What are "aura farming battles"? From Latin America to the BTS stage

In the early 2000s, dance battles were all the rage. Many people still remember the dance battle between Miley Cyrus and Mandy Jiroux at the Teen Choice Awards, as well as the countless dance battle scenes in films like White Chicks, Step Up, and even Austin Powers in Goldmember. Today, in a completely different way, something similar is making a comeback on TikTok: "aura farming battles."

Also known as "aura battles" or "aura offs" (a play on  "show off"), these challenges have gone viral on social media and are especially popular in Latin America. They take the concept of "aura farming" — that is, doing something with such effortless ease and mastery that you literally cultivate an aura of charm or superiority — from the many online memes and the looksmaxxing world and bring it out into the streets. But what exactly are these "aura farming battles"?

In what sense are we talking about "aura"?

If we want to play modern philologists of pop culture, it can all be traced back to the 2018 film Dragon Ball Super: Broly, in which the character Piccolo/Junior delivers the now-legendary line: "He has an incredibly powerful aura." In many people's minds, that line became intertwined with the iconic quote "It's over 9000,"  spoken by the character Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z back in 1997, referring to Goku's "power level." Either way, for some years now in internet slang, aura has become synonymous with personal charm and charisma.

Demonstrating one's superiority to a more or less invisible audience is "aura farming": it's what the person managing the grill at a barbecue does, what someone wearing sunglasses inside a nightclub does, what someone walking in the rain without an umbrella does. But Cheba Man, the Russian guy who went viral for dancing on top of a cube at parties, is also aura farming. The idea is to appear relaxed, calm, and self-possessed — as if the audience weren't there — even though the audience very much is.

The aura farming boom dates back to mid-2025, sparked by a viral video featuring Rayyan Arkan Dikha, an 11-year-old Indonesian boy who, during the traditional Pacu Jalur canoe racing festival in Riau, was filmed dancing with sunglasses on and perfect composure at the bow of the winning team's boat. The video spread as an aura farming meme across the world, remixed with different music and imitated by everyone.

And what about "aura battles"?

It's hard to pinpoint who came up with the idea of turning these "aura battles" into duels somewhere between mime and dance. In Fortnite, for example, there are emotes when someone wins, while in recent years voguing — both as a dance form in its own right and as a competitive event — has become increasingly common in the queer communities of major European cities. The fact remains that the "aura battles" phenomenon in South America exploded this summer in countries like Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia.

The idea is to go head-to-head with your opponent through recognizable poses and gestures, with the winner usually decided by crowd acclamation. What strikes outside observers — those unfamiliar with Gen Z and Gen Alpha culture — most about these "aura battles" is that they respond to a clear need many young people have for peer competition, but in a way that may be more cringe, yet is certainly healthier than settling things with fists. And some of these "battles" can actually be quite compelling: Rosalía and Loli Bahia seemed to think so, having been spotted just days ago in Mexico watching one.

And already, Italians are joking that their own version of "aura battles" is the group dancing that older — and not-so-older — people often do in small Italian provincial towns in summer. In general, though, the phenomenon has already taken on a life of its own online, and it remains to be seen whether and how far it will spread in the United States and beyond.

That could well happen, given that BTS, for example, have started incorporating this routine into their concerts. And if BTS are doing it, it's only a matter of time before everyone else follows suit.