This year’s Collins Dictionary list of notable words reveals a society deeply preoccupied with performance and perception. Two of the most striking entries, “aura farming” and “taskmasking,” describe the curated presentation of self in our social and professional lives.
“Aura farming,” which exploded in popularity after the viral “boat kid” video, is the art of deliberately cultivating a cool, charismatic persona. It implies that “aura” is not something one has, but something one can actively “farm” or manufacture for an audience, perfectly capturing the performative nature of social media.
This theme of performance carries directly into the workplace with “taskmasking.” This term describes the act of giving a false impression of productivity. In an age of remote work and digital monitoring, “taskmasking” is the professional equivalent of “aura farming”—it’s not about being productive, but about projecting the image of productivity.
These words, identified by lexicographers from the 24-billion-word Collins Corpus, show our language evolving to critique this new “authenticity crisis.” We now have precise vocabulary for the gap between a curated persona and the real person behind it.
This theme of fakeness is even echoed in “glaze,” another word on the list, which means to give excessive or undeserved praise. Together, these terms paint a picture of a 2025 culture where seeming cool, seeming busy, and seeming impressed are all part of a daily, exhausting performance.