STARS IN THEIR EYES

Content creators say that zodiac signs and horoscopes offer Gen Z a sense of agency’ in a chaotic world. Maybe, writes Helen Coffey, but astrology has definitely gotten out of hand

- Helen Coffey

"Valentine's Day houseplants by star sign: experts share their picks."

This email header isn’t the most unhinged one I’ve ever received, not by any stretch of the imagination. But it is perhaps the most timely. It plopped into my inbox just as I was mulling over whether or not the modern commitment to, and feverish belief in, astrology had gotten out of hand.

If an email sincerely advising which succulents you should be buying for your latest paramour based on the planetary movements at the time of their birth is anything to go by, the answer might just be a resounding “yes”.

I hate to sound like a curmudgeonly cynic, but I can’t help it. I’ve watched the slow creep from interest in star signs being the preserve of teenagers reading their weekly horoscope in Mizz magazine – always packed with vague-isms like, “on the 15th, stick to your guns: you know what’s right!” to guarantee accuracy – to being taken seriously by great swathes of Gen Z adults. It’s left me feeling confused, out of touch and old. So very, very old.

Of course, these days it goes far beyond platitudinous horoscopes. Contemporary devotees to a nebulous “spiritualism” based on the solar system don’t just know their star signs: they know their moon sign and their rising sign; they have birth chart readings in which the exact minute of their delivery from the womb has far-reaching implications for the rest of their lives; they know the 12 different full moons that happen annually and what they mean (the perpetual adolescent in me particularly enjoys November’s “beaver” moon). They know when Mercury is in retrograde and how to adapt, and when bigger shifts in planetary alignments indicate that we’re “entering a new era” worldwide.