The academia aesthetic and its many subgenres, explained

Old fog-shrouded buildings, tweed jackets, yellowing collections of poetry, and classical music are staples of the academia aesthetic, which has taken over the internet in the past year. 

The academia aesthetic is a visual style that has since spun off into various subgenres, the most popular being dark academia and light academia. Dark academia embraces formal clothing, dimly lit rooms, gothic architecture, and marble statues. It takes inspiration from works of fiction like The Secret History, The Dead Poets Society, and Kill Your Darlings. Meanwhile, light academia is cozier. These are often images of light streaming through windows, cafes, and old books.

At their core, these aesthetics are cultivated around a love of learning and reading, giving members of the academia community and those interested in it a visual image to identify with. 

Dark academia and light academia first appeared on a blogging platform Tumblr in 2012 and 2014, respectively. However, this year a wide variety of sub-genres of the academia aesthetic gained popularity on the platform, including romantic academia, chaotic academia, classic academia, and art academia. 

The idea of aesthetics on the internet proliferated during the pandemic. The Atlantic reported that the traffic of Aesthetics Wiki, “an encyclopedia of offline and online aesthetics,” increased by 9,974 percent in 2020. On Aesthetics Wiki, academia is one of the six premiere aesthetics. 

But in this new age of aesthetics, the word has come to mean something else. 

“[In the past] aesthetic was based on the community you came from,” Rachel Weingarten, a pop culture and trends expert and author, explained to Mashable. “You have these groups who came together because they believed in something, they liked something, maybe they didn’t have a lot of money so they decided to dress in a very specific aesthetic, which was the way they acted, the way they dressed, and the way they groomed themselves.” 

Now, it doesn’t matter what community you come from. You can find any aesthetic on the internet, adhere to it, and use it to define yourself. The sheer multitude of academia sub-aesthetics exemplifies how there is an aesthetic for everyone. 

In Tumblr’s 2021 Year in Review, dark academia was the second-most popular aesthetic on the site, and light academia was the third-most popular. Romantic academia and chaotic academia also ranked in the top 10, showing significant gains in popularity year-over-year. 

You can find any aesthetic on the internet, adhere to it, and use it to define yourself.

Cates Holderness, Tumblr’s Trend Expert, told Mashable, “Forty-eight percent of Tumblr users are Gen Z, and we see them adopting different subsets of the overarching academia aesthetic. We see them posting about dark and light academia, but we also have things like chaotic academia, which jumped up 29 spots this year [to no. 6]. Romantic academia leapt up 32 spots [to no. 8].”

The academia aesthetic doesn’t just thrive on Tumblr. It’s also popular on Pinterest, Instagram, and TikTok, where the “dark academia” tag has over 1.6 billion views and “light academia” has over 335 million views. The types of content across platforms differ, but ultimately the desire to adopt an aesthetic is still a form of escapism and a move to reject modernity. 

Nikita Chawla, a 20-year-old student in New Delhi, India, runs the Instagram account @romantic.academia, where she posts collections of photos of sun-drenched European streets, pink sunsets, and the pale-blue ocean. Chawla’s updates are often accompanied by screenshots of text posts from Tumblr, usually quotes from literature or about literature’s impact. One post is captioned with a quote from Japanese author Haruki Murakami that reads, “Listen up–there’s no war that will end all wars,” and features a series of photos, including a beautifully arranged breakfast, an old-fashioned telephone, a woman’s elegant bun, and an idyllic castle. 

The types of content across platforms differ, but ultimately the desire to adopt an aesthetic is still a form of escapism and a move to reject modernity.

For Chawla, romantic academia is the perfect middle ground between dark and light academia. “[Romantic academia] is neither too mysterious and shady like dark academia nor too delicate and rosy like the light academia. Romantic academia is passionate like its dark counterpart and has the elegance and beauty of the light one,” explained Chawla over email.

Holderness echoed this idea that people are finding specific sub-aesthetics that match their personalities. “Our users adopt certain subgenres that are reflections of their own personal aesthetics. We see that with chaotic and soft academia. Soft academia is very cozy, almost cottagecore vibes,” said Holderness, while chaotic academia celebrates mess — scattered notes scrawled on napkins and artfully shambolic desks. 

Holly Errington, a 17-year-old student in the United Kingdom, runs the popular dark academia account, @stardustville, on Instagram, where she frequently posts screenshots of quotes from Tumblr. One reads, “‘are you ok?’ no, i can’t read all the books in my tbr [to be read] because I have real-life responsibilities.” The next slide says, “Anyone else wanna be a hot, mysterious bookkeeper, who owns a bookshop in a quiet village and makes mysterious and perfect book suggestions?” 

As for what draws her to make this content, Errington told Mashable, “I think it’s really pretty, like all the images of formal clothing and old buildings.”

But the academia aesthetic goes beyond visuals. “People like the idea of living this exciting academic life where you are exploring old places and learning about the past,” added Errington. 

It’s a way for people to escape the mundanity of everyday life and to romanticize learning, adopting worldly treasures through their devices and curating them on their feeds — and, ultimately, in their lives. “Romantic academia makes me feel like life is beyond the day-to-day chores, assignments, and economic problems of the world,” said Chawla.

“It encourages us to make a life full of poetry, culture, and love,” she added, “where we take inspiration from the romantic era and we recreate it by romanticizing our own.” 

It’s this shared desire to romanticize your life and to learn about the world that turns the academia aesthetic into a community. “You all have something in common you’re passionate about which would be learning and romanticizing life,” Errington explained. 

“It’s motivational in a way, you feel like you’re part of a little community who all have the same interests and hobbies and you all motivate each other to work hard,” she noted. “I’ve been going through university interviews recently and I’ve received so much support from the dark academia community.” 

Like cottagecore and Y2K, online aesthetics such as academia allow young people to find an online community through escapism and shared interests. And through that community, they can find themselves — somewhere buried in a mountain of loved books with a steaming cup of tea.