Before, he was wondering about the zodiac sign, holding the Superpop horoscope page with the week’s predictions. Now it goes deeper: Moon, Sun or Ascendant are taken into account. Mercury retrograde is being discussed on social networks and more precise applications for mobile phones appear to be appearing. “I never believed in astrology or any of that shit. But The Pattern lets me realize how much it affects things about my personality and situations. I love it because it helps me analyze myself and understand myself better. I don’t know why,” summed up a user on Twitter.
All you have to do is enter the place, date and time of birth, and The Pattern application promises, according to its website, to provide “detailed information” about the character or life situation of the person who downloads it. It is more complete than its analogues (CoStar, for example, only reveals a short sentence per day) and offers long texts, determined by peculiarities such as cycles. You can even connect to another profile and analyze compatibility. The tentative launch took place in 2017 at the suggestion of actress and youtuber Lisa Donovan. In 2021, the app already had more than 15 million anonymous and famous users, like writer and actress Issa Rae.
More information
The boom goes beyond omens and spirituality. According to the specialists surveyed by ICON, this is due to the desire for self-knowledge, but also to the fashions of platforms such as TikTok. It was on this social network that the astrologer Charas Vega (Ibiza, 27 years old), better known as Charcastrology, found The Pattern’s recommendations. His grandmother had already told him about these beliefs, but on the social network Tumblr he started investigating for fun. Those hours were like a game that laid the groundwork for the memes he started making in 2020, a week before the pandemic. “Which Pedro Pascal character are you according to your zodiac sign?”, “Which bad bunny song are you?” or “Which politician from Spain are you?” are some of his creations.
The sign of Libra as depicted in 12th-century mural paintings found in the Church of Ourjout at Les Bordes-sur-Lez in southern France.
“I talk about series, current affairs, pop culture… I work as things happen,” he tells ICON over the phone. “I base myself on the predominant characteristics of the signs and then let my thoughts fly, although I always try to justify everything. They are very well received, 84,000 followers are not reached overnight.” The idea came to him unexpectedly and he has stuck to the formula ever since. “I just tweaked the aesthetic a bit before using PowerPoint and now Photoahop,” says the author of The stars have told me (Editions B), who categorizes her followers’ profile as females aged 18-30. It seemed to Vega that The Pattern proposed a “very entertaining” way of getting a first taste of the world of constellations without having to be very exhaustive. “To capture well, well, well, I would say no. It’s something more complex. But the job of these apps is to entertain, so I think they do their job well,” he says.
Read the horoscope to understand yourself
These applications respond to identity concerns, as psychologist and astrologer Gabriel Casanova explains to ICON: “I think that in societies that have so little ability to focus on relationships, the need to connect is making us more and more to try to find tools that can do this. May these connections run deep.” The 36-year-old from Buenos Aires has specialized in these two professional fields because, in his view, they pursue a common goal: finding meaning in life. “They can be valuable tools for those seeking a better understanding of themselves and their place in the world,” he muses, “and can complement each other for a broader exploration of the human experience.”
Both he and Laura Sakina, also an astrologer and psychologist, mention the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of the school of analytical psychology, because he was also interested in science and the study of the stars as compatible realities. For Sakina, a 42-year-old from Madrid, the desire to explore this knowledge stems from a “very strong paradigm shift”. Technology advances, people connect, artificial intelligence creates images that seem real and writes beautiful poetry, but humans are still anchored with the same questions. “At the end of the day, you can’t control life,” he says. Astrology helps him, he says, to draw a map. “But it’s there to get out of it, you have to transcend it.”
Diego Pablo Simeone, Atlético de Madrid coach and keen follower of the horoscope, which he himself admitted uses to manage the squad and choose which players to sign. JAVIER SORIANO (AFP)
The dark side
According to Sakina, there is nothing wrong with astrology as long as you don’t become radicalized. For example, Mercury retrograde, which represents what life in hell is like in the minds of those who follow these beliefs, can be a beautiful phase. “This means that internal communication works better than external. Astrology is complex. It helps her, she assures, to be better with people. “In an astral chart you see limitations, fears, where it shines or how someone communicates.”
“We can learn from ourselves, look in the mirror, examine ourselves, set boundaries… It depends on what we’re doing,” he defends. In his opinion, what Kaylee Dugan writes on the website of Brightest Young Things, a marketing and production agency for events and online magazines, is more dangerous. Captioned “astrology apps are ruining my life,” she admitted she added her boyfriend to The Pattern while on a family vacation and that the app gave him unexpected advice. “A partner in destiny could come into your life in a surprising way,” the app says. A few days later it was her turn. “You tend to stay in a relationship even if it’s not fulfilling,” he hinted. More messages arrived on the same line, recommending that they end their relationship.
Astrologers are opposed to such dogmatic interpretations. It happens to Aleix Mercadé, a 39-year-old Barcelona graduate in philosophy, professor at the Comsograma school of astrology and about to complete another degree in psychology. “I find the application [The Pattern] the limitation of inferring how someone is according to a particular theory. We must verify this knowledge and open them to gather more information. The Pattern’s analyzes are multifactorial, but they lack push.” Its other downside is the ambiguous, general, or abstract language it uses. “It makes the Forer effect more likely,” he says, referring to the name, given to the psychological phenomenon that causes people to perceive vague as very accurate data about themselves.”You think that what you read in the application is milk and you end up excited. It’s the daily bread in every discipline that generalities are abused.”
Why does Mercadé think the application is successful? “Because we don’t know anything. Where am I, who am I, what am I good for? It gives you options in the face of that stress. It’s like having a GPS in a reality that is a hyper-complex map.” Also for something less sublime, for sheer narcissism. “That’s the most aggressive part,” he tells ICON. The pattern gives the opportunity to talk about yourself, to think about yourself, to be the protagonist. “It satisfies the need for spirituality in a secular world that is aseptic about religion. It’s a cool proposition that connects you to the cosmos, with existential questions.” To finally become someone special.
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