cosmic scapegoats
how astrology became our favorite excuse, and why the sky deserves better
Jul 27, 2025
let’s clear this up: mercury didn’t make you text your ex (or vice versa).
mars isn’t the reason you’re always angry.
venus didn’t ghost your therapist.
and pluto isn’t the one who keeps “forgetting” to reply to emails.
that’s all you, babe.
but i get the appeal. astrology has become the catch-all explanation for modern life’s every hiccup. missed the deadline? blame the moon. cried at work again? must be a water sign thing. fell for someone emotionally unavailable? mercury is in gatorade or whatever.
it’s funny. until it’s not.
because somewhere along the way, astrology stopped being a symbolic framework or a fun party trick and became a full-blown emotional crutch.
i thought moving to miami would save me from it. i imagined some exotic promise of a more level-headed dating pool. sun-drenched people too busy rollerblading or sipping cafecito to care about my gemini sign. but no. astrology girls, astrology people, are everywhere. the apps, the brunch tables, the red flags disguised as birth chart “compatibility.” the cosmos followed me south.
✨ the stars aren’t in charge. you just don’t want to be.
modern astrology is soft and sparkly and suspiciously easy to digest. it gives you the illusion of depth without requiring any. it wraps dysfunction in symbolism, detachment in mysticism, and codependency in cosmic language.
it’s not self-awareness. it’s a horoscope (horrorscope) in a cute outfit.
i’ve watched people use their birth chart to explain every bad pattern they refuse to address or change. i’ve heard grown adults say things like, “i just attract chaos. it’s my saturn return.” no, you just have no boundaries and a high tolerance for red flags.
we’ve glamorized self-sabotage. turned avoidance into aesthetics.
it’s not “your scorpio rising.” it’s that you ghost people who like you, against your better judgment.
astrology lets you stay stuck and feel spiritual while doing it.
👩⚕️ your favorite cosmic content creator is not your therapist
let’s talk about the source.
the advice you’re getting? mostly written by influencers who learned astrology from other influencers who maybe watched a youtube video of someone who read a book, once. people with no clinical training, no psychological background, and often, no actual knowledge of astrology beyond vibes and canva templates (but you knew this already).
and somehow these same people are doling out life guidance, trauma wisdom, and breakup strategy through the lens of planetary transits.
would you let a barista diagnose your thyroid because she once read webmd? no? then maybe don’t take emotional advice from someone who monetizes your vulnerability through tiktok star signs and affiliate codes.
this isn’t spiritual guidance. it’s instagram therapy with worse ethics and a filter.
😰 commodifying your uneasiness
there’s something almost genius, if not sinister, about how well astrology exploits low-level dread. not grief, not trauma, not real crisis, but that steady hum of modern discomfort: the vague anxiety, the spiritual fomo, the sense that something’s a little off (and maybe it’s you!).
astrology doesn’t solve that. it packages it and then sells it back to you.
you’re told to “trust the timing of your life,” but the timing conveniently requires monthly check-ins, new-moon rituals, $88 crystal kits, and a subscription to another astrology app that promises peace... next month. maybe. after the next retrograde.
but peace? real, grounded peace? peace isn’t profitable.
stillness doesn’t sell. emotional regulation doesn’t need a content calendar.
if you actually felt okay, you’d stop buying.
if you had clarity, you’d close the app.
if you were truly healing, you’d unfollow half of these people telling you you’re not quite there yet.
and the industry can’t afford that.
so it keeps you in motion, just spiritual enough to keep scrolling, just confused enough to stay dependent. you’re not chasing insight. you’re chasing relief. and that relief is always one more astrological event away.
🤴🏻 astrology is sold to women but created by men who never cared about them
now for the historical plot twist no one wants to talk about.
astrology, in the form most people consume today, western, horoscopic, birth chart–based astrology, was developed by men. not wise feminine mystics or intuitive oracles. think babylonian priests, hellenistic scholars, roman emperors’ advisors, and later, european aristocrats trying to time their harvests and marriages with the stars.
these systems weren’t built to empower the soul. they were built to track the heavens for the benefit of kings and elites, using math, myths, and guesswork.
furthermore, the zodiac signs people cling to today don’t even match the current night sky anymore. you know this.
due to axial precession and bla bla earth’s slow wobble, the constellations have shifted over the last couple thousand years. the western-tropical zodiac calendar we use is frozen in time, based on how the sky looked in 100 bce or earlier. so when you say you’re a gemini, chances are the actual sun wasn’t anywhere near gemini when you were born.
you’ve been role-playing a fire sign from a zodiac system mapped out by ancient dudes who thought disease came from bad air and women were property. you’ve been larping as a leo in a world made by mid-millennia maga bros.
and now it’s being sold back to women, to queer people, to spiritual seekers as some empowering system of self-discovery. except now it comes with premium pricing, algorithmic dependency, and a whole lot of clever branding.
yes, the marketing leans femme. but don’t get it twisted. this is equal-opportunity seduction. people of every gender, race, color, and creed find themselves tangled in constellations that were never drawn for them.
because astrology, as it’s packaged today, is a spiritual bear trap lined with silk.
it flatters your intuition. it whispers that your pain is part of some divine pattern. it offers answers in the form of vague personality traits, healing through star charts, and cosmic meaning you can add to cart. like i said earlier, genius.
it feels personal, mystical, ancient.
but it was built by the powerful to serve the powerful.
and now it's being re-skinned and monetized for… everyone else.
it’s patriarchy in a new moon journal.
💰 the astrology economy thrives on your insecurity
let’s be honest: there’s a reason you’re still confused and slightly broken despite knowing your lilith placement. it’s because you’re supposed to be.
this whole charade of cosmic guidance works because it keeps you in a constant state of almost-healing. just self-aware enough to keep consuming, but never quite whole enough to walk away. the next retrograde. the next lunar eclipse. the next “collective energy shift.”
always just one more reading away from peace.
meanwhile, the people selling you healing are often the most emotionally unstable people online, and now they have ring lights.
🌃 so what’s the alternative?
i’m not saying burn your tarot deck (unless it tells you to).
i’m not saying you can’t love poetry, metaphors, or the moon.
but i am saying maybe it’s time we treat astrology the way we treated phlogiston.
remember that? maybe? come on! phlogiston!
phlogiston was a made-up substance people in the 17th and 18th centuries believed existed inside everything flammable. they thought fire happened because phlogiston was being released into the air. it was widely accepted. widely taught. widely trusted. there were textbooks.
and then came oxygen. and science said, “oh wait. this other thing makes way more sense.” so we moved on. we stopped writing books about phlogiston. we stopped building belief systems around it. we stopped taking it seriously because it never deserved that much attention in the first place. (i could’ve just used the copernican revolution as my example, but phlogiston really, i mean really, got abandoned fast, so i wanted to give it some 21st century airtime.)
but that’s what i’m suggesting we do with astrology.
let it go. put it down. let it become a footnote in the long history of things we outgrew, and stop using it as a crutch.
because if you really want something divine, mysterious, ancient, and deeply real, go outside tonight and look up. study astronomy. read about the life cycle of a star. learn how time bends near black holes. get obsessed with the fact that every atom in your body was forged inside a dying sun.
the truth is more poetic than any birth chart.
and the stars don’t need interpretation to leave you breathless.
ditch the zodiac. keep the wonder.
you don’t need astrology to feel connected.
you just need the night sky.
