Matua Kahurangi
Just a bloke sharing thoughts on New Zealand and the world beyond. No fluff, just honest takes.
There’s something weird happening in New Zealand right now and it’s time someone said it out loud – we’re seeing a rise in Pākehā who are trying to “become” Māori. Not through whakapapa or community, but through aesthetic shortcuts. Slapping on a moko kauae or a bit of ta moko on the forearm and announcing to the world that they’ve ‘come home’. It’s cringe AF cosplay.
Some non-Māori have decided they want the Māori identity. Not by whakapapa and not by cultural immersion over decades, just by vibes. They expect the rest of us to clap.
This is transracial identity politics and it’s just as unconvincing as the rest of the ‘I identify as…’ nonsense dominating culture right now. Just like a man can throw on a dress and demand to be called a woman, some of these Pākehā think that by mimicking Māori style and phrases, they’ve somehow crossed an invisible line into Māoridom.
You’re still Pākehā, sister. You were Pākehā yesterday, you’ll be Pākehā tomorrow. Getting a moko kauae doesn’t rewrite your whakapapa. It just makes you look like a cultural tourist with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. If you think that getting a moko kauae is going to help you get special benefits, well… maybe it will when applying for a job at the Green Party.
Some of them are getting famous on TikTok for it, though most of the comments are people taking the piss. Take @Aunty_Dahns for example. No Māori accent, no reo, no roots, but there she is flaunting a moko kauae and peddling spiritual soundbites to white audiences who wouldn’t know a marae from a motorway. She’s whiter than what’s in Clarke Gayford’s little zip-lock baggie.
It’s bloody embarrassing.
I’ve said it before – the moko kauae has been reduced to a virtue-signalling barcode. Now it’s just a permanent TikTok filter. The whole thing is equal parts hilarious and cringe.
This article was originally published on the author’s Substack.
