POC people shouldn't adopt the style/lifestyle of DA! The only thing I agree with is mental health and obsession over grades. That can happen with any aesthetic tho, it's about mindset, not aesthetics.
Exactly.
so well written, I completely agree!!
Having gone to an old, "elite" liberal arts school, Dark Academia just makes me incredibly sad. I was one of the few people at my school who came from poverty, and goddamn it was a horrible experience. But my peers had a bad time too -- even the ones who were ridiculously rich, came from ridiculously good educational backgrounds. It felt as if many of them had been working their whole lives to get into that school and once there, were forcing themselves to be perfect students because if they wasted a single moment there, what was all that work for? I was thoroughly traumatized by my time there. It sucked all of the joy out of my life and replaced it with exhaustion and a deep seated anxiety. I can think of _literally one single student_ I knew there who didn't obviously have mental health issues. I'm not saying that flippantly.
I do have to give credit where credit is due, though. The school I attended went out of it's way to provide for me financially during my time there. Tuition, room and bored, travel expenses -- even my books and mealplan were paid for. No loans, no payments, nothing. Many elite American schools actually have astoundingly good financial aid if you're poor enough to qualify. Harvard? Columbia? Princeton? Good luck getting in without the help of private schools and tutors, but if you get accepted you can attend any of those schools 100% tuition free if you're poor enough. Now... If you're middle class, or if you have a complicated financial background that effectively makes you poor without technically qualifying you for this aid then that's a different story because dear God the tuition is high.
@Rachel Forshee I graduated from one of these "elite" universities. The high paying employment is mostly thrown at the students with good networks, which means being rich or being friends with the ones who are rich (which is hard because many of them are awful to poorer students). Or going into the financial/tech sector. It does, however, make it easier to come in at a middle management level, rather than entry level. The higher pay helps to pay for the therapy you'll need.
I went to a school that was elite for a niche market but because of that was pretty easy to get into since there weren't enough people applying who met the academic standards for there to competition. That being said, every time the students were asked what the freshmen should be told at orientation, people would say "tell them where the onsite counselors are". Almost everyone I knew went to talk to them at some point
This, exactly. I was half-watching this until she said something about (art) history at Oxbridge, which is what I did my BA in. I think the whole aesthetic runs slightly counter to the access-driven narrative that we as a university try to emphasise. Many people in the UK don’t know that at undergraduate level, an Oxbridge degree costs the same amount of money as a degree at any other university in England and Wales. And besides, our strength in part comes from the fact that we’re a very modern university with old buildings. It just feels a little out-of-step with reality
@@EdJonesVideos I mean in my experience, it’s been a way for marginalized people to fantasize about having access to knowledge and elite spaces that we wouldn’t have at any time in history, and still struggle to obtain now. Like I’m a Jewish non-binary lesbian, and so the author of every classic I read would probably like me dead for several reasons, which makes the experience one of defiance. Dark academia and the romanticization of it is not particularly based on reality, and in fact most people fascinated by the aesthetic are young people disillusioned with an education system that despises the humanities and learning for the sake of learning. It’s honestly really irritating to keep seeing people tell me I’m some sort of elitist who isn’t aware of systemic issues when I face them every day, and am just using dark academia as a means of light escapism and motivation to learn for the sake of learning.
@@KazKindred613 Thank you! I haven't been able to formulate my thoughts on this topic cohesively, and now I don't have to--you've done a perfect job of it. This is really spot on.
As an ex professional academic who studied the Middle Ages, and someone who currently works in rare books... dark academia tends to represent all the toxic things that I am against. Elitism, lack of diversity of voices, hideous workloads, perfectionism, tweed covered men who treat you like a child. The focus on artist and individual of the late 19th century. I do get the attraction, but I find the imagery to be too deeply rooted to attitudes and ideas I have fought to over turn.
100% agreed. It's like fetishizing early class society with all the misogyny, racism, and power structures included.
@@katatat2030 its just whiteness with extra steps
I think these problematic themes and the way that a focus on older sources and writing makes them seem inevitable is weirdly somewhat comforting.
We can't really end systemic racism or the patriarchy, at least not alone, or in a way that can be easily conceptualized. So going back to a time when these problems appeared to and where presented as the only way society could be, can at least remove the conscious dissonance we feel with them and thereby also remove the urge we feel to end a seemingly all powerfull system of opression.
Of course that is neither healthy for the individual, nor helpfull for society, however it can be a comforting form of make believe when faced with seemingly unsolvable problems.
It is a form of escapism that retains a bit more consciousness about the real world than climate change deniers, Covid deniers or conspiracy theorists do. Ultimately though it is the same mental escape from a threat that is to big to be handled, to big to think about without going insane, at least for many people.
I'm glad that there's also people who like the aesthetic but are against elitism and all the bad stuff (at least from the aesthetic accounts i follow, they're all lovely people who like reading poetry)
I've also seen many people from all over the world link things of their own culture into it to make it less eurocentric and i think there's potential for something good in there
Agreed! I hate the elitism and condescension that Dark Academia represents.
As a neurodivergent person, I've used the aesthetic to cope with the fact that the way formal education currently works just isn't suited for me. I'm only a high-school graduate (where I'm from it's legally required for anyone up to 18 to be enrolled in school, and homeschooling isn't an option), and even then, attending school caused a lot of damage to my mental health. Even during highschool, when accomodations were provided to an extent and the amount of homework was reduced compared to the school I was previously enrolled in, I was constantly disassociating, having meltdowns on a weekly basis, and engaging in self-destructive behavior like not keeping a sleep schedule (not that ADHD makes it any easier to retain any kind of sleep schedule). I would also take any flimsy excuse to try and skip class, which is very out of character for me. The guilt associated with not being able to succeed in school even knowing that I have potential really damaged my self-worth. As you said, a lot of what makes dark academia resonate with people is the love of learning, which I have, as well as a wish to make friends with people who want to pursue similar careers, but I know it's not the best option for me, so I like to dress like I'm enrolled in a prestigious British college to cope.
I have adhd too... I went to college twice, had burnout syndrome every time I went to college, so I also dropped out twice. And reading the comments of fellow adhd-ers is making me realize I'll probably never be able to graduate from college. It makes me want to cry. I guess I need a good coping skill, and aesthetics are harmless enough
This is absolutely heart-breaking to read. Learning is a life-long process, whether you use Skillshare, a library, any resource which suits you best. I sincerely hope that you enjoy your journey and that life is very kind to you.
@@laninfapimentel311 I don't have ADHD and I was forced to drop out a few months ago because of the hellish schedule and the effect on my mental health. You are not alone. It is very tough. There are other options for learning and I hope you find one which values you and gives you wings.
Is not keeping a sleep schedule self-destructive behaviour? Well perhaps it is...
I think this is why I prefer the kind of library/old house in the countryside aesthetic of DA as compared to the school kind. If you’re at a library or your own home there’s a sense that you could work on whatever your passion is about on your own time, in your own way and feel that aesthetic while doing so; whereas the school setting feels more stressful.
A striking contradiction I can't help but notice...This aestetic sells itself as "eccentric", yet is so uniform and conforms so rigidly to socially accepted tokens of value. I mean wouldn't a truly eccentric lover of learning say over analyze The Lion King as easily as reading The Oddessy? The answer is yes lol As one with a love of not just learning but also understanding I can easily dive deep into seemingly shallow topics that traditional western culture may find "unacedemic"
YES! You make such a good point.
Yes! If you don't love me at my Ghostbusters rant, you don't deserve me at my The Picture Of Dorian Gray rant.
Analysing pop culture is very common in academia, so there is nothing eccentric about it. I wrote a thesis that was mostly about alternative song lyrics and stage costumes, and none of my professors and supervisors had any problem with it. One of the people in my department was writing a thesis on fan fiction. I remember analysing Buffy The Vampire Slayer at one of the student society meetings, discussing Shakespearean references in pop culture in class, and I attended a seminar that was mostly about horror films.
THIS THIS THIS!!!
So, one would make an analysis of You Suffer by Napalm Death one hour, then after that make an essay on the moral problems of Frankenstein the next?
Rowan: British elite university fees can be as high as 9000 pounds.
Me: Laughs in American.
Honestly, I think one of the big reasons why the humanities are so devalued in the modern American education system is that the amount of student debt you accrue as compared to your earning potential in that field means that a humanities degree is likely going to result in you being in crippling debt for the next couple of decades.
right now if you’re from the eu you have to pay up to 30000 pounds per year to go to oxford???? what????
@Sonia no you get a loan for the cost of tuition, and then once you graduate and start earning over a certain amount per year, you repay small amounts each month. After 30 years the loan is wiped, and most people never fully repay their loans (only those who end up with very high salaries)
Oh this happens in plenty of STEM fields too, don't you worry
Agreed they're barely acessible and so can't be taken seriously or used day to day.
Which is a shame. Learning international history has helped me understand the circus of American politics better and some of these ancient books have the best life advice you could imagine.
This sounds stupid but The Art of War helped massively with my anxiety because the book is all about quickly making good decisions.
@@chiaragovernatori2979 you dont need to pay in Edinburgh. Except if you are English.
I attended two universities and failed both times due to depression and anxiety. I felt so out of place and like I didn't belong there because of my background. My parents are farmers and there are so many stereotypes around this profession. Maybe they don't know a single work by Byron but my dad can fix any tractor and my mom just looks at a knitted item and knows how it was made. It's a different kind of knowledge and I felt people at uni only valued, well, academic knowledge and getting good grades without the awareness that that doesn't inherently equal intelligence. What I realised since then is that everybody pretends to know what they're talking about at uni. It all felt so disingenuous to me and without the self-awareness to combat the flaws. My mental health improved so much since I turned my back on the academic world. I still love learning, but now I do it because I want to, not to impress a professor or to get a good grade. I still wear lots of knits though lol
Sending all my best wishes!
Good point on how nonacademic knowledge is devalued. I think a big part of DA is the fetishization of the abstract over the practical, as if intelligence = interest in philosophy and literature.
your parents are SMART, INTELLIGENT people !!!!
It's interesting, how DA is about how liberal arts should be valued more, not just STEM, which I totally get. But at the same time, they don't really value all types of learning and knowledge, just very narrow form of learning and knowledge.
Being able to repair something when it's broken or torn, to fix a car, to knit something yourself, ... is really great knowledge, just because you didn't learn it at university shouldn't make others look down on you.
Academia is so, so often divorced from any kind of reality and practicality it's useless in the real world. Your parents know how to be successful, take care of themselves and others and how to contribute to society in a genuine and needed way. Stuff the text books and the demands of perfection. Stay with the knits! Your life will be far richer for it. Lots of love to you and your parents from Australia.
I just like it for the clothes. I have always had a serious soft spot for preppy clothing. I didn't know there was so much discourse over a Tumblr/Pinterest moodboard. 😳
I'm still gonna follow the aesthetic either way, it's just a different way of dressing for me. Nothing serious.
Right this
I feel bad I'm not much into the clothing but I like parts of Dark Academia that make me feel like I'm entering some kind of fantasy Apocrypha of forbidden knowledge. The clothing ain't my style but nothing wrong with enjoying aspects as long as recognize issues with a culture
Haha same. I love the look of it (the clothes) the study playlists with the rain in the background lol but I had no idea people took it super seriously
I think a very overlooked aspect of Dark Academia’s appeal is the _dark_ part. So many of these stories are about the dangers of learning, and schools. Like analyzing horror, Dark Academia talks about how these institutions don’t usually have our best interests at heart, and that reflects a very real anxiety students from all walks of life have. While we participate to better ourselves, there’s this underlying “madness” in a lot of #darkacademia literature that the tragic protagonist will either fall prey too, or have to fight against.
Examples include…
1. Kill Your Darlings - Alan Ginsberg fetishizes the dark academia life that his love interest lives, but learns how shallow and repressed he (and by extension, that lifestyle) really is.
2. Harry Potter - all defense against the dark arts teachers are villains. We’re learning spells to fight a war, but also our nazi classmates are also here please send help.
3. Frankenstein - one of the OG “uh are you sure you want the power of god? I don’t think that’ll end well…”
And for the record, I like light academia too. In terms of literature I would classify light academia works as things like Brideshead Revisited, or even Alice in Wonderland? They emphasize like, POV, and morality, and wanting love and happiness. Really, it’s a lot like the divide between romantic literature and gothic literature-one grew out of the other, and there are a lot of similarities, but with some key aesthetic and content differences.
Since when is Remus Lupin a villain? And despite technically being a Death Eater, Barty Crouch Jr. was actually a pretty good teacher, which now that I think about it makes no sense as he was reaching the kid that was supposed to kill his leader... He was still a better DADA teacher than most of Harry’s other ones, though
@@Icepetal01 Yes, Remus Lupin exists, and I was being short and reductive, but even in the books the fact that the DADA professors are "cursed" is a running joke. Even then, do the kids get to keep the one good teacher who loves and cares for them? No, because wizarding world prejudices ensure that werewolves can't be teachers. Once again, the school values appearances over quality education, and what's actually good for the students.
Also, I don't think "but Barty Crouch Jr. was a good teacher tho" counteracts the fact that he was a villain, and racist. That _is_ what was scary about him, that he could have one face with his students, and then still secretly be a Death Eater who literally wants Harry dead.
Half-Blood Prince in particular is like, peak Dark Academia with the series. The school _literally_ becomes a propaganda machine, so the main characters have to go rouge and teach themselves the things they need to know to survive.
So you know, _sneak into a secret room in the castle with me where you need an extra secret code to get in. Lets read banned books, and teach each other forbidden spells._ #darkacademia
Wow, you feel Brideshead is light academia? Not judging at all, I'm just intrigued by the wildly different interpretation I must have had to that than you did.
Sawyer K For Barty Crouch Jr. I was more trying to point out that he was surprisingly an okay teacher to the people he was trying to kill, which is a bit of an odd method. I didn’t mean to diminish the fact that he is still very much a villain and a pureblood elitist. I agree that one of the things that makes him scary as a villain are his acting skills. He was able to fool all of the Hogwarts staff, all the students, as well as the ministry officials that were at Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament for nine months at least.
@@lucypherr Really? For me Brideshead is like, _quintessential_ light academia. It has those summer vibes, frolicking through Oxford. Yes it has religious tension, but there isn't any horror to it--Charles just watches his "best friend" get torn apart by his family. It's sad, but he's also reminiscing on how much their time meant to him, and changed him as a person. So at the end of the day, it's not the art, or beauty of Brideshead, its the time they shared together that's important. I think that's a big difference between the two genres--light academia tends to be more about how "its the friends we made along the way," while dark academia is more "its the trauma we gathered in pursuit of higher goals."
And I think with Brideshead, another big thing that makes it light academia for me is how it emphasizes nature > architecture. The house is still very important, but part of the narrative is also about dismantling and reassessing the power it has what with it being repurposed for the war in the current day. That said, like with romanticism vs gothic again, works can in fact be _both_ genres. It doesn't have to be an either or category.
Skill share is the kind of thing Dark Academia should encourage but doesn’t lol
you're SO right!
I don't have time to watch this yet but my mum went to Cambridge in the 80s and she regularly had people assume she wasn't meant to be there because she had a middlesborough accent, she ended up consciously changing her accent because of the discrimination she faced for it and that's what I always keep thinking about when I see dark academia stuff online, it just feels like its only for some people.
I saw an article recently about the same issue at Durham university, despite being located in the North less than 10% of its graduates are from there, and it's northern students regularly face classist bullying for their accents just like my mum did, so this is still happening over 30 years since my mum experienced it and people who romanticise universities like Durham either don't seem to be aware of it or just don't care and both are pretty bad.
I talk about Durham a lot in this video - that article was spot on
And those of us in "the colonies" look down at the British class system which creates all this horrific discrimination... whilst in the same breath, over-valuing the same elite University system which we copied and also can discriminate just as heavily in much the same areas.
@@catercoz2491 Maybe in the States. Here in Canada we still generally enjoy our ties to Britain and the rest of the Commonwealth. So much so that slipping into my stepdad's Oxford accent (he lived there, but not as a student - he worked in one of the pubs where they spent all their time. ;D), and reciting death metal lyrics is a favourite party game of mine.
@@neuralmute that's awesome. :-)
@@catercoz2491 Thanks! Riley's "Fuck the English" speech from The Boondocks is a favourite too. ;D
as a person whose special interest is dark academia, I totally agree, it's quite problematic
Who cares? Why not focus on the actual material realities of marginalized ppl instead of completely inconsequential stuff like an aesthetic?
@@madnessends2477 I’m not sure if this is what the person commenting meant, but this is how I understood it.
A ‘special interest’ is sometimes something that autistic people. My little brother is autistic and his special interest is the ocean. A special interest(or even just interests for people who aren’t autistic) aren’t something you control. You can chose to deep dive into something, but liking it just comes naturally. It also isn’t harming anyone for this person to have an interest, why are you so pressed? Please go enjoy yourself outside, or something, instead of sending negativity towards strangers on the internet.
@@madnessends2477 who said I don't? I'm not saying any person who likes this aesthetic is bad, it just has flaws and we need to recognise them
@@madnessends2477 you can, in fact, talk about both
@@curtiskim7592 i think liberals have proven that you can’t actually.
Its really quite clear this sort of utterly masturbatory analysis is used as a substitute for any sort of actual radical action. You have convinced young ppl fretting and getting upset about cartoons or aesthetics is the same as activism, so they choose to do that instead, bc it requieres no effort
It's so funny to me how academia actually TOOK AWAY all of my passion for learning. No longer was I the person who could get so lost in a topic of research or in a good book that I'd lose track of time. No, I had to be painfully aware of time constantly to see how I could fit all of my papers and reading in. Getting lost in your interests requires time and material security... whereas all university did for me was making me worry about both of those constantly. Not enough time, not enough money. I, too, had to cut my course load in half for a semester and spent 4 out of my 7 years at uni in therapy. It's only now, after uni, that I'm rediscovering my passion for learning, for reading, for falling down arbitrary research rabbit holes. I actually get to have weekends off from work, and I earn enough money to pay my rent. That's where my love for learning is blossoming again, when all university made me do is suppress my natural curiosity for paper deadlines and exams and trying to be the most "well read" person in the room.
I hear you because same.
thanks for sharing this, felt the same
i just got into uni last year but same!! i enjoy learning, but when it comes to academia setting all they give me is anxiety on top of anxiety. im a stem major, and we have a tightly scheduled lab with up to 10 modules every semester. combined with the extremely messy lab bureaucracy, it makes me stand on my toes for the whole 4 months a semester usually takes. lab reports on top of lab reports, all with ridiculous standards that does not fit the timeframe we're given. my concern during a semester isnt learning as much as i could, but it diverted to getting done as much thing as i could regardless of the method just to hit the passing mark. i have no time to absorb what im learning bc i have to do a lot of other things within a short time. we also have an extremely strong sense of seniority for some reason, so we have to tread really carefully around professors and seniors, problem is im not That good in reading social cues. the system is so broken, academia is killing genuine curiosity and passion in learning. im about to go back to uni after a 2 and a half months long break, and i feel so anxious rn. god, another 4 months of constant anxiety. . .
How sad you had to go through this! My student experience in Russia and France in 2000's was totally different, and I'm appalled to read how the education industry in the USA literally dries young people out - mentally and financially... We had to work hard, but still had time for ourselves and our interests.
i quit college because i just wanted to learn about psychology. i had no interest in a psychological career (besides *maybe* research) and still have no idea what i actually want to do, but i was pushed into going when i openly stated that i never wanted to. i used to be a very curious child but school turned me into only caring about success and finding the formula that gets me an A
When you talked about androgyny, I realized something: nearly anyone can look like masculine or androgynous, but only girls can look feminine
It's an awful trend in society
Maybe androgyny is actually inherently masculine, because we've decided that men are the default.
If a man wears a dress or a skirt he's often not described as androgynous, but as feminine.
@@bloemenbuitengezet ooh I've never thought of that!
@@bloemenbuitengezet I think somewhere along the line its become white male centric or "masculine" but it really shouldn't be and didnt start out that way. Androgeny shouldn't have any one look or definition. Jade Fox has a really interesting and informative video on it called the problem with androgeny (I think)
@@user-sw7ru6tk6e thanks for the video, it was really interesting!!
Accessible femininity for those seeking femme-leaning androgyny: eyeliner, nail polish, and flowers - not "florals" but actual petals/flowers, false or fresh, worn on their own in loose, long hair (beards included) or tucked into button-holes; braided into bracelet chains or crowns. All three are varyingly Awful for the allergy-prone (e.g. me) but there are work-arounds for flowers!
Flowers are inherently androgynous and gender-fluid, both scientifically and across history and cultures: fertility gods don flowers in artistic depictions; flower iconography is used with chivalric/warrior groups; fantasy characters are oft in wild settings.
Dollar stores often have fake flowers sold individually or in bouquets - wire "stems" can be trimmed to one's preferred length, tucked behind an ear, or shaped into makeshift jewelry of fantastic nature.
I personally loathe floral prints and am wholly unable to perceive the scent of any flower (except lavender, for some reason) but! THERE ARE GAZILLIONS OF FLOWERS TO CHOOSE FROM! Investigate flowering plants indigenous to your area, rather than what is commonly planted, or look into flower languages - the Victorians and Classical Grecians weren't the first nor last to assign meanings to flowers, and I can specifically point to Japanese ikebana and Every Pacific Island Nation's traditional formal attire. More vaguely, I've observed that flower garlands are very much worn by ALL genders at south asian (&certain middle eastern?) weddings.
Since the wearing of flowers and long hair has such a long precedent for just about every human culture (deserts have flowers too!), leaning into THAT image is more easily acceptable for modern homophobes, who shun floral prints, because men in flower crowns have traditionally done a lot of sowing & drinking - the same things feminine fertility figures did in THEIR flower crowns.
There's the whole spring/maiden thing which is femme-coded but if you're broad/beefy/hairy enough that balances out any "virginal milk maid" vibes to settle back into proper androgyny.
Hope this is helpful?
To be honest, I'm not a part of DA but I have watched it from afar. I always enjoyed looking at the pure aesthetics (like old libraries, books, stationary, clothes etc.) but I think I always felt the pressure of classicism, racism, sexism, elitism etc. whether it was blatant or sublime. The criticism you brought up really pointed out the problems I've had around the community at large.
I still enjoy the aesthetics but I have always applied it to my own beliefs and I'll continue to do so. 🙂
Sorry if I’m being dense but I’m curious how pressures of classism, racism etc can be ‘sublime’?
@@Jen-jo2fd I think they meant it in the way that some people romanticize being poor. Like that trend from last year where very wealthy people dressed “bummed down” and put mattresses on the floors of their apartments and acted as if they discovered instant noodles
@@Jen-jo2fd they may have meant subliminal
I mostly like the music playlists.
Aren't you a prickly lot, elaborate or get lost
My friend is going to Durham uni next year and he said that, despite being in the North, it’s a very Southern feeling university as it’s just where all the middle class, Southern, private school kids go because they didn’t manage to get into Oxford.
feeling real called out by this comment 🥲
This is 100% true haha
I kinda feel that Durham has more of that fantasy-Oxford aesthetic than Oxford itself. I don't know if that makes sense but that bridge under the castle is just more dark academia. Not even Magdalen College on a foggy winter's morning can beat that.
@@aaronjwee The cathedral/castle/green area definitely. I grew up in Durham rather than being a student here so I've only been inside the castle once, but it was pretty amazing.
@@aaronjwee I don't really know what either university looks like but I still liked your comment because that sounds very enchanting
I would offer that medicine is the STEM exception to the rule. Never was my passion for dark academia more intense than when I was studying to go to medical school. Old medical texts and collecting vintage medical instruments. Skulls and parchment diagrams everywhere.
I ended up getting a degree in Psychology instead, but still love the aesthetic.
I love the dark academia aesthetic. I've always loved more vintage fashions and architecture so it's right up my alley. I just don't understand why an aesthetic has to be anything more than an aesthetic. I love the way it looks, but as somebody in STEM whose medical school experience was, to put it lightly, torture, I don't see why it has to be anything more than anaesthetic. I'd love to dress like the inspiration photos and be surrounded by the architecture, decor and colour palettes but I wouldn't want to change my interests or passions to be more "dark academia" or have to trade modern conveniences to enjoy the look. I feel like with most aesthetics, the majority of people enjoy the visual beauty of it and then the few who devote the most time to the lifestyle have the loudest voices and so a whole culture develops around it.
P.S My negative experiences with med school had to do with a lot of similar issues to what you mentioned, as well as the continued lack of supports for those of us with documented learning disabilities and how impossible it is to get necessary accommodations sometimes, especially if you get to a high enough level of study. Something especially shameful in the MEDICAL field, which should be at the forefront of advocacy for neurodivergence but I digress.
this! i’ve always dressed a little bit vintage and preppy, but the idea of changing my interests or hobbies just to fit into the trend is ridiculous. ironically, the time in my life when i was the least DA-like was when i was getting my university education.
dark academia has weirdly helped me a lot. After having struggled mentally for many years, and having lost motivation, being able to romanticize my life has been truly amazing. Just making myself believe my life is amazing has helped me to actually make it pretty decent. Im much more dedicated now, because im actually making an effort to learn more about stuff i know i actually find interesting
As a scientist, I find it odd to, in one essay, talk about how classical science doesn't fit, but reading Aristotle does. The idea of the sciences as something hard- and bleeding-edged on every side is a mistake. It's a process of mind every bit as philosophy is, of creative flexibility and striving to see, same as visual arts. It's equally enriched by studying and re-creating foundational works, even if they're "outdated". Philosophy, literature, music, and painting by that same token all have eras and advancing technologies that change the frontiers each generation is confronted with. Aristotle is as "outdated" a philosopher as he is a scientist; students conversant with modern philosophy don't really need more than a gloss of the history and his contributions, but students that choose to go deeper and re-walk that territory as an exercise will always find something that helps them. The same is true for science students learning the physical sciences, the origins of trigonometry, the theorized mechanisms of DaVinci.
I get that an aesthetic is mostly about comfort, mostly about sensation, and people that don't get a science-high won't give a first fuck about delving into it for its own sake, but as someone who loves science AND literature AND drawing, they're not so different, and immersing yourself in them isn't all about pushing the boundary and can be about expanding your mental toolbox and your dragon hoarde of antique treasures, and a true passion for art isn't all about wallowing in the past and ignoring modernity.
For me chaotic version comes from deep longing for finding your passion and being allowed to pursue it for the sake of it. I feel constant pressure to engage in activities that I can monetize, and its heartbreaking.
[Too old for this shit, rushes back to Steampunk]
I just want to say that I too am moving away from asterisks for emote/action syntax (the way they so commonly show up with bold text just doesn't turn out looking right to me for this application) and it's nice to see someone else doing it too hah. I'm partial to curly braces instead since brackets have assigned uses already in my brain. But yeah I just wanted to figuratively high five you for being in whatever tiny weird club this is that we're in lmao
@@ItsAsparageese wtf
@@crazydog3307 i think they're just talking about how the op used these: [] instead of **
@@arcticfox858 i know, its just funny how they autistically explained it
Something that has always bothered me about DA is that it kind of present itself as a highly aestheticized, romanticized version of nerdiness to the point that if you're really into books and slightly obscure, niche topics of knowledge the main way of it being more accepted is to present it in that very aestheticized way, especially if growing up you've been bullied for displaying nerdy traits. It's like if you display certain traits within this aesthetic framework it's accepted and admired but if you display the same traits outside of that very limited framework it's still not that acceptable.
Kind of reminds me how in media autistic coded characters have to display "useful" genius traits to be acceptable or interesting enough, and other aspects of autism are never represented.
So that pressure to present "nerdiness" in a very specific way for it to be acceptable, and elegant and cool is what I find kind of off-putting regarding DA, especially when the limits of that framework is inform by misogyny, racism & white supremacy, classism and ableism.
It is similar to how the physically disabled (like me) have been treated in society. We are expected to go to 'disabled' things to not make the general population uncomfortable. (I refuse to do that.) DA puts the nerds in an academic setting and small circles of like-minded people to keep society away from the discomfort they also bring. It says a lot about society. [BTW I am used the word DISabled here by choice to reflect the view. Frankly, I don't subscribe to the "lived experience of disability" blah blah either/ I have a name. Refer to me by that only and forget the rest of the pigeon-holing stupidity.] Have an awesome day! :-)
so true lol. i've always had a passion for learning but i was never considered cool for it.. my interests/knowledge spans a wide spectrum of seemingly unrelated obscure subjects no one gives a shit about (dogs, historical fashion, art, random points of history in general, fun facts, religion, and so many other random tidbits i did a deep dive into for like an OC or something that i just know about but no one cares) it makes breaking the ice with new people so hard LMFAO.. i've been trying to force myself to consume popular media so i have things to talk about with people though
I guess so. For me, I thought I was terrible at school it made me so depressed I thought I was so stupid. I'm now fully embracing my long lost love of learning and I just happen to fall into DA just because I wear neutral colors, and read old poetry like Homer, Virgil, Dante and Ovid. Although I'm not into or or knew much about it until now, I didn't know there was such a problem with it. I didn't think it was this deep
The funny thing is most people who like DA are from lgbtq+, Asians, black people, Europeans, whatever Lmao
"white supremacy" lol, where ?
I very much appreciate your analysis of dark academia. When I first looked into this aesthetic, I saw a video on which the girl explained how getting passionately involved in her (over) studying and guzzling caffeinated drinks all night was at the heart of her enjoyment. I had the thought that she needed intervention. After having essentially lived and enjoyed both dark academia and cottagecore at different stages of my life, I'll choose cottagecore, hands down.
"theyve tried to incorporate STEM but to no avail" steampunk. they want steampunk.
ok i joke but this video gives me a lot of similar vibes to the issues that steampunk has. now i adore steampunk, but at least that genre has literal decades of development and reflection under its belt. in fact, ekaterina sedia wrote a wonderful short essay in 2011 as the preface for the mammoth book of steampunk anthology (p sure you can read the whole think on the amazon preview) that was all about why steampunk was appealing. it's called "Looking to the Future Through the Lens of the Past" and i think it works as a great manifesto for what steampunk--despite its historically dubious inspirations--should be. incidentally, there've also been several other anthologies specifically themed towards diversity that, as a result, inherently reflected on colonialism and other western-made bigotries.
i think dark academia needs a manifesto like that, and it definitely needs to be looked at critically. the newness and online origins also remind me of when tumblr set about codifying solarpunk, which had a stated art nouveau aesthetic, but also had a stated goal of combating climate change, planned obsolescence, and bigotry while not sacrificing accessibility or modern technology. ill probably keep an eye on this to see if it evolves or if it just kind of peters out because it was an aesthetic with no self-critical subcultural backing.
Oh my god YES YES YES. I did a special project in college on steampunk literature, specifically analyzing Philip Reeve’s “Larklight” as a work of postcolonial steampunk children’s literature. Because steampunk, having originated as a genre from sci-fi movies of the 1950s and then was applied in retrospect to writers of the past, is incredibly focused on the aesthetics of the Victorian era; particularly the fetishization of technology and of the state of society at the time, it’s morals and fashion…and it’s racism, colonialism, and sexism. Sci-fi, and steampunk itself, are indeed meant to reflect on modern society through the lens of the past and the lens of the fantastic. And when there’s no real reflection on social issues being done, it’s super problematic. That’s why “Larklight” is so great. Because Reeve uses parody, a very common tool in postcolonial literature; he reflects on both the Victorian era itself thru using steampunk, and using parody to reflect on steampunk itself. There’s other postcolonial techniques used too, it’s really great. It’s geared towards an early teenage audience, like maybe 12-14 yr olds, but I still absolutely recommend it. It’s also super important that it is a children’s book because it uses both the hallmarks of steampunk’s obsession with aesthetics and the way that children’s books often intertwine visuals and text to set the scene for readers. Also, I love Sedia’s essay, and I most certainly used it when doing my special project. I agree, dark academia should absolutely be thought about critically, because otherwise, it could go the route of fetishizing problematic topics and issues like uncritical steampunk has.
@@Radiant_Allomancer I had wanted to write a novel in the Steampunk genre, but the sexism, the problems bought about by the actual industrial revolution and the obscenely narrow role that women had in that era turned me right off. Basically, I picked up my hot glue gun and crafted boxes with gears on them: much less problematic.
I was going to say the same thing. Honestly, as a Biologist, there's tons of stuff in modern science that would fit DA. Sure we have some extra technology, but a lot of the tools and techniques are the same as they were in the 1800's or early 1900's. There's still cupboards full of beakers and bunsen burners on the bench. The unfortunate thing about historical STEM academics is it's extremely male dominated. But I suppose that fits right in with all the other things wrong with DA in general. However, you could be a DA scientist with little problem. What scientist /doesn't/ have a cluttered desk, shelves of lab notebooks, and white boards covered in calculations and diagrams from meetings? Plus, most, if not all Principal Investigators are university professors. Wear some tweed under your lab coat while you pipette cell cultures into test tubes or peer through the microscope and jot illegible observations in your lab notebook with a fountain pen, and voila! DA STEM.
> solarpunk
I'm concerned with environmentalist sustainable advancements, combating planned obsolescence by developing lots of self-sufficiency skills and building much of my own everystuff, and passionate about how such self-reliance and living closely to nature is inherently anti-bigotry ... I live in a Ford Explorer and watching this literally on solar power right now lol ... And I'm also all about not sacrificing accessibility and modern conveniences, I have a fancy second monitor for my laptop and other weirdly good tech in my beat up truck lol. Throw in some extra post-apocalyptic punk "patch my own clothes with gorilla tape" vibes instead of art nouveau imagery, and solarpunk sounds extremely me 🤣 I should look into this lol thanks for informing me of it. Right now I just label my aesthetic "Crazy Old Mountain Man".
ERMAHGERD googling "solarpunk" caused me to discover the fact that there's an aesthetics wiki and I found JUNKPUNK/SALVAGEPUNK AND IT'S MEEEEE! I'm so used to any real "aesthetic" placing emphasis on a deliberate visual style instead of suiting my lazy pragmatism. Most of what I have/build is thrown together from junk I've picked up around town lol. I'm so glad there's a word for this. I've never felt so "seen" before by any named aesthetic I've ever heard of! Thanks for sending me down the rabbit hole that led me to this discovery!
i feel like DA is like imagining, what your life would have been, if you got your letter to Hogwarts, but for YA readers
Read another book please.
@@spinstercatlady What does that even mean?
@@OBYfanthere's a Reddit group called that and it's basically memes of people who relate everything in life to Harry Potter lol
@@spinstercatlady oh okay, i just feel like DA has similar aesthetic of the old british school in a castle
Is Harry Potter not YA?
I think that, in underdeveloped countries (like mine), this aesthetic is used for us to have a feeling of belonging to this world that never came to us. Old universities (which we don't have) and romanticizing knowlegde (which we don't have as well). What comes close is churches and that's all.
This is very valid. At the same time, it’s probably helpful and healthy to remember that the figures that are revered in dark academia (Plato, Socrates, etc.) came from what would be considered “underdeveloped” today. Socrates didn’t like the written word and most often held his discussions in some sort of public market place or while eating at a friend’s house. The original stoics gave lectures on the porches or steps of marketplaces, called stoa, leading to them being labelled stoics. I think that every culture has its own wisdom and follies and as modern seekers of knowledge, we are now in a uniquely privileged position that our predecessors didn’t have; the understanding of the whole world is here at our fingertips for the taking, if we want it, and as such, we are able to incorporate all this knowledge to form different understandings of the world. Fir example, the nomadic peoples of Mongolia understood balancing the ecosystem far more than the “civilised” Hans who boasted 5000 (actually 3500 in reality) years of history and philosophy.
The problem with being a little bit older is that you can't really believe that a whole "personality" could be based on what is essentially a Ralph Lauren ad, or that there will be serious criticisms of said "personality".
Naturalistic and delicate sculptures exist in cultures outside of Europe, but unfortunately exoticism chooses not to highlight these works. Yorubá in West Africa, Toltec in Mesoamerica and Myanmar in Asia all have works that feature naturalism that rival the Classic Greeks and Romans.
I almost never see Africa represented or even acknowledged by these asthetic and it’s sad that colonialist mindsets have affected the way we see the world,especially considering Africa is almost 3 times as big as Europe with much more diversity and tourist locals but much more ignored
Thank you for the jumping off point!
As someone who is a part of the DA community: THANK YOU! I barelly see any poc representation, which may be, because the aesthetic is very eurocentric and people rarely include literature from other cultures in book recs for example. I even saw someone saying that they won't deny that European authors were more philosophical developed than authors from other cultures, which is just clearly and blatantly wrong. Luckily, there are more people talking about it now and more people are aware of the problematic parts about DA. Sadly, there are still some people who don't want to recognize the problems about the heavily eurocentric literature and it's just sad seeing other white people being so ignorant about the clear issues. Even tho I'm from Europe, I'm just not able to overlook the racism, sexisism and all the other problematic aspects of the European literature. It's just sad for me seeing people being totally ignorant to the problematic parts of it, when a huge part of DA is to think critical.
@mintjaan So much agreed. Also beautiful soapstone pieces in Great Zimbabwe but I may be a little biased.
Widening the sphere of the literature you can read by artists from around the world, gives a better jump point to actually engaging with those cultures - providing you can get worthwhile translations.
African theatre was one of my favourite courses at university. Many works had intense familial theming, incredible monologues and deep character work.
Fugard, Soyinka and Emecheta are my suggestions for good start points.
@@Firegen1 Thank you!
DA feels very naive and childish to me. As an art history scholar that dresses mostly like a teacher from the 40s I fit the aesthetic a lot, but I can’t immerse myself in it because I feel like most of the people in it are still in high school and have no idea what university/graduate studies are like. It’s a lot of escapism thinking that as soon as you’re out of high school you’ll only learn the things you like forever and not enough “I don’t really give two shits about prehistoric art and if I have to read another line about the foot position of statues in Mesopotamia I will put my head through the wall”. Jokes aside, it really boils down to a high schooler’s fantasies of higher education and having a title that they think sounds smart
What’s wrong with being naive and childish though? Of course young people in a broken education system would want a form of escapism. Dark Academia (for all its issues) focuses on the humanities, and learning for the sake of learning, which is something the education system discourages. Most people recognize that it isn’t realistic. Obviously it has its problems like basically anything else, but if people can learn to be mindful about the inherent attitudes and problems with it, and just use it to encourage learning, then it shouldn’t be mocked. A lot of this comment section is just mocking young people who might be into the aesthetic, which doesn’t help anyone.
@@KazKindred613 never said there’s anything wrong with it, I mentioned how, despite fitting perfectly into the aesthetic’s description and liking the general concept, I can’t really get into it because it’s defined by teenagers who don’t have a real understanding of academia. And that dislike is personal, because I don’t like how my field is portrayed in DA, it’s oversimplified and while it’s great that more people are taking an interest in art history, I don’t want them to be disappointed when they find out it’s not what they hoped it would be.
A lot of people only see art history as “a thing that makes you look smart and cultured”, but if you study anything that isn’t ancient greco-roman art or the renaissance, you’re actually just pretentious. That also happens in DA, you wouldn’t study Japanese erotic engravings from the 17th century because that’s not perceived as a “Smart Person Thing” to do, so so a deeper level understanding of the field isn’t encouraged, it’s just boiled down to what’s going to make you appear clever. I personally don’t like that so despite wanting to be part of it, I can’t. I’m not going to tell someone to not engage in their escapist fantasy, but I hope they know it’s an escapist fantasy that was curated by teenagers who like the idea of being a scholar.
You just said something very interesting, but your pfp is so cute. Ragdolls!!!
Please tell me more about foot position of statues in Mesopotamia! I had no idea they were a thing.
Keep in mind that the romanticization of an ideal isn't necessarily the same as naiveté or fantasy. One can envision the "perfection" of an aesthetic ideal while still being completely aware of and acknowledging its reality and shortcomings.
Something I as a high school student like about dark academia is that the interest in it kind of takes the power back from the school system which forces us to learn, pressures us into learning in a certain way and through that takes the curiosity away from us. It allows people to rediscover their curiosity for school subjects and develop an individual learning style separate from the standard one, which non-neurotypical people who for example have trouble just passively listening to a teacher and learning through that struggle with. It makes learning our decision again.
That's what I say.
I think it's a bit shallow to critique writers for not being diverse enough and "too white" when simultaneously, writers who write about characters from other cultures get hated on for doing so and for appropriating other cultures. It's a lose-lose situation for writers, really.
lose-lose situation for WHITE writers and incidentally white communities
they get hated on for doing no research and depicting them as literally blank stereotypes, i need yall to bffr
loki taking magic classes for the irony should be canon tbh
As someone who loves learning but had to drop out of college for mental health and disability reasons, this was really validating. Dark academia is one of those things that appeals to me on a surface level, but that I could never really enjoy unless the other people involved in it got past the romanticization of the very aspects of academia that led to me being unable to continue my formal education
i'm deep in to the community of dark academia, and i LOVED this video. so many people take themselves too seriously, especially within this aesthetic. we have much work to do, and this video helps remind us.
Why are you so antiwhite?
Such a great video! As a university student who likes old artworks and uhh wears knitwear, I've definitely engaged a bit with dark academia, but it always felt vain and hollow to me, because it doesn't seem to acknowledge what it is romanticizing. I really like that you criticized it without falling back to just ridiculing "the dumb teens" who like it.
Lovely video! I love Dark Academia, but I'm glad that people are acknowledging and working to combat the racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia that is inherent in the community. Much love to you all.😘
Soooo just cottagecore again.
They are also islamophobic and promote racist orientalism.
@@morriganbermejo4042 Islam isn't dangerous. Racists like yourself are dangerous
@@morriganbermejo4042 "the religion that killed millions of people" Any evidence?
Imagine being so dense that you ignore the centuries of white supremacy and European colonialism which killed millions of people, stole entire continents and enslaved millions of black and brown people, but you're too busy being scared of Islam - a religion you know nothing about. Nice try.
@@morriganbermejo4042 as if catholics didn’t kill millions of people for centuries
there is no “good religion”
I went to one of the best schools in my country and a very respected university worldwide. And I do not see myself in this aesthetic.
My mobility devices are not aesthetically pleasing accessories. I saw a post that was 'inclusive' and it included a wheelchair picture, one was.... Like a patient chair that looked like it was old. Which all that makes me think of is involuntary hospitalisation in insane asylums and the other was a self wheeled device by a very fit, well dressed man.
I could not imagine self wheeling around my campus. I'm an ambulatory user so I do NOT have that strength to wheel all of me plus my books and laptop.
I'm jealous. I remember when I could look at pictures of stairs and have only hearts in my eyes. But now I'm like 'wow pretty.... Um... Is there an elevator though or??'
Someone responded that they aren't sure if I'm serious or not? The comment is gone now, but I'm not sure what part of this post looks not serious?
I think that a significant driving force behind Dark Academia is a romanticisation of England, and I suspect a lot of that comes from people from countries like America and Australia. Parts of the aesthetic (like wearing tweed) that may be regarded by those outside of the UK as being traditional, quaint, and so on, have more particular and rightfully less flattering connotations in the UK.
It also explains why it's so white. POC don't think about the UK quite as fondly...
I'm curious on what you mean by the point of wearing tweed has bad connotations in the UK? Ive lived here for a pretty long time now but i guess i still probably don't get a lot of the nuance social stuff (probably doesn't help that i mostly spend time with other immigrants) genuinely never heard of this, so just genuinely interested in finding out!
@@crypticlish6717 I think tweed is very heavily associated by people in the UK to old money and inherited titles, as it is or was often worn by those who attended hunting parties on private country estates. It is quite heavily associated then with a old fashioned, conservative elitism.
@@guy-sl3kr also explains why there isnt many irish dark academia enthusiasts
Good point, I am a Swede but have some anglophile tendencies, perhaps a consequence of having been raised on a diet of (translated) British literature (Nesbitt, Kipling, Lewis, Tolkien, Doyle etc.), and I would imagine my image of Traditional Britain is quite different from British people's
I was a biblical studies major, and yes very much loved the rise of this aesthetic. It was nostalgic of my own frantic, overnight research. Four different books cracked open alongside 12 browser tabs with spurious notes sprawled out.
It was nice having that kind of intellectual passion, and while my Uni was aesthetically modern, my studies were about as ancient as they can come which held novelty to me. I totally understand it.
As an english literature major who loves reading classics... dark academia is really annoying to me. I understand the escapism of it all, and the longing for a time that no one ever had, but the idea that you *just* need to get into those specific academic spaces to really live in enlightened study is just... sad.
I still have professors who are nervous to call openly out authors "gay," and there are still people in my classes who don't do the readings. I also have professors who are intensely creative, understanding and adaptive with their teaching-- but that sort of (actually useful) stuff doesn't get highlighted in the dark academia aesthetic.
plus--- analyzing classics and finding their biases is really interesting! It's part of the learning process to find out that yeah, oscar wilde made the beautiful novel "The Portrait of Dorian Gray," but he's also a HUUUUGE anti-semite. Critical thinking and critical analysis is SO important to the study of literature, and I wish I saw more of that in this aesthetic :'-(
(plus, I can't drink coffee and I'm not a big fan of poetry... maybe the aesthetic isn't for me, haha)
Fellow English major here; thank you for bringing up critical thinking!! Theory shouldn't be forgotten when it comes to the classics- particularly Postcolonial, with how Euro- (and especially Anglo-) centric the Western view of "literary canon" seems to be. We need to examine why our canon looks like this and how we can expand it to be more diverse.
I feel like the least interesting part of any work are the inherent biases held but its author. Like discussing a work by viewing it through the creator's moral flaws is such a Christian way of looking at art
@@Jonmad17 thats fair, but the reason I brought it up with wilde was because in Portrait of Dorian Gray, one of the characters is a wildly antisemitic caricature, and wilde's antisemitism explains that characters portrayal and presence. because of the author's bias, their work is, also, noticably biased
I think death of the author explorations are interesting, but I feel that the author has an important place when discussing their works!
oulalaLa it's just an aesthetic. There's no academia police that will kill you if you don't drink coffee or even go to does specific academic stuff. My issue is that most people here say its unrealistic and stuff but what's unrealistic is that you believe that what we post on the internet is what we absolutely want. It's all a fun game of pretend, we all know school isn't actually like that and such. I will never understand does videos as if aesthetic of part of real life. It's just the internet
@Jonmad17 Maybe not moral flaws But actually deconstructing the text youre reading.
Good to know the more disheveled dark academic aesthetic is straight up just how I look when I’m having a hypomanic episode. I’ll tuck that in my back pocket for next time, like: _”No... I’m not having an episode. Pshhh, Dark academia.... ever heard of it?_
That's what I thought! When she talked about the chaotic version of DA, I was like "Humm, sounds a lot like an episode of mania, or an adhd person doind a hyperfocus" lol
Cringe
I've got to say, while I agree with a lot of the general criticisms you've made here, I don't think you have an accurate conception of the kinds of discussions that those engaged in DA as an aesthetic and subculture are actually having. Maybe it comes from looking at it from the outside, but most of us are engaging critically with these exact issues in the community and trying our best to address them in the ways that we can. My feed is full of dark academia posts talking about and recommending non‐western classics, decolonising various aspects of academia, combating classism and racism in academic institutions, etc. There is still an overwhelming bias towards whiteness, thinness, eurocentrism, etc. but critical engagement with those problematic aspects of the aesthetic is not as absent as you seem to be implying.
Thing is the critique of dark academia should be channeled towards actual academia. The reason why the kids are not including more non western classics in their moodboards is because they havent heard of them and this is the result of a biased education system and media landscape. I find it weird that so much is being projected on kids who are interpreting material that has been whitewashed and censored by adults. They are the victims not the perpetrators.
@RG I never claimed to represent dark academia in any capacity, I was just pointing out that a lot of people participating in the aesthetic, myself included, are already engaging with these problematic aspects and actively trying to challenge them. I don't know why you're so angry about this that you felt the need to lash out at me in particular, but if you find it that off-putting you could just not interact with it and move on with your life
@@isabellebarrett1318 she isn't lashing???? Or angry?? lmao
I like the aesthetic because of how amazing it would be to browse through a huge library or live in a big dark mansion listening to classical music
Kinda off topic but makes me think of the 90s when Black ppl in NY started wearing Polo and Tommy Hilfiger because it was rich ppl clothes. Eventually it became very fashionable for kids in the suburbs
I could see this happening eventually with this style or punk kids wearing it and it becoming mainstream
I dont understand the criticism tbh...You can enjoy the vibes of dark academia without the 19th century misogyny/racism/etc that existed back then. It's just an aesthetic ? Maybe I just don't get it
Babel by R.F. Kuang was a great book that definitely did a good job criticizing dark academia. It showed the elitism, racism, sexism, and colonialism in Britain during the early 1800s and at universities. The main character is Chinese and goes to university at Oxford where he has to deal with the incredible workload and pressure of university along with racism and the guilt of supporting Britain despite it colonizing his home country.
Oh man, yes. I have a Master's degree in an extremely niche humanities subject from one of the oldest universities in my country, and so I lived this life for a while. It was so amazing to be able to immerse myself in a subject I adored. But I also had multiple mental health crises, and ultimately couldn't continue to get the PhD I would need to succeed in the field. I have a lot of nostalgia for the friends I made, the amazing old fashioned libraries I studied in, and the things I learned. But I could never go back. For me, the aesthetic is about unobtainable nostalgia for the parts I really did love. But even coming from a middle class background, I often felt excluded because I was from a rural area and had been working since I was 15. I was the first person in my family to attend graduate school. My mom was the first person in her family to go to college at all. Despite my relative financial privilege, it was often an alienating experience. Very tellingly, most of my classes were overwhelmingly white, and there were almost no students from working class backgrounds.
Huh. I wonder if for a lot of people, Dark Academia is the romanticization of the sort of uncomplicated, privileged lifestyle that is completely unattainable for most people. I wonder what percentage of people into the aesthetic are in university/plan on going to university, as opposed to those for whom it's an unattainable dream.
@@crazyjoy7 i think that's it. the aesthetic of old books, and libraries and a commitment to knowledge. I'm not in dark academia (I'm a uni student), but I do like some of the aesthetic like huge libraries and reading with friends bc it's currently unattainable because of COVID.
It’s the great tragedy of our cultural perception of knowledge: we humans love to learn, but for so long the scientists and scholars of the world achieved that dream by stealing it from others. None of the great Greek polymaths did their own laundry, and those that did it for them were denied their own education to give their “betters” the lifestyle they wanted. The cultural perception of the scholar is the young white man happily reading all day, seemingly unaffected by worldly woes in pursuit of his work, because he is uncaring or even oblivious to the small army who are made to sacrifice their own dreams of knowledge for his comfort.
I don’t blame anyone who finds comfort in this dream, especially given the circumstances and the desire for knowledge and passion that lies underneath. But it’s attached to an outdated, harmful ideal that hurt more people than it helped. We need to replace it with a new, better dream, one that uplifts all rather a lucky few.
I just want to point out that The Queen's Gambit did not "Revolve around women's place beneath men in that time period. These women are preoccupied with the difficulties of being women". Gender dynamics become apparent to the viewer because of the near absence of gender related strife in the show, while the reality of being a woman in the chess world at that time would have been very different.
So what do we call the aesthetic of having access to books and websites and podcasts, and videos on any subject you could ask for, and enjoying learning about a variety of subjects for learning sake, getting a healthy amount of sleep because it helps your memory work properly and we need that, never having deadlines, and generally being fascinated by so many ideas from people who have different experiences than you?
Or does that not translate into a pretty photo for insta?
That would be my aesthetic :)
Bohemian academic, though that also probably involves an unhealthy amount of substance abuse.
Chaotic academia. Because you can fit any learning into that aesthetic
Light academia?
But does it really need to be a fucking aesthetic?
As a STEM student, dark academia has always rubbed me the wrong way. I was initially drawn to it for some of the things you talked about - the love of learning, the normalisation/glamorisation of studying and drinking coffee all night, and the visual aesthetic in general. But I soon came to realise that most of this was only surface level - the "love of learning" was restricted almost entirely to humanities subjects like history or english and didn't seem to care about any other forms of learning, the late-night studying aesthetic seemed to be just that, an aesthetic, and didn't really acknowledge that this is not something that should be encouraged, and the whole aesthetic in general was almost exclusively for rich white people. It seemed to glorify time periods, cultures, and people that just shouldn't be glorified. I never really had the words to describe why exactly dark academia annoyed me so much until I watched this video, so thank you Rowan!
I.e. you don't think we should glorify WASPS who might just be the only group in history to make such an abundance of knowledge about their elite structures publicly available; openly critiquing their own privilege whilst striving more a meritocratic ideal. Meanwhile, you likely support the actions of those who now dominate society (probably due to the ignorance they have immersed you in), supporting their every move (now conveniently wrapped up in an expansive and widely endorsed definition) to prohibit critique of their power, their ethno-nationalist ideology, and their biases. It's not really your fault, but your analysis is constructed almost entirely from tropes that have been fed to you over your entire lifetime.
You might wanna look up who E. Digby Baltzell, by his later years, thought had benefitted the most from the fall of WASPs and who he thought were now the ones to watch. 'WASPs' voluntarily handed over their power, they're the 'bad old order' and are no longer here to defend themselves. Any polemic directed towards them can proceed unhindered by censorship or stigma. The real challenge is acknowledging the reality of the new elite instead of constantly pointing fingers at stawmen - and their brothers in arms - boogeymen.
Yeah i always thought to myself: I would NEVER look that well put together and stylish during a late night studying session before the exam 😂
I need dark academia that is inclusive to math. I've been wishing for a math-focused aesthetic for so long
@@Victoria-ij3cb there is already. Cyberpunk is closest thing to that. It includes stem fields, it's futuristic, cyborgs, machine learning, fresh architecture, colorful neon lights, space, time, matrix, blade runner, ghost in the shell, akira, evangelion... it gives a space to people (including punks and goths) who are interested in technology, future society. it's seriously a whole package. I think you should check it out.
@@Victoria-ij3cb dark academia is mostly aesthetics that you can apply to any area of academia including math imo.
"I've seen almost no imagery of boys in skirts"
My time has come
To be honest I think it's not an issue of white-centrism in the choice of authors but rather of anglo-centrism. Because the same way we don't see Chinese, Indian and Mexican classics making "the DA list", we also don't see Romanian, Portuguese and Serbian classics making the cut. The UK does not summarize the "European Literature ™".
White people bad. That's the thesis of this video lmao.
Academic pursuits and the vintage style are two things that appeal to me, so when I first caught wind of dark academia I was in love with it. I'm a big fan of Oscar Wilde and E.M Forster, being queer myself, currently reading Idylls of the King by Alfred Tennyson. I've always been a fan of 18th century English poetry and writing. The Aestheticism movement--art for arts sake--and this conflicts with finding the corrupted inner workings of an aesthetic movement. If you prescribe to enjoying art simply as it is, without bearing down on the potential sociopolitical effects it may have, it becomes difficult to want to depart from that mindset to think about the drudgery of the real world. It's necessary though, it really is. I can appreciate the Aestheticism movement and still hold some of those key values yet modify it to fit the world I perceive better. My parents are both immigrants from Mexico, there aren't many if any representatives for people like me in the literature I consume but for my own sake I believe it would be beneficial to seek that out alongside various other non-white authors.
just commenting to say:
same
@@nico3446 I appreciate it!
me too!!
I’ve just realized I loved an aesthetic similar to “dark academia” since the early 1980s. I just thought of it as “old-fashioned scholarly,” and associated it with a time long gone by.
thank you for this great deep dive and breakdown!!
i can appreciate putting on an outfit inspired by dark academia. it's fun to play around with styles and imagine myself in a different setting. and being a queer person walking around my home in a brown handed down suit jacket, pretending to be a quirky professor kind of looking the part but very much plotting to overhaul systems of oppression.
but the reality is that i'm struggling with my studies. i love learning and i love my field of study but my body cannot handle long hours and late nights. i simply can't do the idealized and frantic devouring of knowledge that this aesthetic puts on a pedestal. i get anxious even at the thought of having to do that. even more so, i love my current field of study partially *because* it puts less pressure on me than other fields have, and because it allows for different types of knowledge, not just classically academic. so even if dark academia certainly pulls on me, even on just a personal level the aesthetic/subculture is seemingly impossible for me to partake in with any sort of frequency, not to mention the larger issues you discussed in this video!
I feel you in that last paragraph
What kills me about the academia culture of frantically consuming knowledge is that it's not even a good way to learn! You can learn much more deeply if you slow down and work at a natural pace. Masochism is not passion. Martyrdom is not effective. The toxic culture of academia is counter to it's entire purpose.
But anyway, I'm glad you found a field that doesn't put as much pressure on you! That's awesome.
@@one_smol_duck yes! Frantic learning is the wrong way. It's easily forgotten, kills curiosity and most of it turns out to be irrelevant to what you really want / need to learn anyway.
You're not alone.
the problem with dark academia is that we as a collective should have left it in the late 19th century-early 20th century, where it belongs
atte: a dark academia fella
I somehow spent four years in a university whose faculty was situated in a former Imperial palace, right next to a grotesque art gallery filled with marinated deformed babies, with one of the largest museums in the world *that's also a former Imperial palace* right on the other bank of the river... and I was on the *only* course in the entire faculty that didn't include any classical literature.
Dark academia for me is basically the life of all my mates from other courses in university that I never had. Everyone studied literature and learned Latin while I was out there doing coding.
may I ask where? you made me curious with the babies
@@nico3446 he/she probably studied at the University of Amsterdam. The museum he/she is referring to seems to be the Museum Vrolik.
@@jasonnung2645 Close in style (our Emperor loved Dutch culture), but further to the east
@@principetnomusic Oh then it should be the Humboldt University of Berlin? My bad and thanks for your reply!
maybe Saint-Petersburg? :D
when i was in high school i also got caught up in aesthetics that encapsulated what i wanted to be, and not what i was. and i think it can definitely set yourself up for disappointment when your life doesn't meet your expectations, romanticizing damaging behavior, and create insecurities because youre setting yourself against essentially unattainable standards.
I just like the dark academia style and the aesthetic of studying in an old library while it rains, I try not to be too involved in the aesthetic itself for the racism and mental health romanticization, etc
Another great video Rowan! I became interested in Dark Academia last year when I was doing my Master’s degree in theatre. I never bought any of the clothes, I’ve not read any of the recommended books or watched any of the movies, and I tried my absolute best to maintain a healthy relationship with doing my uni work even though I was massively burnt out. For me, I just enjoyed the very simple things that actually don’t necessarily relate to DA. Drinking big mugs of herbal tea, working alongside burning candles, handwritten study notes, etc. All of these things just helped me to make my studying experience more enjoyable and less clinical, which so often these universities can feel like. I don’t particularly enjoy the “dark” part of DA, plus all the issues with it that you mentioned regarding classism, racism, etc are obviously off putting. For me, I much prefer Light Academia because it takes all the elements I love and just excludes all of the obsession with death and melancholy. I appreciate this aesthetic for its emphasis on the arts and humanities subjects, but I do recognise its flaws.
There is no need to take any aesthetic seriously for me I just like the vibe and clothing also I read and write but that does not mean I don't like play doing things that are not professional you can't categorise yourself into one thing we are humans and show different traits for Me I just like the clothes and vibe it seems classic 😆😁
Yeah i enjoy listening music hehe lol
Same lol
yeah I'm sure some people take it too seriously but to me it aint that deep
Wouldn't Sub Saharan African societies need to develop a written language as a prerequisite in producing "African classics"? The reason people are drawn to old European aesthetics is because European societies tended to build structures, languages, art and ideas that last... Thank God for winter I guess.
dark academia is the romanticization of learning and i love that
I can't believe Rowan was 18 for 3 years! What's your secret? 👀
thank you for being the hero to point this out
I can’t believe I have been unintentionally living the dark academic life lmao. I work in a book store, I read a lot, I write, draw, play bassoon… All nighters doing a deep dives into topics I’m interested in. I just need to go wear different colours lmao.
Edit: I guess I would need to have gone to university though lol. I failed high school. Not very dark academia of me
Dark Academia evokes to me a bit of the sapiosexual fanaticism of the early 2010s. It’s like at best accidental and at worst outright elitism, with racist and classist undertones... is this misplaced?
I swear, it just sounds like this might be the zoomer's hipster phase exactly like us millennials had around then.
The sapiosexual fanaticism of the early 2010s... *sighs... I miss those hipsters so bad. Anyway, I think that, for the vast majority of people peeping into this DA trend, it's all just about visuals and vibes and clothes.
As someone who is honestly sapiosexual, I kind of agree. From experience the term has been coopted as a cultural signifier and rarely indicates any specific desire or intention. Pretty apt comparison in my opinion.
Sounds about right to me.
I felt like dark academia had this one as one of the sources it evolved from, I always felt like dark academia lowkey has been around for years, people thought they were better than everyone else if they wore vintage clothes and learned classics history and read old books
Disclaimer: I have two degrees and I love my thrifted tweed jacket. I find dark academia really comforting, I think because it is so idealised. At sixth form I was pushed to apply to Oxbridge and aim really high, and I was so excited to join an institution where everyone was nerdy and into books and where I would find my friends for life and learn all the things - but I didn't get the grades I needed, had to go through clearing and ended up at the only uni that would take me, where I had an absolutely miserable lonely three years. So even though it is a naive (and problematic) aesthetic, it's comforting for me because it has that passion at its core and it's validating to know that there are other people who like learning things and are curious about the world and the state of the human soul.
I loved Ninth House as an alternative DA read, but a sleeper DA read we should talk about more is Radio Silence by Alice Oseman which is kind of like a deconstruction and breakdown of academic value and personal worth.
As a person with ADHD and OCD (symmetry and ordering type, which I like to playfully refer to as perfectionism squared) and an avid fan of sweater weather (as well as fitting into the burnt-out gifted kid trope) I fit very firmly into the dark academia aesthetic and stereotype. I don't identify with the aesthetic. I find that much of what is romanticized as good and productive is exactly the dangers of my ADHD and OCD coexisting. Overworking yourself and not sleeping is never healthy and will always have detrimental side effects in the long run. My room often gets cluttered as I get too busy with work to clean it but it is not aesthetic to me, it is overwhelming and stressful. Although this romanticization can be comforting to some people, there are innate problems within it and the romanticization of mental health issues is never really helpful or good wholistically.
Indeed. The day the wide society distances itself from romanisation of mental illness is a day I will celebrate. The biggest shame is when it's done unconsciously, that's the part that irritates me the most.
!!!!! thank you for putting into words the vague uncomfortable feelings ive had with dark academia for a looong time, because not only does this aesthetic seem to implicitly reinforce various canons of western art/music/literature/etc. it also seems to bar poc bodies from participating at all. being bookish, academically driven, familiarity with western classical instruments like the violin or piano, these are characteristics associated with the dark academia aesthetic when applied to white subjects but! they are also simultaneously the exact stereotypes negatively associated with asians, except they are used to reduce/belittle at best and dehumanize/construct a threatening 'other' at worst. i remember when i was 14, scrolling through tumblr when the dark academia aesthetic--or something adjacent to it--was trending and finding that as much as i admired the celebration of introspection, reflection, and a love subjects which might get one labelled "pretentious" (because people believed the interest to be insincere) that whenever I did happen to exhibit some of those tendencies it wasn't "an aesthetic" it was just. well. bookishness stripped of all the charm and fantasy, because my race did not align with the people portrayed in these tumblr collages.
This
Wow I didn't even think of that point. Thank you :)
This is why i’m hesitant with dressing in dark academia. It just feels alienating and therefore discouraging to engage with to someone who isn’t european
Wow, thank you for putting that into words - such an important point about how poc are not allowed to participate in this aesthetic.
Lol no no no noooo
OUFF this was a tough one for me. I think it's really important that people rail against the instinct of "no fuck you I like this thing!!!" to actually sit and listen to a half hour of why it might be problematic. That being said, it was still tough to hear. Because you're right, sometimes you just wanna like a thing. Personally, I use dark academia (and cottagecore) as pure escapism, ignoring possible flaws because I just need SOMEWHERE to escape from the absolute cesspool that can be the capitalistic, hopeless misery of life. But that amount of escapism is in itself privileged. Though I'm queer, I'm still a white cis girl, so of course I can ignore the problematic aspects of these things I like, because it's not a systemic issue that personally relates to my life experience. (Not to say I don't care about these issues, absolutely I do, but if I wanted to escape to Tumblr for an hour without thinking about them, that's something I'm able to do.)
Romanticizing sadness has always been a very interesting topic to me. As a depressed teenager who didn't yet know she was depressed, I remember getting SO angry at posts that were like "sadness is not beautiful!! It's not romantic!!!" because (to my less-woke, younger brain) I was like "well fuck you!!! What if this is all I have!!!" Mental health issues were always with me and at the time I thought there was nothing I could do about them so why NOT turn them into something pretty to make me feel better? To make my misery have an aesthetic purpose? And in that same vein, university was a horrible, soul-sucking experience, so why shouldn't I imagine a gloomily beautiful experience where I get to learn all about the things I'm passionate about?
So much of this is just so badly wishing your life was different or better than it is. We now have so much access to so much atrocity so much of the time (to quote Bo Burnham, "a little bit of everything all of the time") and poor impact to mental health is an unfortunate side effect of that. So it might be comforting to think that any pain you experience can be fixed by owning a cottage, or for it to be given a purpose by becoming aesthetically appealing. Because that sadness is there anyway, why not make something of it. Get lost in the unrealistic for a short period of time.
I'm still going to utilize these forms of escapism (along with like, actual therapy of course lol), but I do believe it's important that we're conscious of everything Rowan talked about, to listen and question. I know only a little of what it's like to feel excluded from these aesthetics (you never see fat women in cottagecore or dark academia, and most of the fashion is inaccessible to me), but I know I would hate for anyone to feel that way, even though I personally may (currently) feel unequipped to help make these necessary, important changes.
TLDR; I don't think dark academia is bad, it's just good to be aware of the issues, even when they're tough pills to swallow. Great video as per always Rowan
Thank you so much for this comment it was so interesting and thoughtful!!
@@HeyRowanEllis You’re so welcome! I was thinking of heading to bed and then I was like “oop wait no, new Rowan Ellis video? Better stick around to watch then write a frickin essay in the comments” lmao 😂 #worth
@@cafeAmericano What an unnecessarily rude comment this was to wake up to. My comment was quite personal, I didn’t write it just so I could use all the right “buzz words.” And Rowan isn’t anyone’s arbiter of what you can or cannot like. You missed the entire point of both my comment and her video, wherein we say it’s important to be aware of systemic issues you may not have realized. Also if you think that little of Rowan, due to your belittling description of her, then why are you even here? Save everyone the emotional energy it takes to read your ignorant vitriol and just click away.
I like the dark academia aesthetic. I wish it had more to do with learning though. I'm 40, I have a husband and child, and I am a life long learner. I love to romanticize my clothes, and my books and coffee. But the actual community doesn't seem that interested in continued education. Sort of a bummer.
There's this phrase I've heard a bunch recently, about imagining Sisyphus happy. People have explained it but I never really got it beyond the surface definition. It's when you spoke about romanticising what you can in your life that I really got it. Not just the idea of it, but how to actually do it.
One: yes, as someone who has done a loooot of work on Albert Camus (the origin of this phrase), this is really one of the best ways to explain it - though I really recommend reading his books for the long version of it, and well, I love his philosophy.
Second: Your name…. Have I finally met another Stormlight Archive fan on the Internet?!?
@@joshjams1978 Thanks, I'll be looking into him, on a quick glance absurdism seems to be what I've been leaning toward already so this should be interesting!
And yes, yes you have :D
@@storyspren Aaaah yes, absurdism/existentialism is also the philosophy I tend to agree with and follow the most, ever since I broke free of the abrahamic religions. You'll find that it closely ressembles the philosophy of Hoid/Wit, actually, hehe.
Btw, my reading order for your first Camus books would be The Stranger, Caligula, The Justs (personnal fave) The Myth Of Sisyphus, The Plague, and The Rebel, then whatever.
May you find many stories and a worthy bond, Shard of Honor and Cultivation!
I was really into dark academia at first. I always loved learning and reading and coffee and I liked my undergrad at least. But I soured on it pretty quickly. It glorifies bad coping strategies, mental illness, classical canon, meritocracy, WASPiness and an achievement-oriented society so much instead of questioning those things. Why do people adore this who most likely sit in seminars on some of the topics? In hindsight my Introductions to colonialism, gender studies and the creation of canon really where a shock to the system.
I always love and appreciate your analyses.
I understand not wanting to delve into different aesthetics and subcultures, but I would be interested in more videos like this.
This sounds more like the critique on current educational system than a critique on dark academia. A lot of people ended up adoring dark academia because they are disappointed with the “real” academia. It is a side effect of the issue. Not the issue itself. If you want to see channels that mention issues themselves, I will invite you to my place on twitch. We are creating an online academia to combat the issues of substance in modern art academias. Make education accessible through community. Because we are disappointed with reality of academia. And this move was inspired by dark academia itself.
I like the point about it being superficial and about aesthetics despite presenting itself as a drive for learning, I love ancient Greek history and trying to explain to dark academia users on Pinterest that no actually there was no concept of homosexuality in ancient Greece is one of the most frustrating things I've ever done, the only concept they had similar to homosexuality was pederasty, and that type of relationship has a lot of uncomfortable connotations in today's society but may not have been similarly harmful/damaging during the time period so it's important to discuss it critically but also impartially and with nuance, so romanticising ancient Greece as being super gay friendly while also getting mad and fully condemning pederasty any time it's brought up and then going on about Achilles and Patroclus being 100% undeniably lovers when even at the time the nature of their relationship (platonic or pederastic) was a topic of debate of which no option was "regular gay lovers" isn't particularly academic at all, I think it's perfectly fine to do that if you want to but the way they act like they're extremely knowledgeable on certain subjects and just really love academic discussions while simultaneously trying to shut me down and accuse me of perpetuating the problems of academia while they obsess over the fucking Iliad is infuriating, don't say you love ancient history and academia and want to talk about it and then get mad when someone points out what you don't know
This is one of the most sensible rants I've ever seen written on the internet.
@@sparkymularkey6970 I once read the phrase "intellectual masturbation" more than a decade ago and that has stuck with me ever since. 90% of those that argue on the internet have a surface level understanding of the topic they are having a debate on and 80% pull statistics out of their ass to support the points they have made.
..?? sappho??
I think what people draws towards Dark Academia is, like with the Middle Ages/Knighthood, romanticizing: they incorporate all the elements they like, while leaving out all the "bad parts" that you mentioned. Being a "dark academic" as a lifestyle without actually being part of the system enables you to enjoy all the benefits: Acquiring knowledge and self-discovery through the study of books, wearing the appropriate clothes, enjoying your tea/coffee and classical music while reading, etc. Sympathizing with the gothic/occult adds the "dark" in Dark Academia.
You can effectively blend out all the downsides.
I live a rather reclusive life surrounded by books, I only work part time to have a lot of leisure time which I dedicate to exactly that: Acquiring knowledge, or just reading in general, journaling, drinking my fair share of coffee and tea; I enjoy writing and drawing and I also like vintage clothes. I've never been on tumblr so the whole aesthetic thing passed me without noticing, but I think it's cool that there is now a whole subculture of people who want to improve themselves through the study of art and books ❤
Red pill certified
Omg i was shocked when the pic at 3:52 was of my friend/ ex-classmate hahah! The world is small. Not that strange though, she was genuinely very into everything around that aesthetic in «real life» too.
wonderful video!
Thank you Rowan, I relate hard to Dark Academia on many levels but was also wary of it for the reasons you outlined, as a member of the vintage community it's hard to steer clear of heavy romanticisation of times and attitudes that were awful for many. As a leftist queer who adores big 50s dresses, 'Vintage Style, Not Vintage Values' and joining actively progressive spaces helps enormously to prevent being sucked into toxicity while maintaining the enjoyment of the aesthetic.
While the white marble statues and plaster casts are most likely often added for purely aesthetic reasons, they are arguably more fitting for the overall theme for pursuit of knowledge. They were extensively used in academic art and art education through the atelier method that would be periodically accurate for renaissance and enlightenment. Being entirely white, it allowed students to focus on line, proportion and value when doing charcoal (or later, graphite) drawings, and was seen as a valuable educational tool alongside copying plates of master drawings. For an aesthetic that's largely about the pursuit of expression and knowledge, having imagery of what is essentially an educational tool seems very appropriate.
when i read the secret history i really liked it because it seemed like it was satirising this romantic academic life that can only be lived by rich people. class is a pretty big source of conflict iirc. and literally everything goes wrong for the rich kids.
Just from the name I assumed Dark Academia(TM) had an occult/supernatural to it, like suspecting your professor is a vampire or finding eldritch knowledge in the library. To learn that it's instead about romanticizing a) elitist institutions and b) overworking yourself is honestly disappointing.
I would say that the occult/supernatural parts is what DA should be. What many people think it is, should actually be called Romantic Academia
Part of the appeal of pursuing a PhD for me was the idealization of learning for learnings sake and a romanticized view of being an academic. The malaise of actually drudging through graduate work and the fact that the pandemic sucked the fun out of learning has brought me to a dark emotional place. It really sucks that the fantasy is so far from the reality of the modern experience of academia and also that the dark academia aesthetic represents such a morally distasteful history. The loss of this romantic ideal for me was honestly really depressing, as is the loss of innocence generally.
We need an inclusive alternative because obviously there’s an emotional need to be able to romanticize school and to be able to imagine yourself as being part of an imagined history of scholarship, no matter where you are on your educational journey.
dude i thought its just music playlists that teenage girls give weird names like "your plotting to kill your lover by giving them led poisoning" or some shit.
It's funny how you uploaded this video on the same day I was studying subcultures in sociology and after I decided to switch up my aesthetic from dark academia to cottagecore
I'm very attracted to this aesthetic, despite loving STEM and working in a very high tech field (or perhaps because of it?) I long for those perfects moment where you are immersed in a book, reading by the candle light with the perfect cup of tea. I miss the days I would study at old libraries - which are my most favourite places in the world - which I have not been able to since COVID happened. And above all, I firmly believe that the hunger for learning and education is the cornerstone of a more advanced and egalitarian society, and fundamental for a full human existence.
Sure, we can argue that some of the content and history that birthed Dark Academia is problematic but nothing stops us from going beyond that. More than anything I'm happy that this aesthetic is rekindling the love of intellectualism in a lot of young people.
I would love to see more aspects of Asian and African culture in the dark academia aesthetic, but as a white person I just don't know how that could be possible without appropriating other cultures, or getting called out for that. Like you said, the aesthetic has little to do with the reality of past academic times or current studies. Adding "non white" stereotypes that would fit the aesthetic into that, like Asian Calligraphy, origami, tending Bonsai trees, or tea ceremonies, would 100% be called out to be disrespectful (mostly by white people).
It is the problem that stylising a certain western aesthetic is okay, no matter how many stereotypes you use or how unrealistic that picture is, but adding non white cultural objects is always seen as problematic. In a time where even costumes in science fiction movies are called out for appropriating certain style elements, it is hard to diverge from the white aesthetic when you are a white person. I wish it would be different, because I really appreciate the aesthetics of eastern cultures, but I am not suited for a shitstorm for adding that.
I know more about other cultures than about what studying during these (alleged) times was like, but I don't feel safe to show my appreciation by including parts of them.
Never have understood the very recent "appropriating" concept, as the world has been doing that for centuries. From language, to furniture, to rugs, to art, EVERY culture in the world has borrowed -ie "appropriated" from other cultures. From my POV, if YOU like Chinese style gardens, American Indian Medicine Wheels, Greek statues, Egyptian art, Indian rugs, Japanese Bonzai, and dressing in "Cowboy" hats and Western shirt and jeans, I see absolutely no reason why you can't have all of that in your life. You're not attempting to make fun of a cultural element, but are actually showing your appreciation for something you enjoy. Also, from my POV, if someone attempts to give you static about it, tell them MYOB, ignore them, and find a better class of friend.
Definitely check out the Tales of Ise.
@@eriolduterion8855 there’s a difference between appropriation and appreciation, such a dumb take
@@fredericomolina1692 Yeah, there is a difference; IF I like it, then that is "appreciation," then if I make it a part of my own style, decor, or furnishings, then that is appropriation. As I pointed out in my previous comment, the world has been doing this for several thousands of years, and as I recall the cliche' "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" would be apt.
dark academia is one of my favorite aesthetics and the only things i like about it are: the cozy and mysterious feeling it gives me with all of the old, gorgeous, castle-looking buildings, cool songs and comfortable fashion. i also appreciate how it romanticizes simple things in everyday life. i dont really care about the rest lol which kind of defeats the purpose since dark academia is not even centered around that
Good to know that I was doing Dark Academia unknowingly from 2012 to 2018 😃😃😃😃😃 I graduated in Classics and Egyptology
Lol everything and anything can be problematic if you stare at or analyze it long enough. Even Cottagecore, a whole aesthetic about frolicking in grass and flowers, loving bunnies and shit is deemed problematic to the internet. Not everything is black and white- you just have to pick and choice what is relevant to your life.
Yeah, there are some people who can take an aesthetic way too far, but that shouldn't mean mature people can't enjoy them.
I love cottagecore. I grew up down the road from a small pig farm. For me, that realism never stopped me from appreciating the more romantic aspects of country life. I don't think manure smell is part of most people's cottagecore idealization but that's okay too. As long as you're not looking down on someone for not liking the same things as you, then I don't see the problem.
Like with dark academia, I understand where the criticism comes from. But just because you love aspects of your own cultural roots (old European universities, the romantics, the Classics™, etc) doesn't mean you discount other cultures. Any idea can be bad if taken to an extreme, but that doesn't mean the idea itself is bad in moderation.
Yeah, Nothing is stopping people from making a Dark Afrocentric academia aesthetic. Even though afrocentrism is arguably horribly racist and appropriating of other cultures. Why are these people so determined to be a poor excluded victim?
@@helmaschine1885 Low key reactionary chud