Dark Academia, Deliciously Thrilling or Unbearably Pretentious?
Admiring gothic architecture in the rain, studying Latin from dusty textbooks, slinking down a marble staircase in an oversized blazer: this is dark academia. The romanticization of academic life has emerged on social media as not just a popular aesthetic, but an entire subculture. TikTokers put on neutral-toned silk button-downs and tweed slacks and recommend books about tortured academics, brooding college students, and prestigious boarding schools.
Of all the dark academia staples, The Secret History by Donna Tartt is by far the most popular. Intrigued by the premise of a mysterious group of classics students at a quaint liberal arts college, I read it—and I couldn’t stand it.
The book begins with a murder—super captivating. But the subsequent 500 pages are about rich, white students drinking at their country homes and wondering how much criminal activity they can get away with before facing any repercussions. This was a new level of pretentiousness that I simply could not enjoy.
My initial reaction was: what do people like about this? I wanted to know how dark academia books drew people in and kept them reading within the subgenre.
Barnes & Noble bookseller Kailey Steward notes that fans of thrillers and fantasy gravitate toward dark academia because they often have common themes of mystery, mortality, and morality. Social media, especially TikTok, has brought dark academia to the forefront of the publishing industry.
Photographed by Letao Chen
“They watch buyer trends, and buy everything within that,” Steward explains. Dark academia books that were written two or three years ago are just now being released by publishers because the genre is growing so rapidly.
According to Steward, dark academia has two requirements: “It has to be academic in some way—it usually takes place in a school. And there has to be a mystery.”
What separates dark academia from other thriller novels are the philosophical and ethical conflicts at play.
“When people think of thrillers, they think Patterson and Grisham and the really gritty ones,” she says. “This is more subtle.” Rather than shocking the reader with violence or gore, dark academia plays mind tricks, making you question your own morals as well as the characters’.
Dark academia has been criticized for centering wealthy and white characters and authors. Many dark academia books take place at expensive, elite institutions, so characters are able to evade consequences through their money or status. Publishing student Olivia Lusk ‘23 has worked for several different publishers and believes the freedom from consequence is often what intrigues people about these stories. Characters pulling off a heist and getting away with it is exciting, but the whitewashed nature of academia gets in the way of telling diverse, inclusive stories.
“Academia has been so white-centered for so long that a lot of the aesthetic is attached to that,” Lusk says.
“There is a push for diversity, and people are definitely writing those stories,” Steward notes. “But I don’t think we’re seeing it as much as we could be because people are still buying the same books that are centered around the same narrative.”
However, the growth of dark academia has been a catalyst for more diversity within the genre. Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, released in June 2021, is about two students at a private academy whose darkest secrets are anonymously revealed to the whole school. Àbíké-Íyímídé, frustrated with the lack of Black representation in literature, wrote an eerie thriller centered around Black and LGBTQ+ characters. As the popularity of dark academia grows, a wider range of authors are claiming their well-deserved seats at the table.
BookTuber Nasya Acosta Smith believes that increasingly diverse representation also allows fans to reimagine dark academia, saying, “The pursuit of education can be renting a book for free from your library or listening to a podcast—things for people outside of school or people who don’t have this incredibly privileged background.”
“People who like darker themes and people who like learning don’t have to look a certain way. Anybody can partake,” she says.
Reinventing dark academia is not about replacing the classics but about adding more diverse voices and stories to the conversation.
With gloomier weather and spooky season right around the corner, light some candles and write sad poetry. Try dark academia out for yourself. But when you’re browsing the dark academia display at the bookstore, remember to actively diversify your reading. Don’t just grab the book you’ve seen on TikTok a hundred times because you might find something even better.