Why Dark Academia Is The Modern Renaissance
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- Опубліковано 26 бер 2021
- My current perspective on Dark Academia as an internet trend and what it might turn into.
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The big problem I see is that books and literature are reduced to a checklist, with people only "reading" a certain set list of classics just to fuel their ego and make themselves feel better than others around them. I hate this pseudo intellectualism. Literature is incredibly personal and a journey of discovery in itself and, like you said, it is often not until we look back at books in retrospect that we really derive meaning from these wonderful creations. As Kafka said, if you only read what everyone else is reading you can only think what everyone else is thinking.
That end quote isn’t said by Franz Kafka, it’s by Haruki Murakami. In fact Kafka, on the other hand believed that one should read only the kind of books that wound us or stab us.
(Here’s the quote👇🏻)
“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
- Franz Kafka
@@mitsuya6860 Thanks for correcting me. I don't know why I had Kafka on my mind for that quote.
I think you get what I meant though. People who use reading as a way of making themselves feel intelligent or deeper than everyone else are missing the point of literature. It's should be about discovering more about your own mind.
Let's also not kid ourselves, plenty of those literate people in past times also rarely or never read to really exercise their own thought. There has always been people who think they read with concentration when they don't, and there have certainly always been people who complain about having to live alongside them.
Let's not pretend that even 0.1% of the population is behaving the way you describe. And why the hell do you care what other people are reading? Do you seriously thing some critical mass of people is going to read hundreds of classics and drag down culture? We should be so lucky
@@Mateo-et3wl I was more referring to how the dark academia "movement", due to its preoccupation with aesthetics, advocates reading from a certain set list of books dubbed as classics instead of encouraging a gradual discovery of literature and exploration of our minds. People who don't read from this list are often sneered at by pseudo intellectuals, which I personally find destructive and to the detriment expanding thought, which is what academia should primarily be about.
An aesthetic is just a nostalgia of experiences we never had, kind of like a good novel.We long for something more personal than the screens we grew up with. Theres nothing more personal and interactive than a book.
Minds are pretty interactive, I think.
@@ramentabetai1266 Yes I agree😂
Wow🖤
Me, an ebook reader : yeah, screens sucks, books are the best! 😅
@@Vin-sv9fm Haha thank you for your honesty😂
I can't say I agree. A minority might stick around for the literature and culture, but it feels like most people get into it because of the aesthetics and nothing more. The clothes, the mood boards, piles of books etc. It feels like another subculture. And sure, it's everywhere at the moment, but that doesn't make it a good thing. Dark academia much more sentimental than it is intellectual, I think. People who are interested in understanding themselves, as well as the people and the world around them have always read books and taken an interest in culture(s) and language(s). Putting on a sweater and a long coat has nothing to do with it. Adhering to an aesthetic might just signal you want a 'tribe' to belong to (which can be as exclusive as it seems inclusive).
Completely agree with you. Hope this doesn’t come across as bragging, but I’ve studied at a private uni with some of the richest people from my country in Europe and some outside of it. The uni grounds had a castle on it and everything. I, and many other students there had studied latin and greek in high school prior to going there. So it ticks most of the Dark Aca boxes.
However, the culture on campus there wasn’t anything like what dark academia describes. Yes, people studied hard, but they were also just students. They dressed like shit except when they absolutely had to make an impression. They drank and partied exactly like students I know from other cities. So I don’t really see how this subculture is any different from vaporwave
In other news, plenty of the people I studied classic literature with in high school, who were generally very intelligent people, went on to do things directly opposed to dark aca. Like deciding to work in a grocery store for the rest of their life. I’m not saying that to shit in that choice, but to illustrate the dichotomy between dark aca ideals and how people who live those ideals actually are
Agree.
You actually are correct, but I do have a caveat to that. If you consider it as just what he covers in the video, it is actually a pretty short-sided argument. Except, there are other movements that back up his point that are *not* dark academia. The forever learner movement, and the new age philosophers. The herbalists, and the spiritualists keeping the theological and ancient medicines.I think what the main takeaway is as a whole is that our society, and our culture is starting to embrace the old more and more in multiple ways.
As a literature student, a lot of books matter to me. But one that changed me is Frankenstein by Marry Shelly. Its just so fantastic. All the emotions. Ijust love it so much!
frankenstein was my favorite book in high school, it really struck a deep chord in me that nothing else could at the time. i remember it so vividly because everyone else hated it but i loved it, and while the smart kids flunked the test on it, i got a 96. several years later, when i was at rock bottom, in a foreign country id never been to, was all alone and had nothing to live for essentially... someone with a book cart happened to walk up to me, smiled, and handed me an english language copy of frankenstein. never in my entire life have i felt the presence of god as much as i felt in that moment. it was something divine saying, "dont give up, remember who you were once and that there are things to love in this world." and it got me out of that dark place. books are a portable magic, with stories that can haunt and heal us in our steps across this earth.
@@DarkRuins dear dark ruins. This gave me the literal chills. I had to read this book for one of my major courses while a few months before I had read it by myself. I really love all the emotions and the descriptions so much. As a sensitive person i guess i could really resonate with all the emotions.
I am glad to know that you are hopefully doing better now.
I will reread the book this year.
I also had that with several other books. But literature is just so special. It is such a gift. Its a shame.not a lot of people read anymore.
A question time. Favorite genre?
Lots of love
@@RenskeAnimeFan it gives me chills too, just thinking about it. russian literature and magical realism (murakami and 100 years of solitude) would be my favorite genres, if they count. master and margarita is my favorite book of all time))
@@DarkRuins that counts for me! I must admit I have not read murakami yet.
But I did read some Russian literature. I enjoyed Lolita a lot. Not because I agree with the relationship in there of course. But the book is a master piece It is so well written. Half of the time I forgot that the poor girl was 12, untill I got a slap in my face and Nabokov makes you remember that she was just a kid.
Yes! Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is the BEST (specifically the 1818 text)!!! I read it last year for school and for the first time, absolutely loved it! This year I've been able to (hopefully) help my teacher with reading it and giving/gaining new perspectives on all the intricacies of Shelley's writing!
i hope this movement make people want to produce criative work themselves and not just passively regurgitate everything, because that's the understanding of the historical domino effect, and we may be a good portion of it right now
Who is that women as your profile picture?
@@jadenpvps Hypatia of Alexandria, she was a mathematician and philosopher from the ancient egypt
That's the natural course. Take this channel for example. So many of his video have the "dark academia" theme, but they're the product of his own creative work. This is already happening.
I want to share my thoughts here because I feel safe. I'm a teenager studying philosophy by myself, and I also study Latin at my school. Hopefully I can publish a book when I'm 20, that's my dream.
@@nicolecaba2961 You should totally go for it, i wish you the very best of luck and fun in the prccess. The fact that you self-study philosophy is going to help you a lot in writing and creating in general, because it estimulates the out of the box type of thinking. Keep on being an autodidactic and you are going to find passions you didn't even imagine were for you
I think we can also see themes of the renaissance resurfacing in the fields of study. Back then, they were obsessed with old greece and the old greeks were obsessed with humans (or so to say). And now there are a lot of people choosing to study psychology in university, and psychology is just another obsession with humans, particularly their brains
It's also kinda like how everyone is obsessed with vintage aesthetics and there's a resurgence of 80's synths on modern pop music, 70's hairstyles are coming back, and people are idolizing 90's fashion.
For me the obsession with humans comes in the history of architecture and fashion. There's nothing more human than the things we live in or put on ourselves every single day. To see how these things change over time due to different demands or conditions is so interesting, they're a reflection of our own selves
That's a really good observation/analysis, it also reminds us to be tolerant as it can be sometimes frustrating to feel like people don't really "get" what DA is about, they're as you said, all about the aesthetic and the clothing but not the real message behind it. But it's right, we need to give time for things to change eventually, and always be humble about ourselves (pretentiousness seems to be glamorized a tad too much in the community)
I completely agree. Being real up-tight about reading good literature just won't work, that'll just put more people off from accessing good books that'll change their lives.
Shout out to all the optimists .
This is such a beautiful comment.
FuCK tHe OpTImiStS.....nah I’m just kidding God bless
@@Saber23 😂 . 👌🏾
@@thbltmusic 😊
Optimistic nihilists where you at?
I personally hate this notion that most of the young and modern society goes after fulfilling an aesthetic just to look or fit o seem. I wish that there could be no term as aesthetic because I feel it's so shallow and empty. But I hope to see people really digging deep, and finding themselves in what truly makes them an individual and not just staying on the surface worrying about appearance or clothing to seem like someone knowledgeable or artistic. Young people need to learn that appearance isn't everything in this life, sadly it's what this new liquid society has brought us.
not only that but people often will feel pressured to fit in an aesthetic and with that comes the generalization of things, even lifestyles, like dark academia for example. that can meant a lot to some, but ends up turning into something empty and that doesn't go beyond the "aesthetic" itself :c it sounds like I'm gatekeeping aesthetics lol im not, but I just feel like it goes deeper than just buying a bunch of clothes that fit into a certain style
oh my god yes! agree!
@@sofigar957 everything i see about the "dark academia lifestyle" just feels like romanticized depression, anxiety and insomnia together with unhealthy dependence of caffeine... like... why ppl find this aethetic ?? there is also the reading and studying but none of those seems to be done in a healthy way
idk i may be just hypercritical too
just wait on my video on it
for me, the aesthetic is what draws me into something. it is the surface, but very often because of it i want to dig deeper. i'm from a post-soviet country and i've been living here all my life in a small village. my sould craves beauty, architecture, music, literature and cinematography, fashion. romanticizing small things in my life helps me with appreciating it so much. everything is a matter of perspective
Dude it’s actually so exciting that you’ve pointed this out. This gives me hella motivation to help progress DA into a great movement. I love the renaissance and there’s no reason why we can’t have another.
When you think about how amazing it is for a single work to get passed through time and survive, it would be a shame if those classic texts you mention did not start to permeate through the culture again. Hope you're right!
Love this! It’s hilarious because although I’m an avid dark academia fan (can’t go a day without wearing a knitted jumper, advantage of living in the uk) I completely by accident chose to do an extra course of Classical Literature at university whilst doing English Literature, and I’ve been re-introduced to Homer, Virgil and Ovid in a light I never thought I would, and I’ve fallen so much more in love with the classics and the epics. So yeah! I’d say I’m going through a personal renaissance along with everyone else! Again, wonderful video and it’s cheered up my day between online lectures 🦉🖤
*R.C. Waldun uploads a Dark Academia video*
Me: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA MORE
I'm really loving this aesthetic and it's you who I learned that there is a term for this uwu
I believe literature has always been one of the greatest form of escapism for humans. There are always people who read the classics from Homer to Byron, regardless of aesthetics. I suppose dark academia can help open up this world for more people but it won't define how the classics live on. And beyond this, I believe that literary people should work towards redefining and expandind and even destroying the idea that great literature can only be founed within this category what we call the classics (or the western canon).
I completely agree. While I think it can be important and rewarding to read the western canon; the argument that the 'classics' are a superior kind of literature to read makes me uncomfortable. There is so many great, experimental literature nowadays coming from diverse voices who are influenced by a large range of ideas than just those from the antiquity.
@@ahbooks3 exactly, nicely put!
Your videos are high quality and deserve millions of views.
I disagree. I think it's merely aesthetic and that's all it will ever be. Its a commodity, selling antiquity itself, 'an idea of oldness' to you. People who engage with ideas, on this aesthetic, on this commodified level are rarely going to be able to look past that. It needs to start with reading and appreciating those old texts for their real literary value as opposed to a social value. It needs to come from the source.
I like your way of thinking. When it's all about aesthetics, it's also unfair to those that actually grew up with a genuine passion for literature. I guess it's all about finding a fine balance. Personally, I think I can only really understand great literature when I'm a little older. Stuff I read when I was 14 (though they might'd been classics) did little, but half a decade later, I returned to those books with brand new insights. Maybe it's all about the aesthetics right now for those that are younger to the "trend", but let's hope they'll actually take those books with them. Thanks for the comment. :)
This kind of intelligent discussion is what I'm here for.
@@RCWaldun That's understandable. I think it might be that I'm just a pessimist, who thinks that late stage capitalism has irreparably damaged the way that we consume and produce literature. Interesting video, regardless.
@@feyn5869 I'm a bit of a certified pessimist myself. :) But when I see younger people (I'm not that old I promise) reading on the train it always restores my faith a little.
@@RCWaldun Maybe that happens because you live in Australia, but I'm talking to you from the third world and in my country if you go to the subway, you rarely see someone without a tiktok video. It's so sad. I mean, I am a pessimist too, I think "high" culture is pretty damaged and maybe that's something good, I don't know.
I absolutely agree with you! In everyday life I often feel alone in loving the classics and admiring the DA aesthetic as well, but especially on the internet I see appreciation for old works almost anywhere! Instagram, UA-cam, even Tiktok...
Funnily enough, for a few years I had lost my love for literature, until 1. I had to read a few classics for school and 2. I went on tumblr and suddenly came across beautiful pictures of old books, Renaissance paintings and memes (?!) about classic literature. I felt such a deep, sudden longing to not only enjoy the aesthetic but to also understand ancient works of literature and what they still tell us today. Now I‘m in my fourth semester of studying German and Englisch literature and still adore it! Really hope more and more people will discover their love for the classics 🥰
Glad you're loving it! Trudging through my 3rd semester of French/Lit.
I never thought about Dark Academia that way, as being a 'movement' like the Renaissance. It is quite interesting that you came to such an idea! It does seem to hold some weight, however, and I hope your predictions will come to pass. It seems to me that more and more people (especially young people) are turning to reading. Perhaps not all have embraced the Dark Academia aesthetics, but many seem to be quite close to it, in a sense. I think the rise of fantasy novels (A Song of Ice and Fire and its adaptation Game of Thrones invariably come to mind, among others) has had an impact on people's taste, making them more and more intrigued and fascinated by the distant past. It certainly is the case for me, at the very least. I think there's really something magical about drama (Greek and Roman), the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Victorian era. The aesthetics are absolutely breathtaking when compared to today's sleek technology, and at times monotone visuals that can be found across cultures worldwide. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the past is more attractive to us. It was so vibrant, it had life, vivid colors, geometries, art, aesthetic standards that focused on beauty, personal expression, subjectivity and balance to the highest degrees. And the more you learn about it all, the more fascinated and utterly charmed you become. The present really does not even compare.
P.S.: if I may, I'd just like to point out that "phenomena" is the plural noun of "phenomenon." And so the accurate way to say it is: "this phenomenon/these phenomena."
Best regards
I feel this way about opera. It felt fairly inaccessible at first, but now that I’ve listened to more and let it sink in, I’m finding all sorts of treasures!
Classics weren’t easy to read at first and the language was different, but that’s why I like them. They are not disposable books you read once and then forget.
Indeed.
@@VVeltanschauung187 Genuinely curious about this. Care to elaborate?
@@VVeltanschauung187 I guess it’s time to read my books from Plato. I had a hunch you’d mention Hermeticism once you said “read between the lines”. Thanks for sharing your understanding of his works.
not to get all Marxist or anything, but I think you could also interpret the dark academia movement as what the situationists called the spectacle. while it's certainly not all, but defiantly a lot of the people who adopt this aesthetic are more obsessed with the image of intellectualism and classicism than the actual authentic experience of intellectualism and classicism. I do think that a return of classical literature and philosophy is important, but I think that DA is not how it is going to come about.
Hamlet is the play for me that keeps on giving. I keep on thinking about the truths embedded in it. And I have so much of it memorized.
I think its really sad when some People say good books have to be at least 100years old or so. I mean if Shakespeare wrote his plays yesterday, that wouldnt make the plays anything worse
Dark Academia tears me apart from the inside. On the one hand I am happy people might find a passion for academia through the 'aesthetic', and in a sense validate the style which I have flouted for the better part of a decade. On the other hand, as you and many of the comments have pointed out, I fear it is a superficial fashion drive for most, which only serves to allow people to falsely categorise me as a part of this movement; as though I had chosen to 'subscribe' to an aesthetic goal. I have a distinct feeling that people are dressing and decorating based more on the expectation rather than true desire for it. The same goes for the books that they are choosing to read. I can't help but see the irony that "The Secret History" was one of the main drives of the aesthetic on Tumblr. It is as if everyone forgot to do more than skim it.
This made me think about the need from our generation to be revolutionary.
We read manuals on how to be rebellious.
We have so many examples of original thinkers who changed culture in such unprecedented ways that we sometimes get caught in this quotation cycle.
We shouldn't try to perpetuate the old times and taxidermize the great masters, we should learn from them, question them, make that knowledge ours and create something new.
It's nice to hear your positive, optimistic take on dark academia . Admittedly, I just see it as little more than a fleeting aesthetic trend in the grand scheme of things - same as the 80's aesthetic. I believe people who genuinely enjoy reading will revisit the classic western canon as they get older, but I'm not sure whether that's tied to the surge in dark academia posts. Anyway, I enjoyed this video and I'm looking forward to watching more.
I love your channel! Warm greetings from Spain!
love this idea and i can’t wait to see your future vlogs!
I'm sooooo glad I came across your channel in 2020 one of the best things that happened that year. Can't wait for more of your videos!
beautiful shots, very inspiring.
I like this concept of vids your personal thoughts, rambles, recommendations etc. with the added visuals
If you notice in the works of William Shakespeare he not only wrote plays about the classical Roman period such as "Julius Caesar" but also he has made many references to classical and ancient Greek and Roman mythology, stories, god's etc. For example he has made references such as "by two headed Janus", Portia being compared to the wife of Brutus by bassanio or the reference of Aphrodite and many more in the merchant of Venice. Due to these reasons I believe his works are a true product of renaissance because they have extensively used literature from Greek/Roman classical age.
fellow icse graduate here ?
I am totally onboard. I like the aesthetics and I am starting to truly enjoy reading. Thank you for the guidance and info . . . Bring on the New Renaissance . . .
That was very insightful. Thanks. At 53 I’ve been getting into classic literature for only a little while. Right into Gothic writers now, and AC Bradley in a move towards Shakespeare. It really is like the fall of Constantinople.
I've always enjoyed this channel :)) I can't wait for more
I agree with comments here that argue Dark Academia is, and only ever will be, an aesthetic movement, born from modern TV shows, movies and books. I think it's eerily postmodern, to cosplay as the simulacrum of a 19th/20th century professor or student, as a signification of a long gone archetype that can't really exist in modern Western culture, and that in DA is now void of its original context and meaning. It's just picking and choosing from the visual buffet of history in an attempt to construct some kind of pre-fabricated identity. Purely anecdotally, everyone I've ever met who was very interested in literary classics had their enthusiasm because of the content of the works, not because they thought it was necessary to read them in order to meet some artificially romantic image of 1940s academic fashion.
If people want to use Dark Academia as a style guide, that's fine by me, but I think it's important to understand the phenomenon as something that is almost entirely fashion-centred. Read books because you want to read them, not because you want to be seen reading.
yes i want to read them and then i read them and don't understand its deepness and it doesnt immediately improve my life and i feel like i scammed myself and feel even more stupid than the start
This is the most true video i have watch to.
As brazilian (sorry some english mistakes) lover of literature, i can say the resurrection of the passion for books (not just "books", but really great and special books, good literature) is for sure happening. The fact of Dark Academia being called an "Aesthetic", make it more just a visible thing (like the clothes you use, for example, or how your bedroom is). Nevertheless, i think is more than an "Aesthetic", is more than a thing you can see out. Is, as well, something inner, under the people's mind. And this what we need.
In a world of increasing minimalism and simplification it’s important to hold onto aesthetic as a way of life
I use this to help me get through college. I used to enjoy reading and writing but i have been in a terrible rut for a couple of years, so this aesthetic has been pushing me through college. Its helping to make it fun and motivate me through.
Great video!! I can see there are more interests in classics in these days among young people!!
I'm obsessed with reading about the renaissance and this made me so happy!!
Wow...I really need to catch up on all the content you posted, haven't visited your channel in a while. I even forgot how your videos motivate me!
Never has there been a timelier Waldun video, I've spent all day procrastinating by researching Dark Academia!
I'm so happy that I found your channel..... You deserve more views... But who cares.... You're doing amazing job and your way of thinking just mesmerize me ..... This concept is so cool ... I'm not a smart bookworm but I like to experience new ideas.... Thank you....
I adore this optimistic take.
I also appreciate how this approach does not immediately dive into the aspects of d.a. that may be "problematic", as the percieved connection between dark academia and colonialism is too often used as an excuse to deliberately not engage with the texts at all- all while celebrating the aesthetic.
Yes, nuance is necessary here- but it should not undermine the love of reading and learning new things.
This makes me glad. I've witnessed a growing number of my friends interested in adopting this new renaissance mindset, filled with wonder and interests across various fields. I'm fairly new to the concept, but beyond the aesthetic, I feel like this movement is really about beholding the present and looking at the past so we can build a better future.
Fantastic synopsis of the rise of dark academia. I appreciate you going deeper than most of the videos on this subject. Awesome video!
though im not so sure about how the current dark academia trend will play out, I have to say I really agree with the idea that even just having people read these texts will be impactful down the line when they revisit them. I felt the same way about having to read Death of a Salesman in high school and now I realize that it is one of my favorite plays but at the time that I read it, I couldn't really appreciate it and understand all of its complexities but now that I'm older even just by a few years, I do.
One of the best things that happened to me this quarantine is discovering this channel. ☺️🤎🌿
Yasss! I had very similar thoughts the other day. Although I'm still worried that most people do not share the interests in literature and classics and even if they do, it is not done consciously. What is more important, i hope that nowadays people will have more time and self-awareness to understand that they can correlate with something from the past. And my doing so (for example, through dark academia) they find comfort and confidence.
Freaking eye opening. Loved this.
In the past year I've been reading more classics. I was reading YA before, I still read it sometimes but when I entered the world of classic I can only say: "Damn, I am not going back." They maybe require more time and understanding, especially if I read classics in English while it is not my first language but I love it. DA gave me motivation to read classics and I don't see it just as an aesthetic. By the way, I especially love French classics but I am looking forward on reading not only English and French but classics from other countries. Dark Academia made me a literature explorer, library wanderer, and that's quite amazing. :)
Great expectations is one of my favorite books. I've read it when I was 16 for the first time and two more times after that. Dickens is a piece of beauty.
Great content!
I had the incredible privilege of studying Spanish and german comparative literature and now am doing my teacher’s course to either teach middle or elementary school so it’s fun to look at this Dark Academia trend both through the eyes of a reader, an ex humanities student (well always a humanities student haha) and an educator of young kids who especially focuses on literacy development! The reason I got into teaching was because I loved reading so much and wanted to share that love with kids, especially when I started to work with kids who struggle and let me tell ya as working with kids who struggle .... getting people to like reading in an age of so much media is HARD 🤣 my kiddos don’t want to read when they can be doing much more immediately rewarding things. Reading is a HARD skill and a lot of kids get passed along the school system not developing those deep reading skills. adults love to force kids to read while also never demonstrating that love of reading by being readers themselves!!
But yeah, this Dark Academia trend has me joyful that so many young people are getting into reading classic books again and thinking deeply about the world around them! I get a little confused and irked with the very aesthetic quality of this whole trend, but loving books is timeless. In an age of so much digital media, the book industry is massive and includes the printing and reprinting of classics!!
My one gripe is the over valuing of European/Western literature :’) which I feel DA can also be a great chance to introduce more diverse classics to the social consciousness than just the usual things considered classics (I am of the shameful few who actually hates Shakespeare and Greek writings ... no matter how many I read, I cannot get into them. And I love watching plays and myths but cannot being myself to read the damned things for fun ... I have tried but oh Lord 😅 ) but I digress!
Being a teacher to kids who are still in the early stages of literacy education means that I don’t usually sit to discuss Kafka or Dickens with 5th graders 🤣 so I’ve become quite the connoisseur of children’s classics both old and new and what sort of quality books can get children to love reading young and learn the skills to be able to appreciate these more adult texts in their near futures! Like I’m more of a literacy education nerd than I even am a book nerd myself.
So thank you for your optimism and your passion for literature! And I hope we are coming into a future where people value classics, both modern and ancient ones!!also many classics by marginalised folk are now also getting their renaissance as people are looking to diversify their reading experiences!!
The book that sparked in me this love of literature as more than just lovely entertainment, but instead beauty and cultural value was an excerpt of The House on Mango Street from a basal reader text when I was in around 6/7th grade. Later on, a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez called “The Most Beautiful Drowned Man in the World” in 10th grade. The first and 2nd times I felt deeply about the experiences that get through in literature! Since then I have loved what one can learn and feel through older books and how humans don’t change all that much through the ages!
The background soundtrack is chef's kiss!
Love this video!
I’m kind of impressed by your video. I actually wasn’t aware that Dark academia was like a thing beyond the clothes. I just realised I’ve been in the spectrum of dark academia for at least 7 years! Les miserables has been one of my favourite books since I was 16, I’ve been reading some Dickens, Shakespeare and a lot of fables trying to trace down the meaning and original pieces of artwork. Crazy stuff huh?
The way you spoke about understanding a book later, I feel that about House of Leaves. One day it pops in your mind and just gets you.
What an intelligent young man. I’m so looking forward to going into London after all this so I can explore again
Do you think Dark Academia focuses mostly on literature - and the way it effects us? The definition is the romanticization of studies and could they include all sort of other fields like maths and physics?
love your videos!!
Great video!
I just love this is bringing more people to read classics since, as a classics reader myself I have always felt very "alone" and not, not so much.
Thank you for an optimistic perspective on DA
3:55 Yeah in high school being forced to read Shakespeare I never had much interest in him. It was only i. my home time after that I found how great he was.
Nice to see another one in dark academia who's also an optimist! There seems to be a lack of them sometimes.
But seriously, your content had gone from good to sublime. I am extraordinarily happy at your progress!
Oh my word, thank you for being here for the past, what, 3 years? :))
No problems :) I'm actually grateful to have been here for that long.
Although i haven't watched you in a while, (trying to be on youtube less unfortunately led me astray of old channels) everytime I see a new video of yours I think "look, there he is, the legend."
I’ve never thought this way, but it makes sense
Meh
Dark academians end up talking more about "falling in love with the vampire that goes to the museum to see the painting of his lost love" than actual books
Maybe one or two will end up in an lit major (and I hope many do) but the new renassaince? lol
Also we need to think about what classics we'll be reading. Because romanticizing western academia is preeeetty problematic
Your bookshelves are so messy I love it
You know? That is a BOLD statement.
I love it.
Good thoughts man, hope you’re right.
Weirdly enough, I wasn't surprised with this new reinterest from the collective generations. Everything comes around again, and I think this is highly reactionary with the neo-pop 00's fashion and indie music boom. I am excited to see how it plays out. Also all the stuffy outrage from the people who have poured years over this stuff to say 'they are doing it wrong'. When...there is no wrong way to get into literature and no wrong way to get into the classics.
I feel the same way about Shakespeare....I used to think that he was just overrated but due to reading a retelling I couldn't help but go down that rabbit hole
I love the way you describe the book that sinks in.
as an English major, I'm here to tell y'all that there are no "silly" interpretations of literature. read whatever you want and make it yours.
I think for me the draw to classics is how long ago they were written and yet the emotions of the characters are some that I, a person hundreds of years later, have experienced was well. It's just so cool to realize that people in history were...people. Living and breathing with their own minds. When I first realized this was when I was reading Les Miserables the author compared a character to a cat wanting to go outside but if you let it out it instantly wants to come back in. Cats still did in 1860 what cats do now in, it's wild to really let that sort of stuff sink in.
I've grown up with a love for Oliver twist and Mary Poppins as movies, and this grew into a love for the aesthetic of old melancholic buildings, piano music, and dark clothing. A few months ago I made the decision to buy the Oliver twist book, I've never had the passion for buying books, just reading them but now I have a full bookcase and books that have nowhere else to go but free spaces around my room.
E M Forster has had a big effect on me. A writer who was modern an traditional but never obsessive modernist so how is highly readable and a great stylist.
as much as your theory seems dreamy to me, I don't think the dark academia trend can stand that long to be that influential. It's more of a teens stuff, it's very visual. Yes, kids are being influenced to read more, which is amazing, but that's pretty much it. Nowadays aesthetics and subcultures cling to the past because the present and future are too bleak, AND there's a whole analysis to be made about the resurfacing of traditionalism and nationalism inside these vintage aesthetic "subcultures" like dark academia and cottagecore that are very dangerous and insidious. To make D.A. a good thing we need to be aware of what is making it popular and what we are disseminating and be very vigilant against elitism and racism and stuff. Idk sorry for rambling.
That’s what I thought at first. But aesthetics in general are a much more important thing. Making art that doesn’t fit into any aesthetic movement won’t get anywhere. I’ve tried. But if somebody makes something and tries to push it out into a specific aesthetic it has a much better chance, depending on how well it fits.
My condo apartment is overflowing with books. I need to move into a castle with every nook and cranny filled with books.
Nice video about resurgence of a past cycle. I also connect Dark Academia to the Gothic Literature period. Gothic literature also romanticized the past, but also re-interpreted the past in a contemporary context, where the past is abandoned, dark, dusty and cobwebbed, and needs to be re-discovered by modernity. I think Dark Academia is similar, where it is a romanticization of the old, but the "old" being a sanctuary and solace for a modern person disillusioned with the fast-pace, pragmatism and minimalism of modernity. It is not about a crowded library in its heyday, it is about an old dusty library with cobwebs, which the times have left behind, but which you can go back and re-discover.
Great point. Hope you’re right
thank god i found your videos
I like Schopenhauers take on what makes art. That if art does not include causality it will have a higher possibility to live on. It needs to focus on the ideas, the human as an idea, what does it mean to be human, and so on. If the focus is set on contemporary events, then the fuse will be short.
It's really funny what happened to you also happened to me with Crime and Punishment. I read the book in a few days and thought it was a good book but it wasn't anything special, a month later I just could not stop thinking about this book and now I am convinced it is the best book I have ever read.
Good to know I already started reading classics when I was a new reader. It was difficult and I felt damned but then I realised what they really were in essence last year.
I honestly miss the great outdoors but tbh I don't know if I'm just super jealous or suoer hyped rn
I really hope ur right we could use this age, I dont think it turn out how ur thinking, but I hope it does
Can I suggest reading the works of Thomas Nashe - very interesting and funny . I applaud the concept of reading the finest classics because they are so rich in language and imagery,
I love the background music so much T.T Does someone know its name?
Yayyyyy new upload
I really hope our generation can find the love of education through this newfound trend. And also fashion, the fashion gives me Harry Potter vibes which I'm all in for it.
If you're interested in Dark Academia as your aesthetic, as a culture, even, that you're invested in, please be conscious of the elitism it's involved in. Remember that just because you read classics and enjoy "high art", everyone who doesn't still has the same worth as you.
This is another topic I need to make a video on. Elitism is hurting not just the people, but also the access to books that could potentially change lives.
May I offer a testament here? I'm 51 years old, so Gen X. We were the ones who started the punk movement and all these others: New Wave, New Romantic, Gothic... Punk was gradually gentrified into a tame cultural variation. Goth discovered Comicon and transformed into Steampunk, and the other two just fizzled out before the 90's took off. Industrial was never a style but the music and performance art helped meld all these others. Now, it may surprise you to know that a lot of these kids who seemed to do nothing but drugs, clubs and trouble, a lot of them were reading stuff like Shakespeare, James Joyce, Byron, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Kerouac and Burroughs, Dante, Sylvia Plath and Emily Dickinson, Oscar Wilde and Tennessee Williams, ... one of my friends read Marlow's Doctor Faustus and then right to Goethe's Faust because he wanted a total "deal with the Devil" literary experience. I remember talking about how Shakespeare used the "virtuous woman killing herself" theme in at least three plays, with two buddies of mine, on the way to a Cramps concert. None of the mainstream culture people I met had read any more than a couple Shakespeare plays in highschool and could care less. We loved that shit. We went to see the plays. When we went to see MacBeth, people asked if we were part of the cast. LOL! We also learned about people like Nikola Tesla and Wilhelm Reich and Buckminster Fuller. We were pierced and tattooed and all kinds of bizarre hair and most of us wearing all black. We worked sh8tty jobs and shopped at the Goodwill. We talked about "the Renaissance Man"... a man who devoted himself to developing both sides of his brain as much as possible. We talked about "worldly education"... going out and taking chances, traveling, trying new things, experiences, and especially with people. We went to see bizarre movies playing in little run down movie houses and we bought classical, jazz and funk at the record stores, in addition to all kinds of incredibly obscure stuff. Eventually, some of us ended up getting into Qabalah.
We were passionate about it. The crowd I ended up moving in with for a year were particularly into the Beat Generation because we related to that. The Beats were the kids before the hippies, BEFORE the stankin' Baby Boomers! There is this stereotype of the beatnik sitting in a weird coffee house, drinking a Thai iced tea, dressed entirely in black, with a beret and a goatee beard, and waiting for his turn at the poetry mic. The reality behind that was our muse. We wanted substance. We wanted the sophistication and the worldly development. And yes, we loved the goatee beards too! We weren't criticizing capitalism so much as industrialization and the isolation lifestyle it created for society. And we hated corporate culture trying to do everything for us and making us buy what they made. A whole Do It Yourself movement came out of the kinds of people I describe here, which arguably fulminated into the Burning Man festivals that went on for over two decades. And later on, a few of us desired to do things like learn a musical instrument and a second language. It was about developing our entire beings into something better. And also a feeling that mainstream culture was just bland and stupid, repetitive and got us nowhere, and we wanted to dig around and find where all the really good stuff was!
From my over-the-hill perspective, this Dark Academia looks more like a third generation beat movement than a renaissance, a bit watered down, maybe a little too obedient. I keep thinking Dead Poets Society except sanitized and set in the university library with a specific table that's been reserved and everyone is very quiet and polite. Where is the creativity? Where is the urge to do something dangerous, break a rule, take a challenge? Where is the "I am the author of my destiny and I'm gonna ROCK IT!!" passion? It all looks a bit subdued... muted. Sorry. I don't mean to offend. That's just what I am seeing here. Then again, the movements I speak of didn't come from college campuses. So maybe my comparison is way off the mark.
Thanks for this video! I love the idea that, if given time, DA will evolve to be less about tweed jackets and more about the literature.
I just created a TikTok purely to better understand DA and very quickly I’m growing tired of the lack of thoughtful discussion or even just quick questions/comments that would fit a Tiktok’s format. I’m much preferring the deeper DA stuff I find on UA-cam. But this motivates me to use my own TikTok to promote the literature side and address ways in which DA can grow to be better than its exclusionary/privileged inspiration material.
Mate, you are so much overexaggerating this dark academia thing or whatever it is. I heard it for first time, and it is ridiculous to make parallel with some hipster wave something that shaped the thoughts of the whole western civilization.
I think maybe the western world simply run out of fresh ideas because of their own privileges, while other literary cultures are rising due to the force of their own struggles (anticolonialism, for example, as can be seen in latinamerican works). Like, there is SO MUCH going on in contemporary literature, why the heck would anybody want to go back to the classics in a compulsive way, unless they are not opening their "reading desire" to works wich may be culturally uncomfortable to acknowledge right now for certain traditions.
This gives me hope.
3.42 Ive experienced this with "Paul's street boys" by Ferenc Molnár. When I was 11 I had to read it and I completely despised it, but after years I decided to give it another shot
And damn it was good
I love when you talk about the dark academia aesthetic 🤍