Aura farming is internet slang for doing things that make someone look more charismatic, confident, interesting or simply “cool”. The famous aura points are not real: they are an imaginary, humorous score. Psychologically, the trend is interesting because it turns something deeply human into video-game language — the impression we make, our need to belong and the importance we can give to other people’s approval.
If you have recently heard a teenager say that someone “has aura”, that an awkward moment cost them “−5000 points”, or that a friend is aura farming, you may have had two thoughts: that you have missed an entire chapter of internet language and that asking too many questions might cost you a few aura points of your own.
The expression is funny, but what sits underneath it is worth understanding. Not because this is a new disorder — it is not — but because the meme touches on reputation, embarrassment, belonging, identity, comparison and the desire to be liked. Those are all very human psychological experiences.
In this article I want to translate the code without mocking it. We will look at what aura farming means, where the expression came from, how people supposedly gain and lose aura points, why the idea works particularly well among young people and what adults can learn when we stop focusing on the vocabulary and start listening to what it communicates.
What does aura farming mean?
In current slang, “aura” refers to that difficult-to-define mixture of presence, charisma, style, confidence or the ability to impress other people. This is not the spiritual idea of an aura, nor the medical use of the word associated, for example, with some migraines. It is simply a colloquial meaning.
“Farming” comes from gaming. In a game, farming usually means repeatedly doing something to collect experience, currency, items or other resources. Internet culture took that logic and applied it to reputation: if you do something that makes you look especially impressive, you are “farming aura”.
Cambridge Dictionary describes aura farming as doing things intended to project a personality that other people admire or find attractive or interesting. Merriam-Webster captures another part of the joke rather well: the person should look impressive without appearing to try too hard.
What are aura points and how do you gain them?
Aura points are an invented score. There is no official table, no universal app keeping count and no objective way to decide whether something is worth +1000 or +20,000. That arbitrariness is part of the joke.
Aura points memes became especially visible in 2024. One familiar format asks, “How many aura points did I lose when…?” and then describes an awkward or embarrassing situation. From there, the imaginary scoreboard began to be applied both to spectacular moments and to small everyday disasters.
The score works like instant social commentary. In that sense, aura farming is not about following fixed rules: the group decides, usually as a joke, whether what just happened increased or reduced someone’s “cool factor”.
Important: these numbers are deliberately made up. Meme culture has no universal scoring system. The same behaviour might gain “aura” in one friendship group and produce exactly the opposite reaction in another.
How do young people “farm aura” in real life and online?
There are two common ways the phrase is used. Sometimes “they’re farming aura” describes someone who is deliberately constructing an image. At other times, people apply the label afterwards, when somebody has done something spontaneous that viewers find exceptionally charismatic.
Skill without obvious effort
A sports trick, solving something easily, dancing well or reacting quickly. The meme usually works best when the behaviour looks natural.
Staying calm under pressure
Keeping your composure, answering calmly or recovering from an awkward situation without making a drama of it can all “gain aura”.
Style and presence
The way someone dresses, walks, looks at the camera or enters a situation can become “aura material” if the group reads it as authentic.
Humour and timing
A quick line, a perfectly timed gesture or an unexpected response can generate more aura than something rehearsed for hours.
Videos and challenges
TikTok, Instagram and other platforms make it easy to record poses, dances or scenes that knowingly play with a “main character” aesthetic.
The friendship group itself
Nothing needs to be posted. Friends may award imaginary points after a shot, a fall, a comeback or almost any shared anecdote.
There is another important point: aura farming does not necessarily mean doing something superficial. Helping somebody without seeking credit, standing up for a friend, admitting a mistake or remaining calm can receive exactly the same humorous treatment.
From memes to the “aura boy”: how the trend went viral
The word aura had already been used online to describe the charisma of athletes, musicians and fictional characters. The success of aura farming came later, when the idea became an action and then a kind of social game. By 2024, people were widely adding and subtracting aura points from school, sporting and social situations.
In 2025 the expression gained global visibility through Rayyan Arkan Dikha, an 11-year-old Indonesian boy taking part in the traditional Pacu Jalur longboat race in Riau. Standing at the bow, he performed dance-like movements with striking calm while the boat raced forward. The clip became an international shorthand for “aura farming”.
It is worth telling that story accurately. Rayyan did not invent the slang and should not be portrayed as a child who set out to manufacture an internet persona. His role belonged to a local tradition, and he trained with his team. It was the internet that later reinterpreted the moment through the language of the meme. After the clip went viral, the provincial government of Riau recognised him as a tourism ambassador.
By 2026, the meme had taken another turn, with in-person aura farming battles appearing in which young people use poses, gestures, dances and short performances while an audience or judges decide who projects the most “aura”. In August 2026, events using the idea had also been announced in Spain.
What does aura farming mean from a psychological point of view?
The first thing to say clearly is that “aura farming” is not a psychological term and it is not a diagnosis. There is no “aura farming disorder” and no clinical aura-point scale.
What makes the meme interesting is that it gives us a very visible example of several processes psychology has studied for decades.
1. Self-presentation: we all influence the impression we make
In 1990, Mark Leary and Robin Kowalski described impression management as the process by which people try to influence the impressions others form of them. Their two-component model distinguished between wanting to create a particular impression and the way we then construct that image.
Long before TikTok, people chose particular clothes for a first date, tried to appear calm in a job interview, rehearsed what to say in front of somebody they liked or told a story because they knew it presented them in a good light.
The internet did not invent self-presentation. What has changed is that it can now be recorded, edited, shared and scored.
2. Belonging matters
Baumeister and Leary proposed in 1995 that the need to form and maintain stable interpersonal bonds is a fundamental human motivation. Feeling that we belong matters to children, teenagers and adults.
That is why aura points should not be dismissed only as silliness. The joke works because most of us intuitively understand what it means to rise or fall in a group’s estimation.
3. Aura points turn reputation into a video game
Social evaluation is usually ambiguous. We may leave a conversation wondering, “Did I sound odd?”, “Did they think that was funny?” or “Could they tell I was nervous?”
Social media had already turned some of that evaluation into real numbers: followers, likes, views and comments. Aura points push the logic one step further by turning almost any moment in life into an imaginary score.
As an explanatory phrase — not a clinical term — we might call it an imaginary gamification of social reputation. The meme makes explicit something that is usually implicit.
4. Peer approval can carry particular weight in adolescence
In a well-known study published in Psychological Science, adolescents viewed Instagram-style photographs while researchers manipulated the number of “likes”. The teenagers were more likely to say they liked a photograph when they believed it had received many likes, and those signals of peer approval were also associated with activity in neural systems involved in reward and social cognition.
This does not mean that a like controls the adolescent brain, nor that young people cannot think for themselves. It means something far less dramatic: information about what the group approves of matters, and peer evaluation can be particularly salient during adolescence.
Aura, identity and adolescence: trying out who I want to be
Experimenting with identity is a normal part of adolescence. Young people try out styles, friendships, music, clothes, ways of speaking, opinions and ways of presenting themselves. Sometimes a version of ourselves fits; sometimes it lasts two weeks and quietly disappears.
Social media has become another setting for that exploration. A systematic review published in Adolescent Research Review, bringing together 32 studies and 19,658 participants, found that for identity development, what young people do on social media appears to matter more than simply how many hours they spend there. Active participation was associated with greater identity exploration, while more authentic rather than heavily idealised self-presentation was linked with greater self-concept clarity.
That helps us avoid two opposite mistakes. The first is assuming that every attempt to project an image is false or problematic. The second is assuming that every form of digital self-presentation is harmless.
Trying out different versions of yourself can be part of growing up. The useful question is not “Are they constructing an image?”, because all of us do that to some degree. The better question is whether that image expands their ability to express themselves or becomes a role they feel unable to leave.
Is aura farming bad for self-esteem?
Not necessarily. It would be a mistake to turn a humorous trend into a mental health problem. For many teenagers, talking about aura is simply humour, creativity, meme culture and a shared generational code.
The relationship between social media and self-esteem is also far less simple than some headlines suggest. A 2022 review concluded that findings are mixed and average effects are generally small. Experience varies between individuals, contexts and, importantly, types of use.
The concept becomes more psychologically relevant when someone moves from playing with social evaluation to depending on it.
Contingent self-worth: when “looking good” starts deciding how much I am worth
Crocker and Wolfe developed the idea of contingencies of self-worth: areas on which people may make their sense of personal worth particularly dependent. For some people, other people’s approval can become one of those areas.
There is a difference between thinking, “That was embarrassing — minus 3000 aura”, laughing and carrying on, and interpreting every stumble, rejection or disappointing post as evidence that you are somehow worth less.
When does it stop being a joke and deserve attention?
There is no mathematical dividing line. What matters is the impact, not the vocabulary.
It may be worth having a more careful conversation if a teenager:
- stops doing things they enjoy because they are constantly afraid of looking foolish;
- deletes, checks or posts content compulsively while chasing a particular reaction;
- experiences intense anxiety in ordinary social situations because they feel permanently evaluated;
- constantly compares themselves with friends, creators or classmates and comes away feeling inferior;
- feels they have to maintain an online personality that no longer feels like them;
- puts up with jokes, challenges, exposure or being filmed when they are genuinely uncomfortable because they fear losing status in the group;
- starts to measure their worth mainly through popularity, appearance, likes or acceptance.
None of these signs diagnoses a problem on its own. They can, however, be a reason to ask what is happening and how much distress or restriction it is creating.
If the central concern is a persistent fear of being judged, embarrassed or exposed in front of other people, our guide to social anxiety versus shyness and when to seek help may also be useful. If the issue is a constant sense of needing to prove that you are good enough, you may also find our article on impostor syndrome and confidence helpful.
How to understand aura farming if you are a parent — or simply over 30
Understanding aura farming does not require speaking like a teenager. You probably do not need to start rating your child’s breakfast behaviour with “+400 aura for putting your mug in the dishwasher”. Depending on their age, that may result in a level of parental aura loss from which recovery is difficult.
What does help is being curious without invading.
- Do not mock the language before you understand it. Saying “what ridiculous things you lot say now” closes a conversation that could have been interesting.
- Ask what it means in their group. “Would that give you aura, then?” may open more conversation than an adult lecture about how silly the phrase is.
- Do not assume it is all insecurity. Much of the time it is simply humour, play and belonging.
- Ask how it feels, not only what they post. It is more useful to know whether they are enjoying themselves, comparing themselves, feeling pressured or afraid of being left out.
- Talk about privacy and consent. A joke gaining aura does not mean everything should be filmed, uploaded or shared without permission.
- Do not try to remove every experience of embarrassment. Looking silly sometimes, making a mistake and discovering that the world carries on are part of developing confidence.
So, psychologically, what would “having aura” really mean?
Psychology cannot give you a score. Perhaps that is the most interesting answer.
Reasonably solid psychological confidence does not mean never needing other people, never feeling embarrassed or being impressive in every situation. That would be unrealistic. It is closer to being able to remain yourself when you are not impressing anyone.
It can mean tolerating a joke that falls flat, a photo that does not get the reaction you expected, not being chosen, making a mistake in front of the group or simply not being the most interesting person in the room today.
It also means recognising that wanting to be liked does not make us weak. We are social beings. The difference is whether other people’s approval is information we take in or the court that decides how much we are worth.
Perhaps a better sign of an identity becoming more secure is not always having “+10,000 aura”, but being able to survive a glorious “−10,000”, laugh a little, learn something if there is something to learn, and carry on with the day.
Frequently asked questions about aura farming
What does aura farming mean?
It means doing things that increase the impression of charisma, confidence, style or “coolness” a person projects to other people. It is mainly internet slang and is usually used humorously.
What are aura points?
They are an imaginary score used online to represent how much “aura” somebody gains or loses after a situation. There is no official table and no objective value for any particular behaviour.
How do you gain aura points?
In memes, people tend to gain them by doing something impressive, staying calm, showing skill, having good timing or projecting presence without looking as though they are trying too hard. The rules vary by context and friendship group.
What does losing aura mean?
It is a humorous way of saying that somebody has had an awkward, embarrassing or image-damaging moment. It does not mean they have lost value as a person.
Is aura farming bad for teenagers?
Not in itself. It can simply be humour, creativity and group belonging. It becomes more relevant when the search for approval is linked with anxiety, constant comparison, unwanted behaviour or self-worth that depends heavily on other people’s reactions.
How should parents react when their children talk about aura?
With curiosity rather than ridicule. Parents do not need to use the same vocabulary. It is more useful to ask what the term means in their child’s group, how it is used and whether it feels like a joke, a game or a source of pressure.
When other people’s approval starts to weigh too heavily
Caring what other people think is human. But if fear of looking foolish, constant comparison or the need for approval is restricting social life, school, relationships or wellbeing, it may be useful to explore what is happening with a psychologist.
At Ocnos Psychology Clinic, we work with children, teenagers and adults in person in Palmones, Campo de Gibraltar, and online. Assessment should always focus on the individual and their context — not on a fashionable word.
Sources and scientific references
- Cambridge Dictionary — Aura farming . Current reference definition of the slang term used throughout the article.
- Leary, M. R. & Kowalski, R. M. (1990). Impression management: A literature review and two-component model. Psychological Bulletin, 107(1), 34–47.
- Baumeister, R. F. & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 117(3), 497–529.
- Sherman, L. E. et al. (2016). The Power of the Like in Adolescence: Effects of Peer Influence on Neural and Behavioral Responses to Social Media. Psychological Science, 27(7), 1027–1035.
- Crocker, J. & Wolfe, C. T. (2001). Contingencies of self-worth. Psychological Review, 108(3), 593–623.
- Avci, H., Baams, L. & Kretschmer, T. (2025). A Systematic Review of Social Media Use and Adolescent Identity Development. Adolescent Research Review, 10, 219–236.
- Cingel, D. P., Carter, M. C. & Krause, H.-V. (2022). Social media and self-esteem. Current Opinion in Psychology, 45, 101304.
Clinical note: this article is for general information and does not replace an individual psychological assessment. “Aura farming” is a cultural expression, not a diagnostic category. Its clinical relevance depends on the person’s distress, functional impact and individual context.
