The internet’s latest favorite main character has arrived in the form of a hippie who enjoys, amongst other things, “chilling in the mountains of Peru” while “drinking Ayahuasca with the shamans,” “learning shit from the Aliens” and astral projecting. Oh, and singing. It’s important to emphasize that she’s communicating all of this to us through the power of incredibly mid songs.


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Her name is Shanin Blake, and yes, she’s a white woman with dreadlocks. Most of her videos appear to be recorded in a van, and her look really is something to behold. One TikTok commenter asked, “Are you wearing everything you own?” after seeing the sheer amount of jewelry resting on her chest, and it’s a fair question.


In her latest song, creatively titled “Peru Song,” Blake sings about what she’s learned from the aliens, which includes “how we’re all connected to the pyramids” and how humans used to employ said pyramids for time traveling. Sure, sounds good, whatever.  


She also sings about healing both her inner self and also, more amazingly, a kidney infection, which I’m sure doctors would love to hear more about.


She’s attracted a lot of ridicule owing to the fact that she seems like a caricature, but she’s attracted a lot of genuine criticism too, primarily as a result of her reference to aliens and the pyramids. The idea that Ancient Egyptians could not have possibly built the pyramids is an old, but incredibly persistent, conspiracy theory born from the idea that they were too unsophisticated to manage such impressive architectural feats. I have to say that people using the pyramids for time traveling is an aspect of the conspiracy that I haven’t heard before. How does it work? Does the tip of the pyramid function as an antenna that connects with the moon and somehow enables time travel? Please give me more info, Shanin, so that I too may time travel. My first stop will be Ancient Egypt so I can watch people build the pyramids in real time.



Blake has been compared to artists like Chance the Rapper, Noname and Erykah Badu, with the obvious difference being that they’re talented and she’s not. Her viral fame comes on the heels of TikTok users spending weeks making fun of a young hippie in Poland who posts videos from her incredibly large house; while some found this contrast confusing, others were quick to argue that the original hippies were little more than bored trust fund kids themselves.



Whether everyone involved in the hippie countercultural movements of the 1960s and 1970s were secretly rich kids or not, it’s evident that the lifestyle is continuing to attract a certain kind of middle-class white person, even today. It’s a shame that none of them appear to have the musical talents of their ‘60s forebears, though.