Dark Academia vs. Light Academia: How These Tumblr-Core Aesthetics Create a Bookish Fantasy for Gen Z
The ivy-covered walls of elite schools and universities have long been a subject of intrigue, evoking curiosity about what happens within these institutions. The insular nature of academia has left many wondering: What do the students know that I don’t?
This mystique, fueled by popular media from the juggernaut that is Harry Potter to the 1989 cult classic Dead Poets Society, feeds into the “dark academia” and “light academia” styles that have come to permeate the internet in recent years. On TikTok, you might find men sporting wool trousers, dark overcoats, and toting around leather-bound books, looking as if they were running to a lecture. While most microtrends tend to come and go in the TikTok era (a time of hyper-niche “cores” and “aesthetics”), academia has served as a constant source of style inspiration for millennials and Gen Z since the Tumblr heyday of the 2010s. Now, on just TikTok alone, there are over 700,000 videos under the #darkacademia tag, and over 80,000 under #lightacademia.
Both dark and light academia deliver autumnal ensembles that look and feel like the first day of a new semester. Each aesthetic favors a layered outfit involving garments such as tweed jackets, chunky cable-knit sweaters, or turtlenecks. However, they differ in color palette and mood, with the dark side projecting a more gothic style, and the light giving off a preppier, cozier vibe.
While these styles are not new, they continue to grow in interest. On Pinterest, searches for menswear that channels these aesthetics are up year over year. Users have been looking at wool trousers outfits (+235%), white oxford shirt outfits (+220%), long overcoats (+150%), and brogues (+115%), just to name a few. The look is even making its way into the professional world, with searches for dark academia office outfits up (+70%).
But what is it that’s so attractive about the visual signifiers of academia? Dr. Joshua Bluteau, an assistant professor at Coventry University and the author of Dressing Up: Menswear in the Age of Social Media, says “there is something enamoring about the kind of knowledge and transformational power of universities.”
Old-school universities—with their grand architecture, traditional formalwear, and persistent regard for 19th-century European literature—have captured the public imagination for decades through films, books, and TV. This fantasy version of higher education, which is discussed and replicated on social media platforms such as TikTok, is seemingly isolated from the rapidly changing world—even if the reality is far different. Bluteau believes people find “something deeply romantic about the idea of having three years to think.” (Or four years, if you’re attending college in the States.)
