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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYoung men dressed as \u201cMr. Chainsaw\u201d and \u201cMaduro\u201d face off in an aura-farming battle at Las Sombrillas beach in Lima, Peru, Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026. (AP Photo\/Martin Mejia)<\/p>\n
\u201cAura farming is about letting your essence flow in a place where people are watching you, but where there is no shame,\u201d said Liam Gonz\u00e1lez, a 20-year-old film student who attended dressed up as the movie character Shrek.<\/p>\n
Gonzalo Cornelio, 19, came dressed as former Venezuelan President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, wearing a grey tracksuit like the one worn by the deposed leader the night he was captured by the U.S. military.<\/p>\n
Rooted in video games and boosted by social media<\/p>\n
Aura farming competitions first emerged in Brazil and spread through social media. Now, teenagers and adults are holding aura battles across Latin America.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about being popular,\u201d said Mar\u00eda Paula Mart\u00ednez, a professor in the arts faculty at Colombia\u2019s Los Andes University. \u201cIt\u2019s about showing off good vibes, and having others recognize that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like video game characters who farm for points, people who go aura farming are trying to earn a reward. In this case, it\u2019s about generating good vibes, and thus improving their \u201caura,\u201d a term that, according to some spiritual traditions, refers to an energy field that surrounds people.<\/p>\n
Fernando L\u00edcito, a Peruvian content creator, said that in aura battles participants do not touch each other or trade insults. \u201cThey are simply farming their aura,\u201d said L\u00edcito, 25. \u201cAnd whoever gets the crowd to make more noise wins.\u201d<\/p>\n
L\u00edcito 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.<\/p>\n
During the contests, some participants imitate soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo\u2019s goal celebration, extending their arms downwards and making a sound that sounds like \u201csiuu.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aura farmers also draw on other online trends, with some repeating the words \u201csix, seven\u201d as they move their hands.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Mart\u00ednez, the Colombian arts professor, said that the concept of aura farming has moved beyond the digital world into physical spaces, enabling teenagers to socialize.<\/p>\n
Supporters and detractors<\/p>\n
But some aura battles have met some resistance.<\/p>\n
In Lima\u2019s Miraflores district, officials recently cancelled an aura farming event, saying organizers had not obtained the permits required to hold it in a public space.<\/p>\n
In July, the mayor of Cuiaba, a city in southwestern Brazil, denied permits for an aura tournament, arguing it was not in the public\u2019s interest. The event was transferred to a university campus. And in Costa Rica, the ministry of education banned aura battles in public schools arguing they could create conflicts between students or disrupt learning.<\/p>\n
In Mexico, by contrast, the education minister embraced the trend, posting a video in which he smiles and says he is \u201cfarming good education\u201d as the country prepares for the new school year.<\/p>\n
Gonz\u00e1lez, the aura farmer who dresses up as Shrek, said that this hobby gives him a way to have fun and express himself, even if his grandmother doesn\u2019t get what he\u2019s doing and thinks it\u2019s silly. \u201cWe were born in a different era,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Su\u00e1rez reported from Bogota, Colombia. Associated Press journalists Mauricio Mu\u00f1oz in Lima, Berenice Bautista in Mexico City and Gonzalo Solano in Quito, Ecuador, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LIMA, Peru (AP) \u2014 Dozens of young people gathered recently on a beach in Peru\u2019s capital to dance,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194296],"tags":[49,48,22073],"class_list":["post-880451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-winnipeg","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}