White Girl Yoga

Shape without content. The degradation of philosophy into gymnastics and of spiritual depth and perennial wisdom into an aesthetic cliché.

White Girl Yoga is essentially an aesthetic that is often mistaken for spirituality. It is built around pretentiousness, cultural appropriation, neoliberal consumerism and the banalization and trivialization of the sacred, and generally expressed in a color palette of beige and pastels. It is an aesthetic that often lacks the complexity and depth of the systems of knowledge it superficially emulates, mostly for instagram likes from dudes with sacred geometry tattoos .

It can be applied to a variety of situations that while might seem meaningful and deep at first glance, are actually just nicely packaged spiritual cliches or platitudes and pseudo-psychological banalities. A White Girl Yoga aesthetic can range from the purely misguided and innocuous to the opportunistic and obscene.

“I am really not sure about that ayahuasca ceremony. The facilitator seems very White Girl Yoga to me.”

“Can we please change the music? That Spotify playlist is totally White Girl Yoga”

-“Hey, do you like my new top?

-"Wait I can’t tell whether you are asking me seriously or you’re wearing that White Girl Yoga stuff ironically”