The Great Humanities Migration Has Begun
Literature lovers aren't disappearing—they're fleeing to Substack, YouTube, and Discord. A guided tour of the Wild Humanities.
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As recently as 2022, The Epic of Gilgamesh was scrubbed from Columbia University’s famous Core Curriculum in favor of identity-focused titles like Commons by Myung Mi Kim. While Columbia may finally be backpedaling on its DEI-focused literature selections under pressure from the Trump Administration, the free fall in humanities enrollment across the country may not be as easily corrected. Fears abound that the humanities are dead.
But maybe that’s going to be just fine.
Liberal arts haven’t died; they have escaped the ivory tower. A quick scan across the internet suggests that interest has never been higher—the students just aren’t showing up for indoctrinating curriculum, high tuition, and questionable return on investment.
Now moving into its third decade, the World Wide Web has democratized cultural commentary. Both new outlets and voices are rising to quench the intellectual thirst, with few to no gatekeepers required.
Today, we are going to explore the cultural incubators from around the digital landscape for these new Wild Humanities.
YouTube
In addition to being the second largest search engine on the internet, YouTube is becoming the central commons for cultural critique. The rise of the influencer is well known, but it may be less obvious that subjects like literature, philosophy, history, opera, and more are being covered, and I dare say, owned, as the following video explains:
Adam Walker, whose video is linked above, expounds on how English Departments have divorced their subject matter, with students graduating without reading Shakespeare. Yet he and his channel, Close Reading Poetry, represent the new guard. He has also started the Antrim Literature Project.
Along with the Catherine Project and the Hertog Foundation started by other upstarts, these websites and the YouTube channels linked to them are forming a New Republic of Letters, resurrecting the real intellectual exchange that used to be limited to college campuses.
Take the following sparring match on what makes for a genuinely threatening villain. The first video broke out two months ago, racking up 316K and counting views.
This video attempts to respond. While much of the returning fire is weak (calling something a possible dog whistle isn’t an argument), the effort to respond to the idea is there. A few points are even worth consideration.
YouTube abounds with channels doing similar deep dives on art history, art interpretation, world religions, the performing arts, history, and yes, even opera.
And audiences are noticing. As one commenter, greatbooksbigideas, on Adam Walker’s video noted:
as an adjunct in the 90’s, a non-tenured instructor in the 2000s, and now on YouTube talking about books with autodidacts and general readers, which to be honest is more rewarding engagement than was happening in the classroom. Academia needs literature more than literature needs academia.
One could easily fill several posts’ worth of pages just pointing out the best channels on YouTube, but let’s touch on some other areas where Wild Humanities has taken root.
Substack
It would be a dereliction of duty not to mention the platform we’re currently sharing. Since its founding back in 2017, Substack has become a protector of free speech. This has led to an explosion of publications, their content running the gamut from culture and policy news, like you see here, to commentary, to original fiction. Here are some samples:
The Culturist has a subscriber list of over 200k. It runs a book club and features articles about art, literature, music, even cultural and religious history. It also has podcasts, with all its offerings focused on the Western canon.
The Common Reader is a literature newsletter covering the greats of Western Civilization. Homer, Sophocles, Virgil, and Seneca sit side by side with Dante, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen. With nearly 30k subscribers, one could argue interest is very high.
Niall Ferguson’s Time Machine, with 54k subscribers, Niall uses his historical acumen to inform discussions on current problems.
There are so many more pages where people can read lengthy analysis across the full spread of the humanities; it’s not possible to cover them all. But it is well worth your time to hunt through them.
Discord
Some might say that reading the commentary of others isn’t the same as studying for yourself, even if you light up the comment section with your brilliance.
That’s where Discord fits in.
Originally built to allow gamers to communicate, Discord has blossomed into a platform that allows for direct chat communities based on any and every subject under the sun.
While each channel has its own style, voice communication creates a space like the party calls of the 1970s, but with a focus on subjects like philosophy. Members can debate, share knowledge, or hold a remote book club meeting for Thomas’s Elements of Information Theory.
Planned events create space for others to create community, push each other to present a subject, and get immediate direct feedback when struggling to understand a concept.
You can search Discord channels for your favorite subject with Google or try Disboard.org. Here are some highlights:
The Philosophy Chat. Dedicated to all things philosophy, and frequented by over 30k members, this group has regular book discussions, philosophy events, and multiple chat channels to share reading, get homework help, or ask for peer review.
Have a question about music theory or how to tune a clarinet? Academic Music has over 5k members sharing information about music, composition, and even details about specific instruments. You can play music and get feedback in real time, or simply learn how to listen better.
There are even places to learn about art from professional working artists. Art Club is one of many large servers geared towards sharing a love of art. With over 100k members, it hosts study groups, events, workshops, commissions, and job boards. There are multiple voice channels if you prefer active conversation and off-topic boards if you’d rather have some idle chit-chat.
Wild Humanities Outlets are Everywhere
Cultural studies haven’t just stagnated on campus; they have escaped it.
YouTube, Substack, and Discord are only the tip of the iceberg. Social media stalwarts like Instagram, Facebook, and X all have internal groups and communities centered around art, history, religion studies, music, you name it.
Newer platforms like Twitch and Telegram are also connecting people over music and art.
In larger cities, you can find in-person opportunities. For example, performance spaces like The Tank are opening fresh venues to artists and audiences. The Atlanta Artists Center is a membership studio that holds workshops, figure drawing, and exhibition space. And the Dallas Area Society of Historians welcomes both academic faculty, students, and independent scholars to virtual workshops, social gatherings, and early access to pre-circulated papers.
Similar venues and groups exist across the country, in big cities and even some small towns.
Conclusion
Critics will argue that Discord chats or YouTube comments can never replace a structured pedagogy, credentialed verification, or in-person mentorship. Some of those same folks will also quietly ignore studies showing how ineffective lectures are at producing learning, or how credentialing fueled ideological capture in higher education. Likewise, the centuries of human learning that flourished outside of the college grounds.
The question isn’t whether the humanities have died; the question is whether we will recognize them as legitimate when they aren’t safely sequestered behind the ivory tower walls.
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About
Diogenes in Exile began after I returned to grad school to pursue a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at the University of Tennessee. What I found instead was a program saturated in Critical Theories ideology—where my Buddhist practice was treated as invalidating and where dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy was met with hostility. After witnessing how this ideology undermined both ethics and the foundations of good clinical practice, I made the difficult decision to walk away.
Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to exposing the ideological capture of psychology, higher education, and related institutions. My investigative writing has appeared in Real Clear Education, Minding the Campus, The College Fix, and has been republished by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. I also speak and consult on policy reform to help rebuild public trust in once-respected professions.
Occasionally, I’m accused of being funny.
When I’m not writing or digging into documents, you’ll find me in the garden, making art, walking my dog, or guiding my kids toward adulthood.