Astrology resurged as political stress relief and meme-driven traffic content

Evidence

After a long lull in mainstream popularity, astrology found new relevance in the Trump years. “There’s something that’s happened in the last five years that’s given it an edginess, a relevance for this time and place, that it hasn’t had for a good 35 years,” one Los Angeles astrologer told The Atlantic in 2018. Platforms like BuzzFeed were early adopters, using astrology-based quizzes to drive traffic. Amanda Montell observed, “High-functioning adults in Los Angeles commonly call upon zodiac signs and retrograde star positions to excuse indiscretions from missed appointments to poor texting etiquette.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 603

Categorization

• CANDY: The Amanda Montell quote about Angelenos blaming missed appointments on retrograde is fun cocktail chatter.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno read astrology as an ideology serving dependent authoritarian personalities — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 593