What was once limited to dressing cool, going places, and being the life of the party through material nuances is essentially what aura farming taught us, long before the label ‘aura’ was attached to it. Back then, we simply called it being charismatic. Sadly, now, aura farming has evolved far beyond Akshaye Khanna dancing to the viral ‘Dhurandhar’ song. The internet, as usual, is deeply confused between immaculate vibes and actual aura. Because cut to 2026, the new 2016, allegedly an analogue year, and suddenly, being in bed by 10 pm is what your “real aura” is supposed to be.
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Being In Bed By 10 and Running is What I actually Wanted
I took it as a joke until I opened my Explore feed one Sunday afternoon, and suddenly, everyone was running along the promenade by the coastal road. Here is where I could ramble, like every other person on Instagram, about how everybody is suddenly obsessed with running and playing padel. But somewhere between the matching athleisure sets and aggressively wholesome reels, I realised I actually wanted to be running with them too, not just out of FOMO, but because for once, I do not want to be staying up late and dragging myself to work the next morning. I want to show up to work sounding like Shah Rukh Khan in Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani and yell “I am the best” at the top of my lungs. And that is not magically going to happen if I am doomscrolling at midnight, which is when it hit me. The real aura-farming currency is not owning that Dolce & Gabbana skirt and wearing it out on a weekday. It is being in bed by 10 pm and getting my eight hours of beauty sleep.
The awakening came suddenly one fine day, though the realisation had been etched in my mind for a while. In 2026, my job is that of a cool girl from an old movie—pursuing a career in communication as a columnist, and I love every bit of it (most days). But I don’t want to show up to work feeling half-asleep until lunchtime. As much as I hate admitting it, that haze makes even my cool-girl job feel a little less interesting.
Aura Points for Bedtime
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I was sleeping on the idea of being in bed by 10 that my dad romanticised, and now I know it was for all the right reasons. Everyone looked glowy until I realised they were just well rested and not doomscrolling at night. Sleepless nights were sold to us through all-nighter house parties and club hopping on TV soaps, which raised an entire generation of night owls. But slowly, the once cool “all-nighter” has become irrelevant, and I would gladly rather be in bed at a decent hour than look like an actual owl the next morning.
So yes, if this article somehow reaches an Indian parent, consider this my official letter of acceptance. You were right when you sent me to bed by 9:30 in school and confiscated my phone so I would not stay up watching YouTube all night. Because now that I see it, the real currency and aura points were always in the age-old wisdom of “early to bed, early to rise”, not in flexing all-night party ragers.
Turns out the original influencers were our parents, and their content aged better than ours.
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