That’s the etymology. But, as a concept, auras can hardly be claimed by any one culture. Many religions have shared in the idea that human energy can become visible, depicting it as a glowing, aura-like field that radiates outward from the body. Consider haloes. In early Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist art, they’re shown as rims of light that surround the head (a nimbus) or the whole body (an aureola) of a spiritually “chosen” figure, making auras a kind of status symbol even then.
Fast forward to the late 1930s, and a more secular version of aura art was entering the chat: aura photography. Also called Kirlian photography, it became big in New Age-y circles in the ‘60s and ‘70s, with colors typically decoded using loose interpretations of chakras taken from Sanskrit texts (which is as respectful and accurate as it sounds). Soon, aura photos got even buzzier with the development of the Polaroid-like “AuraCam” — the same kind of camera used to capture Lorde’s bright red aura in 2021.
Today, you’ll still see aura photos make Instagram grids. But when most people talk about auras now, they’re not really talking about mystical light fields — they’re talking about energy in the “that person has presence” sense. Aura became the de facto shorthand for this after — of all not particularly youth culture-y things — a 2020 New York Times article used “aura” to describe why a soccer star got away with making mistakes. Aura quickly became a vibier way to say “vibes,” with “good aura” and “bad aura” filling the still-warm spots left by good vibes/bad vibes.
All of that brings us — finally — to aura points. With everyone suddenly minding their auras, it didn’t take long for TikTok to gamify the idea. If your aura is your vibe, then aura points act as a scorecard for tracking your aura wins and losses. But how, per TikTok, does that work exactly?
Aura points meaning: How do you gain and lose points?
Before you start tallying up positive vs. negative aura points, a quick reminder first that coolness is just a construct! The only real way to have “good aura” is to be comfortable with being yourself, and embarking on a hero’s journey to up your aura points likely isn’t what will get you there (even if that sounds like the plot of a high school movie you’d watch).
The aura points TikTok trend is just meant to be a fun, vaguely RPG-inspired way to celebrate the times when you’ve got it all together (positive aura points) and find the humor in the times you don’t (negative aura points). As you’ll see plenty of on TikTok, some people are also using the popular “How many aura points did I lose when I…” format to post everything from times they stood up for themselves (advocating for your medical needs, +1,000 aura points) to hilariously chaotic moments (accidentally emailing your boss about Justin Bieber’s hair, -10,000 aura points) and moments of real vulnerability (practicing self-care after heartbreak, +10,000 aura points).
In other words, if you want to get in on the aura points craze, there’s no end to the directions you can go. We’ll keep it simple by sticking to the basics of tallying up your aura points on TikTok, starting first with addressing the elephant in the room: How many aura points is it even possible to have?
How many aura points do you start with? Is there a cap?
If aura points are a numbers-based system for tracking your vibe, you’d think there’d be some actual math behind it, right?
