On the off chance that you pick up a newspaper today and flip through its entirety, I bet you wouldn’t realize you just read something completely made up. In fact most upstanding publications in this country have at least one fabricated piece on any given day. This paper does. It’s the horoscope.
Admit it, you check it every so often. Maybe at times you can see a vague connection between the prediction and your life, but every once in a while, you catch a horoscope written directly to you. One that is so freaky accurate it’s as if you received a sign from the heavens willing you onward toward your destiny, if you’re into that sort of thing.
The fact is, however deeply accurate you think your horoscope is, someone makes them all up. There are people that wake up to a nine-to-five job of writing little predictions that will remind people of random events in their lives. Some daily writers consult a natal or birth chart to aide in their research for horoscope writing. So pay attention in your late-night astrology classes, because if you do really well, you might be able to write horoscopes one day.
See the thing is, astrology is a different subject matter from other factual things you’d find in a publication; it is too subjective and intuitive to be verified. Horoscope readings are meant to come from spiritual guidance; not exactly the proven science that will get by a fact-checker.
For instance, in 2003 a dwarf planet bigger than Pluto was discovered. Since much of astrology is based on the location of the planets in relation with each other, one would think adding a 10th planet to the mix would shake up everything astrologists thought they knew about the subject. Then, as if that didn’t shatter the industry enough, someone found out that when ancient astrologers were doing the math to divide the year up amongst the twelve signs, they couldn’t mathematically calculate the “wobble” Earth makes as it circles the Sun, so about half of all birthdays fall into a different sign than any horoscope calendar would say. I didn’t see any kind of update from the astrology world after either of these cutting edge discoveries. There appears to be about as much science in a horoscope prediction as there is Wildcat support on campus. But do we care?
Not really. According to All Facebook statistics, the use of the Daily Horoscope application dropped from 2.35 million uses to just under 2.2 million over the last month.
Horoscopes are an irrational comfort. When you’re having a bad week, it’s nice to see it was the stars that intended for you to have a bad week.
So after you’re done here, go take a look at what a fine horoscope writer made up for you today. You know, the spot by the comics. Because when you think about it, horoscopes are reminiscent of a simpler time; how many hobbies could a college student and an ancient Grecian still agree on today? Horoscopes and toga parties.
Sarah is a Pisces. Send predictions to her at swhitmir@asu.edu
