A social media trend sparked by a viral video and amplified by one of the world’s biggest celebrities has earned “aura farming” a spot on Collins Dictionary’s 2025 Word of the Year list. The term, defined as the art of deliberately cultivating a cool and charismatic persona, highlights the power of online trends to shape language.
“Aura farming,” which started in gaming communities, exploded into the mainstream after the “boat kid” video, featuring a child dancing, became a global sensation. The video sparked a new dance trend that was famously adopted by American football star Travis Kelce, whose celebrity status launched the term to a much larger audience.
The inclusion of “aura farming” on the list demonstrates how social media is a primary engine for linguistic innovation. It was joined by “glaze,” another online term used to criticize excessive or undeserved flattery, pointing to a new vocabulary for navigating social status in the digital age.
These social media terms were partt of a diverse list that was ultimately won by “vibe coding,” an AI-related term. “Vibe coding,” the act of using natural language to create computer code, was chosen as the Word of the Year for 2025 due to its massive spike in usage.
The 2025 list, monitored by the 24-billion-word Collins Corpus, also included “clanker” (an AI insult), “broligarchy” (the tech elite), “Henry” (high earner, not rich yet), and “biohacking,” reflecting the key technological and economic conversations of the year.