The world celebrated a new beginning on Jan. 1, 2021, when billions of souls shared desires to start anew after living precariously on one long trip around the sun. 2020 was full of repetitive media coverage about coronavirus, political divides and environmental tragedy. Certainly a new year will not cease coronavirus’ existence, so an increasing number of people are using a subjective ideology to approach 2021: astrology. 

According to Dictionary.com, a horoscope is “a diagram of the heavens, showing the relative position of planets and the signs of the zodiac, for use in calculating births, foretelling events in a person’s life, etc.” and said diagram will predict “future events or advice for future behavior.” It is no lie that astrology has furthered scientific studies in space, but celestial placement is a rather flawed concept that can validate predictions about the future. Nonetheless, horoscopes are becoming more popular in 2021, especially among today’s generation. 

People who are part of Generation Z are at crucial periods of adulthood, which comes with the expectation to be self-sufficient. However, young adults tend to act overly-independent and forget that guidance is necessary to flourish. Whether it is pride or pressure that drives this maturity, asking someone for advice is stigmatized as a sign of weakness. Consequently, help comes from their next best friend: the internet. With such extensive outlets of information, researching how to do well in an interview can easily direct one to a page about how their horoscope predicts the interview will be successful. Naturally, young adults are naive, so their young judgment may lead them to believe horoscopes provide accurate predictions. As a result horoscopes are used constantly, which the media has exploited by creating other horoscope-related compositions with pop-culture topics that attract today’s generations.

In the last year, additional free time has given people the opportunity to enjoy music and television that celebrates icons of the era. When A-list celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Lady Gaga advertised that they rely on astrological ideology, our generation found that getting a virtual horoscope reading would not only be a fun pastime, but also be trendy. Lady Gaga plans tour dates around her horoscope in order to avoid poor performing and Angelina Jolie prefers that her films release on days that work in favor of her astrological prediction. Perhaps Gen Zers will not be as extreme as planning every aspect of their lives around a horoscope, but after 2020, utilizing a horoscope to ensure a better new year would certainly not be the craziest thing to consider. 

Widely popular media platforms include a multitude of informative news and lifestyle entertainment, but certainly more of the latter because in general, adolescent users—who happen to be the majority—prefer being enlightened by pop culture. Beside celebrity praise over horoscopes, pandemic-induced quarantining grants people the time to explore their daily horoscope readings all over social media. BuzzFeed devotes an entire category of quizzes to horoscopes and zodiac signs, some of which entitled “Which New Ariana Grande Song Are You Based On Your Astrological Chart” and “Everyone Matches a ‘Bridgerton’ Character Based On Their Star Sign— Who Are You?” Similarly, TikTok’s For You page features videos in which astrological believers claim that they know what aesthetic best fits a person based on their zodiac sign. Furthermore, Instagram is quite arguably one of the most popular social media applications across the world, so when popular accounts like @glossy_zodiac post pop-culture photos that correlate to specific zodiac signs, this generation will certainly appeal to such images. Interacting via likes, comments or shares allows such social media to formulate what topics a viewer likes, perpetuating its popularity.

Young adults fall into horoscopic ideology because it makes claims that are exciting and optimistic. While ideas that promote both hopeful and engaging content accurately are far-fetched, popular influences like celebrities and social media have set off a chain reaction that will not go away easily. Whether horoscopes are correct or clickbait, horoscopes are growing more popular as they put a positive outlook on the new year.