The Fault Is In Your Stars, or how Gen Z became obsessed with astrology

Maria Łusakowska

You’ve probably heard somewhere that Cancers are sensitive, Tauruses stubborn and Pisces always have their heads in the clouds. You’ve maybe even heard that your zodiac sign is compatible with other signs of your element (for the newbies, there are four: earth, fire, water and air). If you were curious, you might have even checked your whole chart. If you’ve been paying attention, you might even know what a Mercury Retrograde is and that it affects your travel plans and temporarily creates a general chaos in your life. And chances are, you take all this astrological information with not a grain, but a handful of salt, turning a blind eye at all the coincidentally accurate descriptions of your personality according to your sign. Or, perhaps, you have no clue what I am talking about and in that case I will happily direct you to my favorite Instagram astrology gurus who very passionately and patiently explain what aspects and houses are, and how they affect your finances and love life.

It seems that astrology is experiencing its heyday, and that it is impossible to go online without some kind of astrology-based articles popping right where you wouldn’t expect them to. Vogue, Cosmopolitan, and other lifestyle magazines participate in this new culture by publishing articles like “What style should you choose based on your zodiac sign” or “Here’s a list of things that you shouldn’t do during this Capricorn season”.

The word astrology comes from Greek astron, which means “star”, and according to Astrology Zone, one of the biggest astrology websites, “Astrology is the ancient science of interpreting what influence the movements of the planets, stars and other heavenly bodies may have on our lives.” Contrary to popular belief, it is not a religion, but a study of life cycles, more precisely, planetary and star cycles. From ancient times, people observed the sky, the movement of the planets and the moon through the zodiac constellations, thereby creating elaborate mathematical systems that were to explain human affairs, the past and the future.

Though the original forms of astrology were created in 3000 B.C. by the Chaldeans of Babylon (now Iraq), some experts trace that date back even to 5800 B.C. Developed simultaneously on multiple continents, it gained the most ground in Central America, as well as on the other side of the globe, in China. Yet, modern astrology, developed by a Greek mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy around 180 A.D, became very popular in Europe in the Middle Ages.

However, by the end of the 17th century, new scientific theories undermined the theoretical basis of astrology. The new humanistic era of reason would reject anything non-empirical. In consequence, astrology lost its academic privilege and has been dubbed a pseudoscience several times ever since. Failing to deal with critical scientific studies, astrology has been lambasted repeatedly – for instance, by a philosopher of science Paul Thagard, who in 1978 claimed that even if astrology is supposed to be only a tool for introspection, problems in its logic arise because its practitioners declare that “astrology may not always give quantifiable results but it works nonetheless.”

Despite that, astrology never fully lost its appeal to society. For instance, we have seen a rise of its popularity during the pandemic, studies say. People in lockdown have learned to live with a high level of incertitude, which according to psychology leads to long-term stress. One thing that the human psyche cannot bear is instability and uncertainty. With religion well past its best days, there is a need to find a better explanation for life, a purpose, a reason – anything of a higher power that would allow us to escape the existential dread and leaping to the conclusion that breathing on the planet Earth as humanity is kind of pointless, and always has been. It is astrology then, that became a sort of a “secular theology”, and a very secure one, too, because it is supposed to function as an unperfected reflection of ourselves, so it can never be actually wrong.

I would also claim that this turn of interest among young people is rather egocentric, but it inscribes itself perfectly into the collective narcissism of social media. Some may reach for astrology to confirm beliefs that they have about themselves – it can be very soothing to validate that knowledge. It’s way cheaper than therapy, and doesn’t require you to change, it just declares: “you are like this because Neptune was in this particular place when you were born, and that’s who you are.” So don’t worry that you’re a little toxic towards your loved ones, that’s just what Scorpios do!

Of course, there are less and more harmful ways to use astrology. One of the most lighthearted forms that doesn’t treat itself too seriously, are the astrological meme accounts that use vines, videos, pictures of celebrities and popular memes to create astrological content. Its main platform is Instagram, known for notoriously perpetuating the culture of narcissism, and I would argue that with the astrology memes, we witness just another form of selfindulgence. In the past two years I have been bombarded every day with this type of content from my friends and Internet acquaintances, who usually post about their own zodiac sign, or send me a funny meme about mine. Because they are entertaining, I have followed quite a few of these accounts, and, after a couple of years of immersing myself into this world of Internet astrology, I can confidently say: I know nothing about all the other eleven signs except my own. I have been only seeking content that applies to me (not telling you what my sign is!), because this is how social media is built: it is meant to be a reflection of the perfect vision of you, not only in the content you post, but also in the one you consume.

Another form of astrological entertainment that you might have heard of are the astrology apps, such as The Pattern, Sanctuary, Nebula, and the infamous Co-Star: the most controversial one, since its creators admitted to have been trolling its own users and purposely sending uncomfortable, “dark humor” push notifications. All you have to do in all these apps is to type in your date, hour and place of birth, and voilà! Your chart is created. From there on, you can find evssential information about your identity, how you are perceived in the world, what struggles you might expect in your love life or in your career. You can find your friends and see if your planetary aspects are compatible (and if not, it’s clearly time to stop being friends). You will also receive daily notifications about the movement of the planets, and how they will affect your daily life. You might find out when is a good time to travel or switch careers or fall in love or get your nails done.

I won’t say that there is something inherently wrong with seeking pseudoscientific information to discover “who you really are”, like I would never condemn taking “What type of pizza are you?” Buzzfeed tests, despite how irrational they are. However, too many times I have seen people relying too much on what their daily horoscope app said. I have seen women cancel dates because of sign incompatibility with their potential date. I have seen people artificially change their perception of themselves to match their personality with what astrology said about it. I have heard friends starting talking trash about other friends because they just found out that someone “had a Taurus moon”. I cannot say I wasn’t guilty of this, and because of that I can state that this kind of astrological knowledge doesn’t make anyone a better person. It just makes us feel self-righteous and safe in our comfort zone, and, on top of that, just vain and reckless.

And, well, it might give a false sense of control – in a world on fire, an unstable, exploitative economic system seems to be unable to provide a secure future to Millennials and Gen Z. It is easier to blame vthe current position of Jupiter for our empty bank account, rather than admit the economy is collapsing and we are drowning in debt. Putting responsibility on Mercury in retrograde for the chaos in our life is safer than the realization of living in an unstable political system. Astrologers state that their pseudoscience does not predict the future because man has free will and – yes, I do have the free will to unfollow all the astrology accounts on Instagram and to delete all the astrology apps from my phone (I will shamelessly admit I had three). Without me even realizing it, astrology creeped into my everyday life, and became a tool for me to cope with reality, to understand my relationships, and explain my failures. And although it created a sense of online community and an easy topic for a small talk with my fellow Gen Zers, I had to admit that I came to rely on it way too heavily when making decisions.

A while ago, I had a semiprofessional astrologer to tell me if a crush of mine would develop into something more serious. Their advice was completely inadequate, and after a couple of months have passed, I realized how completely wrong they were, and how, even with my best intentions, there was no possibility of interpreting their prophecy as truthful. On an astrological detox, this awareness has brought a relief, and I’d rather accept the unpredictability of my life than make its paths depend on wishful interpretation of celestial bodies movements.