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There were many journalists that really were quite balanced, taking up the technical and scientific issues in hundreds of articles and stories that covered unsexy topics like precession and the historical origin of the zodiac. Still, the swift debunking came as a relief.įirst, the positives. We “rational” astrology followers can’t be bothered with the details it’s not like we really believe in this stuff, except for when we do, and at any rate, it’s Greek to us. They say it’s irrelevant, because Westerners follow the “tropical zodiac,” as opposed to the “sidereal zodiac,” and something about the constellations and the vernal equinox. Joanna Weiss from The Boston Globe agreed, basically inferring that people were too lazy to understand the debate and relieved to discover that nothing had changed:Īstrologers are fighting back with counter-PR, saying they knew about this moon-pulling business all along. No one was bemoaning decisions based on a daily reading that now seemed less valid. Their reactions didn’t focus on astrology as a way to navigate through life. They don’t want the cosmos to yank their self-concept out from under them.
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But clearly people are very attached to their sun sign-they consider it a part of their identity, like their hometown, their fan allegiance or even their ethnic background. I had thought astrology was a relic of my own youth, like lava lamps and mood rings, and not something people paid much heed in this post-Aquarian age. The outpouring of angst surprised me, although I wasn’t happy about what I considered a demotion, from airy Gemini to plodding Taurus.
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Sara Pagones from the New Orleans Times-Picayune registered her surprise at the level of outpouring, although she was a little disheartened that few people were concerned about their actual horoscope and rather, were intent on holding onto to this closely-held part of their identity: There was an enormous amount of humor but also anger and angst that permeated social media I particularly like the complaints of Outback Zack, Georgia, and Miss Dills, all of whom refused to give up their sign, and then there is the irate, young woman on Ally Dreams Tea who calls the whole issue a conspiracy theory drummed up to help astrologers make money.Īll these strong emotions and opinions stem from the fact that most people feel closely identified with their zodiac sign. The predominant storyline, most prominently told in blog comments and youtube videos, was: “I’m having an astrological identity crisis.” And journalists were there to cover that story. It turns out that most journalists, rightly so, took their cues from everyday folks. Did they help raise the profile of astrology and astrologers? Or, did the coverage end up detracting from astrology? What I want to explore in this post is how well journalists and astrologers explained the significance of the issue. Yes, the constellations have changed and Ophiuchus is a constellation that the sun passes through but, in short, nothing about astrology and the zodiac had changed. According to these folks, people’s signs had not changed, and Ophiuchus was not a new sign. Astrologers and journalists reported back that they knew this all along. The implication was that the astrological sign you were born under may not be the sign you’ve always been told it was. Additionally, they reported the story that there now are 13 astrological signs, not 12. To summarize: In early 2011, a handful of new outlets reported that the constellations had shifted from when the zodiac was first derived 3,000 years ago and so everyone’s sign was “off” by about a month.