Who is your idol? Who’s the person you seek in need of advice and support? Perhaps it’s a family member, a friend, or a mentor-like figure. Many young people instead turn to celebrities whose work and image resonate with them. Think about Taylor Swift: the singer’s ability to convey the complexities of relationships in a few lines, as well as her Classic Americana look, has made her a staple of pop music. The same goes for actors like Timothee Chalamet, whose sensitive nature makes young men confident about expressing themselves.

While actors and singers are still dominating Gen Z’s interest, the rise of the Booktok phenomenon has shifted the admiration of a selected group of readers upon… Fyodor Dostoyevsky? What, the 19th-century Russian novelist? Well, when typing his name in the TikTok search bar, you’ll often find captions defining him as a ‘master’, or ‘he who has introduced me to literature and turned me into a real reader.’

The same goes for poetess Sylvia Plath, whose life and poems were, at first, a torch lit for those experiencing mental health issues, and then revisited by the Internet as the ideal ‘tortured poet’. There is a lengthy list of classic writers idolized by the so-called ‘Dark Academia’ movement on social media, which includes Dostoyevsky, Donna Tartt, Plath, Oscar Wilde, the Romantics, and many others.

To build a spot in the Dark Academia readers’ hearts, one must possess a set of traits they can relate to. For instance, writing a literary masterpiece ignored by the public is a requirement, after falling prey to a smoking/drinking habit (or any kind of addiction, really) and abandoning your pregnant wife to flee with your lover, as Percy Shelley did. Or Dostoyevsky, who led his family into misery because of his love for gambling.

 The deeper you look into this list of authors readers idolize, the more a disturbing pattern of obsession and mental illness becomes clear, which should make you question whether we’re appreciating art or romanticizing the artist. 

The Dark Academia Aesthetic

Okay, but what’s an aesthetic? The official definition is ‘something concerned with beauty or the appreciation of it,’ and it’s also used to gather elements which describe a particular artistic style.

 This phenomenon emerged on art-focused platforms such as Tumblr, Instagram, and Pinterest, where the Dark Academia subculture took shape. Something is Dark Academia if it takes inspiration from classic and classical literature, art, and intellectualism. Together, these elements create a moody, gothic atmosphere, hence the name of the aesthetic. 

With the rise of BookTok, the internet’s literary corner, aesthetics began to influence books. Your favourite novel includes morally grey characters, stuffy nature descriptions, and murder? Perfect, it’ll be marked as a ‘Dark Academia’ masterpiece. But what if it’s the tale of a brave hero, lost in a fantasy world? Is he romantically involved with anyone? Yes? Then, it’s a Romantasy book. 

In the beginning, such labels were used to help the reader find a space, an inclusive space to share their interests. Yet, as time passed, critiquing books left place to quotes (How many times can one read ‘My crime was feeling everything too deeply, my punishment was surviving it.’ over and over while scrolling through Pinterest?) to the point where the author’s picture, often defined by hardship and mistakes, became more important than the craft itself. 

Everyone likes an unlikely hero, an artist reflecting on the pain we experience in our lives, but is it right to build a myth around the lives of other humans? To answer this question, we first need to examine one of BookTok’s most revered figures: Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Born in Moscow, Russia, in 1821, Dostoyevsky’s childhood was a whirlwind of misery: he came from a strict, Orthodox family, and also lived near a hospital for the poor. Daily encounters with the people living there exposed him to the conditions faced by the working class, where poverty and misery reigned. Fyodor’s first novel, Poor People, gained recognition in St. Petersburg’s literary circles, a success which he soon paid for. After criticizing the Tsar, Dostoyevsky was arrested and given the death penalty.  

It’s not for us to judge whether luck struck the author or if he was condemned to a fate worse than death, but we do know his life was spared after a mock trial, and he was sent to a prison labour camp in Siberia for four years.  There, he was forced into dirty, communal spaces, hard labour, and lost the most precious thing known to man: freedom.

Life after liberation from the Siberian camp seemed promising: he married twice, first with Maria Isaeva, and later with his stenographer, Anna Snitka. Though passionate, Fyodor’s relationships with women were strained because of his ‘true love’, gambling. It didn’t matter if his family was in financial crisis: whatever money filled his pockets, it would soon slip on the betting table. 

Over time, his religious and political views grew more radical. We see this in A Writer’s Diary, where Dostoyevsky expressed his disgust toward Western culture, its pursuit of false liberty at the expense of faith in God. This, along with a belief that ‘What if there were not three million Jews, but three million Russians in Russia, and there were eighty million Jews? […] Wouldn’t they (Jews) turn them (Russians) into slaves?’ shows deeply rooted discrimination. With what we now know about addiction, PTSD, and epilepsy, conditions that affected his well-being, some justify his actions as a result of those issues, focusing instead on the greatness found in works like The Brothers Karamazov and Notes from the Underground. 

But once his image becomes idealized by readers, who seek a cleaner, more palatable version of their master, historical facts like these might get lost. When Dark Academia followers encountered Dostoyevsky’s works, they found stories of damaged men seeking light in harsh situations, as well as paintings of Russian life. Then, as the fantasy of the ‘relatable and tormented genius’ spread, the art left its spotlight to the artist. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not surprising that Dostoyevsky’s works became a staple of the Dark Academia circle: Crime and Punishment is a reflection on the possibility of redemption, while White Nights swallows the reader into a bittersweet romance, all ageless themes. 

Even if a person’s life experiences and, consequently, mental state influences their actions, I don’t believe that they should fully excuse them. This is especially important at a time when we have access to multiple accounts of history. We don’t have to look through dozens of outdated biographies anymore: what we need to do is research and accept that those parts that we ignore about our idols were what made them human.

Personally, whenever I come across pictures of Dostoyevsky with a bow emoji on the Internet, a quote from A Writer’s Diary comes to mind: “I’ll be polite, but I’ll not give you bread-even though you starve to death as a dog. “That’s how things stand nowadays in Europe. How’s that? What a contradiction!’ Where he criticizes a society that prides itself on its power and compassion, it is willing to let its people suffer if needed. 

There are various points throughout his diary that point to the contradictions of European politics and culture, so what would Dostoyevsky say about the people whose morals he criticized and who are now turning him into an aesthetic icon? We can’t know for sure, but likely, Dostoyevsky wouldn’t have liked his current Western fanbase as much as it loves him.

Sylvia Plath

The Internet loves to portray Sylvia Plath as a ‘tortured angel.’ On Pinterest mood boards, she’s a fragile, ethereal victim, but on page, Plath sometimes showed a different side of herself. In Lady Lazarus, she narrates the story of an undead woman who, after being treated like a spectacle, rises from her grave and seeks vengeance. Lady Lazarus is furious, ready to act, but to describe her state, she references ‘A cake of soap / a wedding ring / a gold filling.’

Does this list of objects sound familiar? If so, you’d be right: those were things found in concentration camps after WW2, all belonging to victims. Why on Earth does Plath suggest that what’s left of her are macabre remains of the Holocaust? These choices don’t match the image we have of the poetess, do they? First, it’s important to know a bit about her life. Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., and enjoyed a flourishing academic career. Winner of a spot as an assistant editor for a popular magazine, she studied at the University of Cambridge.

Then, during a lively house party in 1956, she met her future husband, Ted Hughes. Just like everything in Sylvia’s life, their relationship and eventual marriage seemed great on the surface. Even so, Ted’s affair with another woman was eroding the marriage, just like Sylvia’s several suicide attempts. They couldn’t keep up appearances as others did, and they separated. Plath’s creative explosion came during the last months of her life, when she penned poems like Lady Lazarus, Ariel, and Daddy.

All would be gathered together in the posthumous collection titled Ariel, whose success wasn’t witnessed by its creator: on the morning of February 11th, 1963, Sylvia Plath died by suicide. What the world was left with, once the pretence of a perfect wife with a great life was stolen by death, is her viewpoint, as found in The Bell Jar and Ariel.

Now, you must have read the ‘Fig Tree’ metaphor at least once (‘I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked […] as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.’) which is The Bell Jar’s core. The fig tree represents life, whose branches are ripe with equally valid options. Fear grips Esther, the main character, who fails to make a choice and watches them wither away. 

By exposing her inner self through Esther, Plath guaranteed The Bell Jar’s status as a modern classic, as not many novels dared to question the female condition in society.  Though her views on women and mental health were progressive, the imagery used in her poetry is sometimes problematic.

Labelled as ‘excessive’ in their metaphors by scholars, two of Plath’s major poems, Daddy and Lady Lazarus, use the Holocaust to emphasize the writer’s pain. In ‘Lady Lazarus,’ Plath’s skin and features are ‘Bright as a Nazi lampshade’ and ‘featureless, fine Jew linen.’ Her remains after being used by people are the ‘cake of soap’ and objects previously described, while she repeatedly calls her enemies by the German name ‘Herr’.

Some critics argue that Plath uses a tragedy with profound emotional impact to describe the abuse she faced, until she and Lady Lazarus merge: neither was seen as a human being in life, but as ‘The Pure Gold Baby.’ Both women want to reclaim control over their bodies and suffering, turning from victims into avengers. Still, isn’t the presence and intensity of these elements odd? Sylvia’s family wasn’t Jewish, and, though the horrors caused by WW2 were still fresh in everyone’s minds then, the usage of German and Jew attributes feels… personal. 

As if Plath were there, at Dachau, and was now recounting what she’d lived through. But she didn’t. Like all of us, Plath only heard stories of what happened, so is it right to draw inspiration from a history that isn’t hers? ‘Daddy’, on the other hand, doesn’t leave space to any ambiguity. An engine is chuffing the poet ‘like a Jew / A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen / I began to talk like a Jew / I think I may well be a Jew.’ Throughout the poem, she compares herself to a Jew victim of the Holocaust and her father to a Nazi dictator, confessing to the emotional neglect and trauma of her childhood. 

Other passages like ‘Every woman adores a Fascist / The boot in the face / the brute heart of a brute like you.’ Are explicit in their Freudian desire to both acknowledge and kill the author’s father figure.  The truth is that, although Plath’s life was as tragic as her works are beautiful, she made statements that are troubling by modern standards, but needed to give her ideas a full dimension. 

The Internet fantasy of Sylvia Plath as a ‘tortured angel’ is harming what little we have of her true self. During her lifetime, she had the men in her life dictate who she should be. In death, readers turned her into a fig, beautiful, sweet, a fruit for us to consume until there’s nothing left but its skin.

The Romantic Poets

One could argue that, despite the author’s flaws, the Dark Academia aesthetic is innovative and has introduced many readers to a literary genre considered elitist. To that, I partially agree. What I do appreciate is the growing interest among readers in classic literature, as it has created an intellectually stimulating and inclusive space on BookTok, yet this aesthetic has been around for almost 200 years. It was called Romanticism. A movement born in Europe at the end of the 18th century, Romanticism highlighted the importance of individuality, nature, and beauty during the gloom of the Industrial Revolution. 

Like Dark Academia, Romantic art took inspiration from ancient Greek and Latin literature, as well as Gothic elements (Death, Graveyards, Phantoms, etc.), and felt nostalgic towards pre-Industrial life. Essentially, Romanticism and Dark Academia seek authenticity, freedom, and beauty in what they perceive as being soulless. Oh, and both are rooted in privilege, but we’ll get to that later on.

The Romantic movement was represented by two generations of intellectuals, mainly poets: the first, whose stars included William Wordsworth, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and William Blake, while the second wave had Lord Byron, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley under the spotlight. 

Though part of the same ‘club’, the art generated by the two generations differs in means. For example, Wordsworth’s poetry aimed to reflect his emotions when surrounded by nature on the reader, showing the kind of life we could have by choosing a life without Industrial commodities. Blake believed in the power of the people, who, in his opinion, should challenge social injustice (child labour, poverty, oppression) and question the systems that control our lives. Pretty progressive, right? These are matters we are still debating about, making these artists’ efforts eternally relevant.

On the other hand, the second generation’s poets are remembered for their passion, transgressive lives, and rebellious spirit. They had more freedom to speak up against the privilege of aristocracy, institutions, and hypocrisy than their predecessors. This wasn’t just because of the evolution of Romanticism, already well known at the arrival of the new poets, but also thanks to the class most artists came from, the bourgeoisie.

To quote Dostoyevsky ‘What a contradiction!’, artists criticizing the same conditions which gave them relevance. John Keats, though born into and upper – class family like Percy Shelley, lived most of his life in poverty, while Lord Byron was an aristocrat, part of the House of Lords. In a time when children were forced into working in factories along with their mothers, Byron, although vocal in Parliament when speaking about political issues, could afford an extravagant lifestyle and travel around the world.

He played into the ‘eccentric aristocrat.’ The persona he created, and, compared to the care other contemporaries, knew that controversy was the best way of getting into the public’s consciousness (as seen in his numerous affairs with married women). Nowadays, Percy Shelley is either mentioned when talking about his lover, Mary Shelley, or to create a contrast between Lord Byron’s flamboyancy and his humble position as a thinker. He didn’t seek fame in the way Byron did, yet he didn’t back away from challenging religious principles and believing in ‘free love’. The latter point served as a way to excuse his choice to abandon his wife, Harriet Westbrook, to elope with Mary Shelley, even though Westbrook was carrying their child. Both mother and son died soon after.

John Keats was the meekest of the three, as his life was marked by illness from the very beginning. Being in a constant tug-of-war with death, he grew into the belief that passing was something beautiful, desirable. ‘I shall soon be laid in the quiet grave / thank God for the quiet grave,’ said the poet, who fell victim to tuberculosis in 1821. Consumption, as TB was called, spread rapidly during the 18th and 19th centuries, representing a grave threat to the whole population. 

However, once Keats and his contemporaries expressed their fascination with the ‘ethereal paleness’ TB patients achieved, coughing up blood and passing away at a young age became ‘desirable.’ It’s almost amusing, seeing how historical patterns and trends go through a full cycle, to the point where we think aesthetics like ‘Dark Academia’ are fresh, and not Romanticism repackaged for the chronically online.

Though Romantic Poets aren’t discussed on social media as much as, say, Plath and Albert Camus, their influence isn’t only found in the elements of the Dark Academia, but in the readers themselves. Dark Academia lovers don’t see themselves as mere users, appreciators of bygone days. They, by consuming classic literature, automatically become poets, writers, and artists. 

 Art is also a means to fight against injustice, something largely absent from many digital movements, including Dark Academia. Nowadays, everyone can denounce inequality through social media, but it seems like our comfort in silence (stemming from privilege) and the idea that ‘Art isn’t political’ are holding us back. 

 Which is why, even when I condemn poets who are dead and buried, I still admire their courage to speak up about mental health, politics, and human rights, especially in time periods we consider conservative. It’s easy to criticize a large group of people because of their blind idolization of artists, but it’s less simple to acknowledge your own participation in such activities. 

Edgar Allan Poe, one of the last Romantic poets, has always been what Franz Kafka is for other people: ever since my first encounter with his short stories, pictures of murderous black cats and doppelgangers never abandoned my imagination.

I find an odd kind of comfort in reading about another man’s fears, like being buried alive and losing loved ones, as it forces me to consider my own mortality. Poe shows great self- awareness about his debilitating mental health, mostly caused by poverty and alcoholism, but never regarding his marriage to his thirteen-year-old cousin, Virginia Poe.

Although their relationship was described as affectionate and respectful, I did wonder while writing this piece why, when discussing my favourite writer, the fourteen-year gap between him and his wife didn’t come to mind sooner. 

My first instinct would be to shrug it off and say ‘Those were different times’, but does my inconsideration of Poe’s ethics differ from that of Plath readers? Honestly, it doesn’t. 

Perhaps some writers’ actions were worse than others, yet the reason why we rewrite their lives for ourselves is the same: we want a version of our idol that comforts, not challenges our morals.

So, what does that say about us?

To that, I can’t give a definitive answer. What I can do is speak for myself and what I observed in friends, which implies a complex response.  I’ve gone through a small part of the controversial artists worshipped by the Dark Academia clique, from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s gambling addiction to Lord Byron’s adultery, but studying a dead man’s grave won’t give me what I’m looking for. 

Admiration is a natural human response because we’re in constant search for reassurance and connection (reasons why we look up to celebrities like Swift, Dostoyevsky, Chalamet, and so on)

The issue emerges when we forget that, behind those words on the paper and memes shared between friends, were real human beings: flawed, multilayered, genius. By romanticizing these people, we’re erasing their legacy and inadvertently harming the progress we’ve made concerning mental health, addiction, and ethics in our culture. 

Although some claim to revel in the messiness allowed in aesthetics like Dark Academia, what they’re actually doing is trying to scrub their idols’ mistakes away, cleansing a permanent stain.

In search of authenticity, for something real in a made-up world, we’re participating in the same practices: some want their favourite author to reflect the perfect image they have of themselves, while others, including me, fail to accept the flaws in those we care about. 

In the end, none of that really matters if we’re open to analysing our ethics and working on accepting the truth as it is, particularly when influenced by social media trends.

Yet, one question stands: what do you truly know about the people you admire?