So apparently I need to repeat this.

Please do not use the term “spirit animal”. The flippant use with which it’s been thrown around is a mockery and degradation of the sacredness that connection is suppose to represent, and has a lot of cultural significance to those of us who have it within our cultures.

Please do not use spirit animal. Please do not use spirit animal. I feel like the importance and sacredness of that aspect of my life has been made into a giant f’ing joke by people and that feels really shitty. It was one of my ways in which I could connect with my heritage, and like everything else it seems like people are so willing to just mock it by taking it and using it however they want. You want to mean “no disrespect”? Then stop using it and call other people out on it, because the use of it by non-indigenous people who don’t belong to those cultures is disrespectful. Full stop.