‘So Haunt me Then’: The dark academia question

By Kellie Murphy

I find dark academia  so hypnotic. I am envious of the people who wear it and I fear their pretentiousness. Dark academia is a subculture of social media culture, while also being a clothing aesthetic, a literature subculture and/or an aesthetic. Dark academia values the humanities, holding ancient civilisations like the Greeks on a pedestal. Classic literature, poetry, gothic and Greek architecture are held in high regard. The arts reign supreme in dark academia, which I find comforting as a history student. Clothing is a major focus of dark academia, the clothes are dark and inspired by the twenties and thirties. Tartan, knit, wool, tweed, vests, skirts, and wide leg trousers are the perfect clothes and style to emulate this aesthetic. However, there is a problem overlooked with this social media subculture. Dark academia reflects classist ideals and a way of living that is just not realistic, or in my opinion advisable. The clothes are so beautiful but they speak of the grimness that accompanies dark academia.

  A problem that accompanies dark academia is the classist overtones to this style. The style and cut of the clothes worn by those with a dark academia aesthetic is reminiscent of the 1920’s and 30’s with knit vests, wide leg trousers and plain, warm jumpers, with mainly dark, block colours. Overall, the look indicates a sober, intelligent student with a penchant for melancholy. However, in the early period of the twentieth century, especially in Ireland, higher level education would have only been available to the wealthy. In 1967 the Republic made secondary level education free, which allowed a wide range of Irish society the opportunity to attend third level education. Before this, fees would have to be paid to attend secondary school. This would have severely limited the opportunity for different classes to attend university, so this was mainly an educational space for the rich. This excludes other classes from being represented in the aesthetic as dark academia harks back to a time when only the very privileged could access third level education. Dark academia does not seem to acknowledge this, or consider it in this subculture. Dark academia reflects this in their style, without acknowledging the unfortunate past from which their clothing and subculture is inspired. The ‘darkacademia’ tag on Tik Tok reveals that there have been 3.1 billion views on that tag alone. The second video at the top of the page by @infinitejellyfish is about dark academia outfit ideas for Autumn. Fashion is clearly interwoven with this subculture, giving an outlet for those who admire it to be creative and recreate their online aesthetic. 

  Other videos on TikTok also display dark academia’s classism. One video by @evlinax is about the atmosphere of this dark social media aesthetic. It features dark, beautiful buildings reminiscent of Cambridge University, a beautiful woman studying a book while sitting at a dark table in a dark room, and a hallway, filled with classical statues and gorgeous paintings hanging on the walls. My personal favourite is a room that looks like it came straight from a haunted mansion. The windows are arched and designed using an intricate metal grate and perfectly matches the archway in the middle of the room. The walls are lined with books and the only material that seems to be even considered is stone carved with beautiful flowers, and wood which creates a floor in the fishbone style, made popular in the thirties. This is the emblem of gothic architecture and this video is the perfect visualiser for dark academia. The aesthetic of dark academia focuses on this privileged space of elite universities, old buildings and academia. These elite universities would have been like the ones in New England like Harvard, Yale, Brown University and Dartmouth University. These universities are incredibly expensive, yet the image of the dark and old university is adored by this subculture. Dartmouth University tuition costs $60,687. The UK has their own moody and mysterious universities like Cambridge and Oxford. Of course, these universities are also very expensive and traditionally associated with the elite like King Charles III who attended Cambridge University. The fees for Cambridge is currently £9,250. With college students in America in debt over student loans and the cost of living crisis throughout Europe these just aren’t reasonable costs for students or their families, they never were. The subculture of dark academia ignores this though. The aesthetic of dark academia is filled with romanticised images of these elite colleges, mysterious, beautiful stone buildings misted with rain, dark streets with a bright lamp on cobblestones. It is so hauntingly beautiful while also being completely false. Dark academia ignores the inherent classism of their aesthetic even though this is an online subculture of social media and aestheticism. This allows so many different people to be a part of this aesthetic, from different backgrounds but I do not see discussion of this issue in mainstream dark academia.

  Another problem of dark academia is its wretchedness. The quote I’ve so kindly used as the title is a line from Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë. It is one of the classics included in the dark academia’s literary tradition with its twisted tale of love and obsession, surrounded by the misty, dark and stern moors of Yorkshire where it is set. This is quite an indication of the grim beauty of dark academia.  The quote is spoken by Heathcliff, the morally decrepit antihero of the novel, speaking to his lost love Catherine. Dark academia seems to glorify characters who do awful things and take inspiration for fashion from whatever media piece they’re featured in. This includes ‘The Secret History’, by Donna Tart. I’ve never read the book so I couldn’t really spoil it if I tried but it features a group of college students, ritualistic sacrifice, murder, and the glorification of Greek. The book is meant to be a dark descent into obsession and pure hedonism, or so I’ve gathered. This book is held in high regard in the social media’s aesthetic and it is regularly recommended in dark academia book recommendations. On TikTok the tag ‘thesecrethistory’ has 199.6 million views. A video under this tag by @fvsdaemon is a ‘fan edit’, edited scenes from movies and tv shows to create a clip of scenes from the book. It of course features beautiful mysterious people who run around dark streets and all look very suspicious of each other and unhappy. This video is very grim so it’s a fitting illustration of dark academia. The characters are awful people, they’re obsessive, murderers, glorify dead languages and are just pretentious over all. However their clothing in the book and the TikTok edit reveals that their clothing style is emblematic of this. The book is set in 1983 but the video features men and women wearing knit jumpers, vests and shirts all styled in a bygone era. Wide leg trousers and wool coats are favourites. It’s quite an androgynous style which was popular in the twenties. The clothes worn in the book are used as inspiration for followers of the dark academia subculture, who use the book as a cornerstone of their aesthetic. Tweed jackets, English suits and starched shirts with French cuffs are some of the regular outfits seen. It is clear that the style of clothing in dark academia takes inspiration from s staple in dark academia literature but it’s quite troubling that inspiration is taken from the book, without a widespread acknowledgement of the awful things awful characters do. Why is it romanticised?

  The idea of dark academia is an intoxicating one, which must be the point. There is something intriguing about awful brilliant people. I, however, will stop short at murder when someone tells me they could do the exact same thing without going to college. I couldn’t see the characters in The Secret History doing the same. The clothing aesthetic is beautiful, academic and harks back to the past but it doesn’t seem to interrogate the issues within the social media subculture. But is this the purpose of aestheticism, should aesthetics acknowledge the problems of the culture they are a part of? I think it would be beneficial and allow more engagement with dark academia.