Aura farming means deliberately acting cool, calm and mysterious to impress people. Farming comes from gaming, where you build up resources by repeating the same action again and again; here, people build up their aura just as carefully. You'll see it on social media and in chats between friends, usually with irony. In an essay or in IELTS Speaking, say it neutrally: he's trying to look cool or he's showing off.
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be aura farming; aura farming + for the camera/crowd; farm aura; caught aura farming
- Look at him leaning on his car in sunglasses, he's been aura farming for twenty minutes.
- Stop aura farming by the window and help us carry the chairs, nobody's filming you.
- She posted a black-and-white photo with no caption at all, classic aura farming.
What changed
First versionShe didn't even try to look cool, she just has so much aura farming.
RevisionShe didn't even try to look cool, she just has so much aura.
Aura is something a person has, while aura farming is something they do, carefully and for an audience. That's why people don't say have so much aura farming. The sentence also starts by saying she didn't even try. So it's about real aura, and farming has to go.
The line is effort. She has so much aura is a pure compliment: the person is impressive without trying. He's aura farming hints that the coolness is rehearsed for an audience: Nice pose, but we can all see you're aura farming. It can be a friendly tease, or even admiration if the effect works, but either way the listener notices the performance.
Your turn
Every time the camera turned to him, he slowly took off his sunglasses and stared into the distance. Classic ___.
Show the answer
aura farming — He slowly takes off his sunglasses every time the camera turns to him, so he's playing to the audience: that's aura farming. Aura on its own means someone is impressive without any effort, and classic aura isn't used to describe a scene like this.
Write to a friend about someone who was clearly showing off for an audience. Say where it happened and what exactly they did.
At the gym today a guy did one pull-up, then fixed his hair in the mirror for ten minutes, pure aura farming.
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