Dark academia is a literary internet aesthetic and subculture concerned with higher education, the arts, and literature, or an idealised version thereof. The aesthetic centres on traditional educational clothing, interior design, activities such as writing and poetry, ancient art, and classic literature, as well as classical Greek and Collegiate Gothic architecture. The trend emerged on social media site Tumblr in the mid-2010s, before being popularised by adolescents and young adults in the late 2010s and early 2020s, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.