“I think that building these ‘aesthetic’ communities virtually via social media has allowed for a lot of people to meet friends and explore their interests despite the isolation of the pandemic,” she told CNN in an email. Finding dark academia was the next best thing. When Covid-19 sent her back to the US, she longed to return to her historic campus. That’s what drew Talya Glowacz, who posts on TikTok as CosyAcademia, to the aesthetic – the “romanticization of learning.” Before the pandemic, she was attending a master’s degree program at the University of Exeter in England with plans to become a college professor. Image Professionals GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo

Imagine spending your days tucked inside the Wren Library at Trinity College in Cambridge, England. Its sacred texts include Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History” and Oscar Wilde’s classic “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” Many of its acolytes harbored dreams of attending storied schools across the pond and studying history, art or classic literature – subjects some college students might be discouraged from pursuing. “Dark academia,” for all its tweed blazers, scuffed loafers and schoolgirl-plaid skirts, isn’t just a material aesthetic for some, but a lifestyle. They sip tea by candlelight, stay up late writing at their vintage desk and thrive when the weather is dreary.Īnd most often, the dark academic is a TikTok user, emulating a look they’ve only seen onscreen or in books, and living a version of a dream life in which they can spend their days reading the classics in a centuries-old library. They’ve got an eye for Gothic architecture and can wax poetic about Keats, Woolf and other titans of the Western canon. The “dark academic” is smart but sullen, effortlessly cool but largely withdrawn, with rings under their eyes (spending all night in dimly lit libraries) and bruised legs (getting up to no good in between courses – a dark academic typically has a dark secret).

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