An exploration of the dissemination of knowledge through the “Dark Academia” aesthetic

This article attempts to explore and analyse how Dark Academia aesthetic functions as an effective mode of knowledge dissemination on social media. Dark Academia is a social media trend and subculture which became popular, especially during the recent COVID-19 global pandemic, and is based on the key concepts of intellectual curiosity for exploration, self-discovery and passion for new knowledge. The present study adopts a qualitative approach to explore how content relating to Dark Academia posted on Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and TikTok contribute to knowledge dissemination, by gradually transforming the followers of the aesthetic into epistemic agents who collectively and individually experiment their epistemological curiosity. The study incorporates theories relating primarily to Literary Pedagogy and Digital Pedagogy to discuss how Dark Academia contributes to the dissemination of knowledge on informal/virtual platforms. Furthermore, the research gestures at concerns pertaining to the digitalisation of education, informal education on social media and how Dark Academia provides spaces for new research areas including those related to the Digital Divide that virtual education has brought into teaching-learning experiences.