Dozens of young people gathered recently on a beach in Peru’s capital to dance, pose and show off their most creative moves, only to run headfirst into the usual machinery of permission, permits and public control. The so-called aura battle, a real-world spin on the Internet trend known as aura farming, has spread across Latin America, but local officials have already started deciding which gatherings get to exist and which don’t.
Who Gets to Gather
In Lima’s Miraflores district, officials recently cancelled an aura farming event, saying organizers had not obtained the permits required to hold it in a public space. That’s the basic arrangement: young people organize, perform and compete, then the state steps in to decide whether the street, beach or plaza can be used at all. In July, the mayor of Cuiaba, a city in southwestern Brazil, denied permits for an aura tournament, arguing it was not in the public’s interest. The event was transferred to a university campus. In Costa Rica, the ministry of education banned aura battles in public schools, arguing they could create conflicts between students or disrupt learning.
The controls don’t stop the trend. They just push it around.
Fernando Lícito, a Peruvian content creator, said he saw a video in June of an aura farming contest in Brazil and decided to bring the idea to Peru. So far, he has organized three aura battles there. That’s the kind of horizontal organizing the official apparatus can’t quite smother: people see something, copy it, and build it themselves without waiting for approval from above.
What the Kids Are Actually Doing
Competitors dressed as characters from comic books or animated films and engaged in dance battles of sorts, vied for the crowd’s applause and advanced only if they got the loudest cheers and the most creative moves. One competitor dressed as Spider-Man performed forward rolls and push ups as techno music played in the background. Another hopped on one leg while kicking the other forward in a move that looked straight from a video game.
Liam González, a 20-year-old film student who attended dressed as the movie character Shrek, said, “Aura farming is about letting your essence flow in a place where people are watching you, but where there is no shame.” Gonzalo Cornelio, 19, came dressed as former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, wearing a grey tracksuit like the one worn by the deposed leader the night he was captured by the U.S. military.
That detail hangs there with a cold edge. A youth trend built around performance and recognition ends up brushing against the imagery of capture, state force and spectacle, because that’s the world these kids are living in too.
María Paula Martínez, a professor in the arts faculty at Colombia’s Los Andes University, said, “It’s not about being popular. It’s about showing off good vibes, and having others recognize that.” She said the concept has moved beyond the digital world into physical spaces, enabling teenagers to socialize. Like video game characters who farm for points, people who go aura farming are trying to earn a reward. In this case, it’s about generating good vibes and improving their aura, a term that, according to some spiritual traditions, refers to an energy field that surrounds people.
Crowds, Noise and the Bosses of Public Space
Fernando Lícito said participants in aura battles do not touch each other or trade insults. “They are simply farming their aura,” said Lícito, 25. “And whoever gets the crowd to make more noise wins.” That’s the whole game: not domination, not violence, just attention, noise and collective response. The crowd decides, at least for a moment.
Aura battles have spread to cities across Latin America, including Mexico City, Quito and Buenos Aires, where dozens of people staged a battle in front of the Obelisk, one of the most iconic monuments in the Argentine capital. The contests have also reached Spain, with events taking place in Madrid, Burgos and Zaragoza. The movement keeps moving because it doesn’t need a ministry, a permit office or a school board to feel alive.
Some officials still can’t resist trying to manage it. In Mexico, by contrast, the education minister embraced the trend, posting a video in which he smiles and says he is farming good education as the country prepares for the new school year. Same spectacle, different costume. One side bans it, another side markets it, and the young people keep dancing in the middle.
González, who dresses as Shrek, said the hobby gives him a way to have fun and express himself, even if his grandmother doesn’t get what he’s doing and thinks it’s silly. “We were born in a different era,” he said. That line lands harder than any official statement. The kids know they’re making their own culture, while the institutions around them keep trying to file it, permit it or ban it.