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(I posted this in last week's thread this morning having forgotten that today was Monday. Reposting in this week's thread.)
Nowadays, whenever I meet a woman or gay man who's millennial or younger, I'm counting the seconds until they ask me "so, what's your sign?" Among young Western women, belief in astrology seems to be right up there with an interest in true crime podcasts and Taylor Swift.
I have the impression that this is a fairly recent development, like in the last decade or so. When I was in secondary school I don't remember any of my female classmates expressing any interest in astrology, and I sort of remember the general opinion was that reading your horoscope in a tabloid was seen as a low-status spinster thing to do.
Three questions:
Has there actually been a recent resurgence in interest in astrology? Or is my gut feeling actually mistaken, and interest in astrology has actually been constant over the past twenty years?
If "yes" to the previous question, what are the underlying causes? If astrology underwent a resurgence in popularity over the last decade, why so? Is it a "god-shaped hole" effect (when people give up organised religion, they immediately start looking for something else to take its place)? I've heard that there was a lot of VC money floating around for astrology apps a few years ago, could that be behind it? Or is that an effect rather than a cause?
Why is it such a gendered phenomenon? I literally don't think I've ever been sincerely asked what my sign is by a straight man - 100% of people who've asked me have been female (or far more rarely, gay/bi men). Is this true everywhere, or am I in a bubble and it's a less gendered phenomenon in other regions? I wonder how it ties into a tendency among women that they seem to enjoy the act of classifying people into "types": a few years ago when I was single, something like half of the dating app profiles I saw had their Myers-Briggs listed somewhere.
As a data point, there's a giant astrology / witchy section of books very close to the register at my local Barnes and Noble (I live in a 65% Biden voting area in a purple metro in a purple state, for what that's worth... very Karen territory). So at the very least, there are marketers who believe that there is an audience there, and it's the trendy kind of audience that you try to extract money from to keep your ailing business afloat.
That entire store at this point gives off serious anti-straight-male vibes, because of the books they stock and foreground, really. Which I suspect is more a reflection on the current publishing industry and the audience that still goes into book stores like that to buy books than anything particular about B&N. But as someone who reads a huge amount and loves books and bookstores (but, well, libgen, so hey, I concede my role as part of the problem), it is seriously depressing to be there.
My local B&N is also in a ~65% Biden area, blueish-purple metro in a purple state, at a declining suburban mall with a majority-minority attendance and I tend to be a little surprised at how... normal it is? Like exceedingly well-balanced, here's the rack of Biden books and here's the rack of Trump books, here's the Christian section and here's the astrology section, etc. The staff pick notes lean more Internet Progressive or Karen-y, but less so than some of the libraries. Also the manga section keeps growing. I'm not surprised that American comics seem less popular than ever, but I am a little surprised at the manga growth.
The indie bookstores in the wildly more expensive and whiter neighborhoods, those are the ones that exude "you do not belong here."
If the staff are very woke, this doesn't surprise me. How can you be pro-trans without also being pro-anime?
Be a feminist who is convinced that anime objectifies and sexualizes women. Eg, see UN Women's regular attempts to crack down on anime and manga.
I don't see any conflict between the claims that anime objectifies women and that it's a major contributing factor to trans identification. I'm not aware of UN Women being a TERF/gender-critical organisation but I'm open to correction.
They are quite pro-trans and also quite anti-anime. Even if they acknowledge that anime is a major contributing factor to trans identification, they are still extremely hostile to it and regularly push governments to censor it.
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