Academia as an Aesthetic Craze
On the first day of my senior year of high school, I promised myself I would get good grades and gain acceptance into a prestigious university. I returned home with a brief burst of motivation. I instantly compiled a Pinterest board of what I believed would inspire me to succeed academically: pictures of the Harvard emblem, Rory Gilmore, elegant libraries, and quotes such as, "If you're not ahead, you're already behind."
At this time, I was an active member of a TikTok community entitled "StudyTok", an academic subculture with a sizable following dedicated to studying. The hashtag itself has garnered over six and a half billion views. Under #StudyTok, you'll encounter an assortment of videos tailored for the unmotivated mind. Most notable are the short montages of images displaying dark academia and the professional fields of law and medicine overlayed by the infamous anthem for academic validation: Are You Satisfied? by Marina and The Diamonds.
"High achiever, don't you see?
Baby, nothing comes for free
They say I'm a control freak
Driven by a greed to succeed
Nobody can stop me."
Rory Gilmore and Hermione Granger are two commonly used examples of "academic greatness" on StudyTok. However, the issue with glorifying overachieving characters is exactly that: they are fictional. Maintaining flawless grades and relationships, as displayed in a television show, is an unreasonable expectation for teenagers and young adults navigating the independence and responsibility that comes with higher education. That is why StudyTok is a null source of motivation at its core. Its users focus on visualization and fleeting inspiration rather than ongoing productivity. The glamorized approach to a successful school career is wandering about old libraries and carrying armloads of dusty medical dictionaries rather than emphasizing class engagement, building rapport with your professors, or reaching out when needing help - all actually beneficial strategies to performing well in school.
StudyTok wasn't always this way. Originally a source of helpful recommendations that combined study tips with digestible and accessible content, the platform slowly morphed into a place where Gen Z could project their academic insecurities onto one another in a vicious competition under the guise of community. My toxic trait, one TikTok user boasts, is telling people at school that I am completely lost in a class but still have an A. They don't know I study the subject every night and revise for hours. I want them to think I am vulnerable so I can outperform them. Their comments section was flooded with support. This year, I met a girl in my Calculus I class who admitted to purposefully giving incorrect answers to other students to sabotage their grades. It's okay to be independent, and it's okay to care about getting good grades. However, it's not okay to go out of your way to hurt others that are only trying to do the same.
TikTok has normalized a harmful addiction to academic validation that doesn't emanate from a genuine pursuit to learn. I emphasize that dark academia's aesthetic is pleasing; there is nothing wrong with the visual aspect of dark academia, rather its ideology. Dark academia romanticizes the idea of intellect and the prestige it garners without any actual substance. It's doubtful you will always embody the whimsical "dark academia" aesthetic while studying for your chemistry exam. Instead, the community fosters a certain aura of elitism and materialism: I need these notebooks, an iPad with an Apple Pencil, and a fifty-dollar Paperlike screen protector to mimic the content creators on StudyTok; I need to attend an Ivy League school to make sure everyone knows I'm smart.
The media that StudyTok draws inspiration from includes Dead Poets Society - a film that exclusively depicts wealthy, white people as their intellectual protagonists. In addition, Dead Poets Society takes place in an elite, all-boys preparatory school where professors teach students how to analyze and appreciate canonized artistic work. However, the show merely glorifies white British and American literary works - a shallow misrepresentation of how collegiate academic environments operate.
StudyTok's obsession with elitism pushes an inaccessible narrative to the general public. The hashtag is a suffocating bubble of superiority that is, in all seriousness, delusional. For a community that claims to "treasure" academia, the only display of higher education I see is the representation of what I like to call the "legacy admissions aesthetic": rich white people floundering around extravagant and prestigious campuses simply because they can. Type in "Dark Academia" into the Google search bar and find an assortment of photos depicting cathedrals, Victorian-era fashion, and mood boards featuring classic literature such as Shakespeare. It's hypocritical that only a select few elite colleges are what StudyTok deems ideal. It's proof that the community's purpose is to provide an outlet for straight-A students who want to feel better about themselves through academic comparison.
While browsing through #StudyTok for research, I realized that it didn't inspire me with the intense motivation to outperform others as it did in high school. Instead, I was offended by the immaturity and toxicity of the users' hyper-individualized, selfish, and pretentious attitudes. Perhaps, in a few years, they will feel the same. The desire to compete with everyone around you stems from immense insecurity, and if there is anything I am familiar with, it's the feeling of academic inadequacy. However, just because I stopped using StudyTok doesn't mean I stopped caring about my grades or no longer try my hardest in school. It's the opposite. I gave myself a break. School is not a seamless stream of A's and triumphs, which is okay. However, do not confine yourself to a superficial portrayal of what academia "should" look like; there is no such thing in the first place.
