“Turn your wet dream into a wet reality” reads a recent Co—star Instagram post. It’s Pisces season, how could you forget?”
According to a Harris poll in 2009, 26% of Americans believe in astrology, although it’s unclear what “believe” means — it spans the range from casually checking your horoscope daily, to basing life decisions on astrology.
Over a decade later, Co—star has amassed 1.3 million followers on Instagram, with solely black and white “tag yourself” type posts with “Taurus bingo” and catchphrases for each of the signs. Not only are users constantly tagging each other in these posts, but people frequently post screenshots of Co—star’s often scathing “Your day at a glance” notifications on their own stories (mine today said “Try not to think yourself into a hole”).
But, given my very unscientific survey of my friends on whether they actually believe in astrology (all definite no’s), why is it still so popular?
I would venture that astrological signs allow people to quickly group themselves or others in a non-racist, non-classist, non-ageist, non-whatever way. Everyone has a birthday, therefore everyone has a sign (as every bouncer knows to check). There’s nothing discriminatory or elitist about a birthday, and it’s essentially a random date — we’ve just assigned meaning through astrology, zodiacs, and a number of other cultural beliefs.
Astrology is something anyone can participate in, regardless of language, age, education, or interests. There’s something about seeing a post that seems to accurately describe yourself or someone you know, and if it’s way off the mark, then you get to claim you’re “not like the other Cancers.” Even saying you don’t believe in astrology is a way of participating in the overall conversation regarding astrology.
As humans have an innate desire to identify groups and assign common attributes to these groups, astrology became the perfect way to do so, without any severe negative ramifications or connotations. And Co—Star simply came along and created a visually appealing and somewhat snarky way to share astrology with friends. Also, everyone loves an “It’s __ season” Instagram caption.
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