Commercialising culture: why are you stealing our identity?

Controversial to say the least.

This post is a little different to my usual—you’ve probably guessed that from the heading. But I’ve felt very called to speak on this topic for a while now as I’ve been aware of certain trends forming as well as noticing how this topic keeps coming up in any social situation I’m in, whether that’s with friends or random people I’ve just met. Personally, when I feel like a certain topic keeps cropping up, it’s usually a sign for me to write about it and speak on it.

I was in two minds about posting this because it’s usually a thought I keep to myself and I tend to live by, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all’—not realistic in all cases but the point is, I don’t like being disrespectful or rude and I don’t have a tolerance for it (I’m also a firm believer in Karma). But I suppose this isn’t me being rude, rather a valid observation.

So going back to the title, recently I’ve been scrolling through Instagram, watching YouTube videos, reading online articles, Substack articles and discovering other subscribers or ‘Substackers’ profiles. To preface: I’ve always been chronically online (thanks to heavy air energy in my chart) so I tend to feel a shift, trend, or pattern forming before it’s fully realised.

There’s a couple of things that have become insufferable for me lately.

1) For some reason, I’ve started to notice an uptick in how many ‘spiritual’ white women are renaming themselves with Indian names—at least from what I’ve seen it’s mostly Indian, but it could also be other cultures, I’m just not aware. Before you come for me, I’m not targeting the White race as a whole in this article, this is more nuanced. And before you say, some Indian people have White/non-Indian names, yes I’m aware of that too (although usually it’s because they’ve grown up in the West and/or their parents experienced bullying or racism and didn’t want their children to live through the same bullshit). But I’m not talking about the Indian equivalent of a common name like ‘John’ or ‘Sarah’. I’m referring to specific Indian words which have important spiritual meaning behind them.

Words, not names, such as ‘Ardas’ or ‘Guru’. You’re already familiar with the word Guru, but do you know the significance behind the purpose of Ardas? That was the trigger for this article by the way—I literally saw a profile named ‘Ardas ___’ and was excitedly intrigued to learn more, only to be surprised (and unsurprised) by the fact that it was a white woman, non-religious from what I could tell, discussing cultural & spiritual practices. There’s a couple of things that irk me about this: 1) you’re speaking on spiritual practices for the sake of profit: no real awareness or acknowledgment back to the culture or religion you’re taking from. 2) Just because you taught yoga does not mean you’ve magically become Indian. For the record, I actually don’t mind her page (I mean it’s a pretty generic wellness page with images of matcha and Aesop) I just don’t understand why she feels the need to use Indian words to make herself seem more spiritual?

And it’s not just her, as I said, I’ve noticed so many more people do this to portray an image that they are spiritually wise. This is really what I have a problem with, not people deciding to change their name—that happens all the time—it’s the construction of a persona that I take issue with.

How much do you actually know about the culture to be naming yourself after it? How much have you experienced within that culture (outside of yoga and chai)? Labeling yourself a spiritual-sounding name does not automatically make you more spiritually aware or knowledgeable. Have you considered that naming yourself some vague, non-sensical, Indian spiritual name drowns out other POC voices who are actually of the culture? It goes back to what I outlined in my introduction article—

”My goal is to reclaim the narrative surrounding spiritual and ancient wellness practices, rooting this back to deep cultural connections and lived wisdom. Promoting inclusivity and appreciation for the roots of wellness trends is important. As a POC-founded brand, I aim to shed light on the depth and significance of spirituality and cultural practices.”

*Not all people*—I’ve considered that it’s not all people, and there are definitely those who are genuinely interested in the culture or particular religion of which their new identity originates, but still, my question I guess is, why? Maybe for the rare few who really give up their lives and devote themselves to another religion as a sign of respect for it, okay I understand that, and that is a real identity shift so it’s fitting one would feel called to change their name. But the types of people I’m referring to are the ones who are talking about the same surface-level wellness and spirituality discourse as everyone else (sans spiritually vague name). The ones with the convenient membership packages for ‘guidance’ which really turns out to be meditation chants and prayers from YouTube. I suppose this market is getting so saturated that now these people have to change their name to stand out and present themselves as the true ‘gurus’ of spirituality!

I felt called to speak on this and share my thoughts because it’s something I’m observing which ultimately feels like a scam. I’m not saying that non-ethnic people can’t be spiritual or speak on spiritual wellness, my point rather, is that there are specific types of people, or online personas, who are profiting off of & commercialising the culture whilst charging you triple the amount to buy into their ‘spiritual wisdom’…selling the culture back to you essentially.

At the end of the day, this article isn’t going to change this from happening, and I’m not expecting it to. It’s more of an observation piece if anything. As deeply spiritual as I am (and hence believe that people should live freely/be free to make their own choices as long as they can live with the karmic consequence), I do believe it’s also important to respect culture and roots by acknowledging origins—much of our spiritual learnings are found in the roots of ancient cultures, traditions, religions and communities.

With Pluto in Aquarius, we’ll not only see a lot of security issues online, i.e. hacking, large networks failing, but also an increase in scamming. Remember, Aquarius sits opposite Leo—the showman, the performer, the celebrity.

This has been heavy on my mind especially as we approach the Saturn/Neptune conjunction. This transit is a big one. There’s potential for not being able to see the truth clearly, or being deceived and disillusioned.

I’ve found myself recently having conversations with friends about spiritual scamming, fake ‘gurus’ and people jumping on the wellness trend. Which is my next point.

2) Everyone seems to be a ‘spiritual expert’ all of a sudden. This isn’t anything new, however, I feel like it’s become so much worse, so prolific lately, and I think that’s due to the Saturn/Neptune conjunction I was referring to.

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen influencers and podcasters online (who are in completely different fields outside of wellness and spirituality) start talking about affirmations, selling tickets to their manifestation event because they’ve now managed to gain a following and want to sell you their ‘magic formula to success’. Or people just jumping on the bandwagon because wellness has become such a big business.

I could probably write a whole article about this second point, and perhaps I will. But for today, I’ll leave you with this food for thought and hope it makes you think twice about who you’re following, who you’re allowing to let guide you and what makes you feel like they’re knowledgeable and genuine about what they’re preaching.