The idea of categorizing "things" is common in philosophy. I decided to take this concept to Geometry Dash styles, where I came up with a model that I believe all styles in any level stem from. But in order for that to work, we need to answer this fundamental question: what is a style?

What is a style?

First things first: a style is not a theme. Two levels can look different but use the same style if they have different themes. For example, here are two parts from Geometrical Dominator, each using the same style, but with a completely different theme.

Even with that out of the way, defining what exactly is a style is not easy. The line between what is the same as another style or a completely new style is fuzzy. However, despite this, I believe the following two conditions must be true for a style to officially be a style.

1. The style is not dependent on a theme. For example, you cannot consider a level "jungle styled" or "castle styled."
2. The style is not dependent on a specific element. For example, you cannot consider "effect" a style.

The Style Trinity

With that, I believe that all styles are stemmed from the following three fundamental styles.

1. Glow; a style that uses glow and blending gradients excessively.
2. Modern; a style that uses mainly flat colors with no blending.
3. Design; a style that uses objects and details to make intricate designs.

With this, here is a list of other common styles and in general where they fit relative to the above three.

• Cartoon art is stemmed from modern and design.
• Realistic art is stemmed from glow and design.
• Experimental is stemmed from glow, modern, and design.
• RobTop style is stemmed from modern and design.
• Core is stemmed from design.

It could even be argued that some of the above described styles stem from styles which stem from the trinity. For example, the cartoon art style can be stemmed from RobTop style, which is stemmed from modern and design.

What does this mean?

As with most of philosophy, this means very little. (Okay no.)

While this doesn't necessarily have a practical use, it can be cool for those with wandering minds to think about. It might also be able to help track down the history of styles, such as how cartoon art likely stems from modern RobTop style, which was originally introduced in update 2.0.