It was recently brought to my attention that there’s a new(ish) genera of aesthetic called Dark Academia, and that makes me very happy. The idea that there are people curating art that celebrities both intellectualism and dark weirdness gives me hope for the future.
The nuanced discussion of genera and concept of aesthetic play are things that could only come out of Tumblr’s constant content churn. Thank goodness that thing is saying relevant and justifying its continued existence. Somehow the bulk of that community has figured out how to center around the curation of pre-existing materials without sucomming to curations’ cudgel: gatekeeping.
Because they’ve been able to avoid this – on the whole – they’ve been able to use the act of curation to create new contexts with which see that which already exists.
I still operate a Tumblr account and it’s been one of the bright spots for me during the pandemic. I’ve been using it exclusively to collect inspiration for future stories. That has been stuck a little tightly to the cyberpunk and retro 80’s aesthetics, so I’ve been looking for ways to branch out.
I will be resetting my sensors to cast a much wider and darker net.