I think it’s incredibly fucked how capitalism discourages learning for learning’s sake. People will have interests they’ve spent years researching then say it’s “useless knowledge” bc it didn’t go towards a college degree and isn’t part of their job. Learning is never useless! Your brain is growing and developing throughout your whole life! People would never have epiphanies or sudden lightening strikes of creativity if they weren’t learning new things! That goes double for topics like science, politics, and history, which inform your understanding of the world you live in!

Grad school is lying to you. You can indulge fixations on obscure topics on your own time. You can sit in a library color-coding notes on articles printed from JSTOR for free. You can argue with dead philosophers in essay format whenever you like. Academia is a state of mind.

I think Jon smashing that table was the moment I really fell in love with tma. That's when I realized, oh, this is a show about a man who is not cut out to be a protagonist but is forced to be one anyway. This is a show were people try their best and still fail spectacularly. Every character in this show sucks in their own special way but you still can't help but love them. You really don't find this kind of show everyday. People say this all the time, but I really mean it when I say that tma has permanently altered my brain chemistry. I haven't been this obsessed with something in a long time.

there is a huge difference between criticizing an institution and criticizing individual behavior. i can criticize the makeup industry without criticizing the 14 year old girl who uses concealer because she’s self-conscious about her acne; i can criticize the plastic surgery industry without vilifying the woman who decided to get a nose job after two decades of pointed comments and bullying. it is intellectually dishonest to respond to an institutional criticism as if it were a personal attack; on the flip side, it is cruel and unnecessary to leverage personal attacks in the name of institutional criticism

if i see one (1) more person respond to a perfectly reasonable beauty-industry-critical sentiment with “but i personally enjoy eyeshadow. why are you attacking people who like eyeshadow :(” or “exactly, all women who wear makeup are miserable and brainwashed” i am going to climb a tree and bite the top of it

justice for judy poovey

that’s it, thank you.

it's time i reveal my true self.

re: a post i’ve seen circulating the DA tag/my dash:

i, for one, would love to take dark academia beyond aesthetics and make it a subculture. bring substance to our style, so to speak.

there are practical ways to reflect the values of DA in real life. yes, there’s actually reading books and seeking out museums (pursuit and love of knowledge), and meeting up with other people into those things (or attempting to LOL). but consider:

defend the value of art. defend the value of the humanities in a society that lauds “what pays the bills.” reject AI art, and do it loudly—remember that no machine can make something better than a human, because only a human can make art out of love. defend real artists against those who claim art anything less than a manifestation of human love.

creators, keep the love in art. be sincere, above all—there is nothing more disgraceful than insincere art. you are an artist—take yourself seriously. do not dampen your message with unnecessary quips, do not waste your talent pandering. make the world of art somewhere safe for capital-R Romantics again.

from thoreau: “live deliberately…put to rout all that [is] not life.” instead of just scrolling tiktok and moodboards, go outside and find out who you are. see the beauty in your life, the one that belongs only to you. that one passion you could get lost in, what sparks that fire in your heart, means something different to you than it does to me—go out and find it.

this is by no means an exhaustive list. feel free to contribute your own ways to un-commodify DA & make it more than an aesthetic in the notes.

𝔐𝔶 𝔰𝔢𝔪𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔦𝔰 𝔞𝔩𝔪𝔬𝔰𝔱 𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔯 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔦𝔱’𝔰 𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔣𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔞𝔭𝔞𝔯𝔱 (𝔫𝔬𝔱 𝔯𝔢𝔞𝔩𝔩𝔶, 𝔟𝔲𝔱 𝔩𝔢𝔱 𝔪𝔢 𝔥𝔞𝔳𝔢 𝔪𝔶 𝔡𝔯𝔞𝔪𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔠 𝔪𝔬𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱)

on the agenda for april 01 — a new month, but hardly the time to appreciate it; my mid-terms begin tomorrow and there is still a lot left to cover. it is dreadfully hot, and feels more like midsummer than spring. i am dreaming already of colder weather. nothing on the agenda except study study study, and then after a little study break, study some more.

me to every character in tsh: i want to hug you so tight, i want to roast you 'til you cry, i want to put you in a microwave and stare at you spinning for hours, i want to wrap you in a blanket and keep you safe from harm and and all the stress you're under, i want to beat the shit out of you, i want to study you under a microscope, i want to make you a hot cocoa with marshmallows, i want to slap your face fourty times, i want to carefully analyse your every word and action, i want to tell you you're the most precious babygirl in the world, i want to hit you with your heavy ass greek dictionary, i want to dissect you both metaphorically and literally, i want to get you some fucking therapy, i want to hunt you for sport, i want to watch how you would act in every possible situation, i want to

“Not everything in the heart can be said, so god created sighs, tears, long sleep, cold smile and shivering hands.”

Nizar Qabbani

The best thing about The Secret History theory about the farmer being killed by a catamount is that on top of being so comically ironic that Bun was killed over nothing, it really sheds light on how conceited the students are. They so want to believe they achieved the ritual and reached the state that Julian describes in the beginning "no more awareness of mortality than an animal" that they automatically assume it was them. When truly they were just doing alcohol and drugs like any other teen out there, which Richard makes fun of and looks down on for consuming.

Oh and also Dionysus is the god of large cats so it's even more ironic.

somebody had probably done this before but

the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.