dark academia | to study like an academic

welcome back, dear fellow academics!
i hope you spent a restful summer in the cottage core aesthetic, ready to now plunge back into the cosy yet moody gloom of dear dark academia.

sources
Decke-Cornill, Helene, und Küster, Lutz. (2010): Fremdsprachendidaktik. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, ProQuest ebrary. Web. 9 December 2016.Co.

videos used:

films used (if not already credited in the video itself):

the dreamers (2003)

history boys (2006)

a beautiful mind (2001)

good will hunting (1997)

mona lisa smile (2003)

little women (2019)

another country (1984)

paintings used:

The anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp by Rembrandt
The School of Athens by Raffaelo

music used:
Jean Sibelius. “Andante Festivo”. (1939).

script written and read by jey withane, august 2020.
transcription in the comments as it's a bit too long for youtube's description box.

if you see anyone or anything not credited, please let me know!

special thanks to odette, silvia and philipp for helping me get the only a little awkward footage of myself. cheers!

[coltrane]

this is more important than you think. romanticizing studying and learning is the best thing u can do for yourself

[aarohibharadwaj]

This is exactly what dark academia is, this is its core. Clothes, makeup, and home decor are secondary. Thank you for putting it into words. I like to listen to this every day for motivation and as a reminder as to why I study. I study not for the grades but for the knowledge. Hoping for more content like this!

[boshra]

Say it with me: Motivation is overrated. It is not motivation that I lack, it is my lack of discipline that is the dagger to my personal innovation.

[mouta]

I've always been ashamed to love poetry, to be a poet, a passionate lover of all arts, people made me feel ashamed of it and it sticked like an anchor in the deep of my ocean head. When I hear you, I feel like I hear the heir of Keating from DPS and i feel comforted. Thank you so much for this

[MoonNerdy]

Gorgeous, simply gorgeous. And quite effective as well. I want to pick up a book and read it cover to cover now, and not stop. You make me fall in love with academia <3

[cathartic]

" and you have the audacity to procrastinate?"
Absolutely wonderful, almost have tears in my eyes thinking how privileged I am that I get to study in a country like mine where higher studies is a dream. Thank you so much. I will never stop learning ✨❤️I won't.

[cutecheerfreak]

What a beautiful visual/spoken essay. It reminds of an essay that is called something like defense of annotating books. You inspire passion and fervor of knowledge. The academia aesthetics are lucky to have your defense.

[angelakate]

I need this kind of mindset, so i will romanticize studying and academic stuff because i need motivation.

[writingtales]

script:
(1)
this is not a guide on how to get good grades.
this is a guide on how to always attend your classes with a thrill in your heart,
on how to never lose the motivation to go back to your desk and read some more,
on how to overcome the mid-semester slump and to conquer gloomy finals days,
on how to love what you're doing for the sake of being studious, for the art of enjoying revision, for the beauty of knowledge itself.
this is a guide on how to study like an academic.

(2)
RM. Ryan and EL Deci (1993) once said you cannot make the expectations of others your goal. if you wish to truly do something right, you must find the reasons for why youre doing it within yourself. replace external motivation with an intrinsic motivation.
and L Küster and H Decke-Cornill (2010) once said that of all intrinsic reasons you might find, the one which will motivate you the best, and make the information you absorb last the longest, better than money and glory, is the love to the thing itself.
in our case? the case of us academics? we must bring ourselves to not just care for the content of our studies but to genuinely be excited abt the act of studying itself.

(3)
(3.1)
The Privilege of Learning — Part One: Knowledge
look at the boring book before you, you know, the one you were told to read for class. look at all the knowledge it contains.
how do you think did it get there? did someone just one day randomly decide they wanted to write down a few loose and unchecked thoughts on the matter and just send it out into the world? (admittedly, at times it feels like it)
or is this book, this one paragraph, perhaps even just this single line, the product of hundreds of years of curious minds working hard to dig for truths in this coal mine universe of questions? working to discover, gather, test, philosophize, summarize, discuss, disagree, try again, write, rewrite, edit, edit, edit and then finally! publish it? to in the end lay all those thousand hours of hard work before your feet, ready for you to just ... read it?
all this knowledge lying pressed between ur notes, or on ur teachers lips, and the years of passion of academics like u whose collaborate efforts have put it right there, allowing u, today, to have a look at it.
this book, in your hands, it is the product and tool of a privilege of such unfathomable value, how could anyone look at it and think it unimportant? or think themself too important to not read each word with reverence?
(3.2)
The Privilege of Learning — Part Two: You
now look at the boring book before you once more. look at it with the wondrous thing that is your mind.
what do you think are the odds of you being you, just now, just here, hunched over this book with the brain capacity to understand its content? compare yourself to the billions of creatures on this planet who do not have your brain, aren't capable to retain such refined diamonds of knowledge. your mind (even if you might struggle with it sometimes) is an impressive and marvellous tool.
every piece of information you have ever memorised, it becomes a part of you, and this means that just by interacting with it, you are part of it as well: you, by reading this book, by discovering its knowledge, by testing it, discussing it, disagreeing or rewriting it, you become a heir to the hundreds of people before you, perpetuating the process and allowing more curious academics to celebrate their minds.
stop doing things despite yourself, and begin doing them because of yourself: if you work out, don't do it despite of your body, because you don't like the way it looks, do it because of your body, because of how strong and capable it is. it is the same with learning. don't study despite your tired or unfocused brain, wanting to watch a tv show instead, do it because of it, because your mind is capable of so many things, and you should never cease to let it grow.
you are here, right now, alive, with a book before you, and this book might not only answer questions but also open so many more — and you have the audacity to procrastinate?

(4)
it is okay to want good grades.
it is okay to study to land a good job in the end.
it is okay to be tired.
to feel overwhelmed.
to feel trapped.
(it is not our fault that our society demands so much)
all i'm asking is, please:
Never cease to be amazed.
Never cease to be amazed at what the world has to offer.
Never cease to be amazed at what your mind has to offer.
You are the heir, the bearer and the teacher of glorious truths.
So i say to you, remember that studying—true learning, learning for the sake of celebrating and participating in the marvels of this world—is passion.
and passion is what makes a good academic.

(by jey withane, august 2020)

[flaviaa]

I want your voice to narrate my life, it's so soothing and soft I just love it

[cnidiana]

I watch this every morning to motivate myself.
Thank you

[random-lankan]

This is what my mind has been telling me, but has struggled to put into words. These thoughts got me through the hard times, and they can take me one step further.

Thank you so much for this video. It means the world to me.

[fluffibunimadi]

simply having a love for the dark, while also having a love for learning

[emmacassady]

If you’re getting into academia just for the “aesthetics” you’re gonna have a real rude awakening when academia doesn’t want you

[itsme]

i’m literally on the verge of tears right now this has just touched me in a way i cannot describe.. thank you for reminding us how precious and beautiful learning can be...

[veronica_tonellato]

This was
So
Great.
I loved it, and I want to thank you deeply for making it. Humans really are marvelous, and there is so much to learn. Thanks for reminding me how much knowledge makes my soul vibrate.

[NavamiBorkar]

pls never delete this video, the only video i rely on when i need motivation and feel low, its been 4 years and keep coming back

[thecatthatateaflyinduoling]

Please, don't ever stop making content like this. The academic in me is staggering from pressure and stress and this little gem of a video rekindled something in me.

[Peppermint-Palace]

As a person who is an extreme academic, I absolutely adore this video. I always feel the need to learn new things, and that it has this allure to me, and from this video, I have now found other people like that.

[AlixKRex]

I always come back to your videos to help me in times of being tired or depressed and growing stagnant or wishing to. They motivate me like nothing else and I’ve shared them with my few friends, they loved them! I’m telling you, and please understand when I say this, that I’m not being dramatic, they move me to tears. Even though I’ve watched them many times. It makes me feel overwhelmed with joy every time. I can feel such life in it!!! I can feel the love, the passion and depth of all the words you share with us being like these books and things in which you explain so well. I hear the echos of all the time spent within them. Those moments shared by us in this life. The good the bad the difficult and easy, together and alone, all that we think and feel in these caverns of our heads. It’s lovely to be amongst the people who get this feeling so well 🖤🖤🖤
Thank you so much for sharing your art and thus a bit of your soul with us, truly beautiful!