My demographic – middle class, urban, Western Gen Zers – are the least likely of all generations to say they have a religion, according to a Policy Institute study in 2022 (though paradoxically they are also the most likely to say they believe in hell). So it is perhaps surprising that they are behind a huge resurgence in the quasi-mystical art of tarot reading.
“I’m addicted,” one friend told me when I confided I had just received some bad news. She whipped out a deck and threatened me with a live reading, which I only avoided by breaking into tears. “I’m looking for escapism and desperately searching for some markers to make sense of what I’m going through,” she said with wide, earnest eyes.
But most of my peers aren’t shuffling physical decks – rather they are getting their fortune-reading fix on their phones. Instagram reels and Tiktok serve up neatly edited little videos of cards being ominously flipped while a mysterious voice says things like: “You’re being asked not to worry” or “You are not seeing clearly”.
Instagram reels and Tiktok serve up neatly edited little videos of cards being ominously flipped while a mysterious voice says things like: “You’re being asked not to worry”
This may seem like a heretical use of this ancient, occult art, but don’t judge so soon: while you may assume tarot’s roots lie with the Roma, or in ancient China, it in fact originated in 15th century Milan. For hundreds of years, tarot packs were just a European trick-collecting card game – think knock-out whist – of which variations included the gruffer sounding Austrian Konigsrufen and German Grosstarock.
Having been played for centuries by coffee cradling Europeans, tarot cards were only given paranormal meaning by 18th-century French occultists, who made grandiose claims about their significance and history. According to Ronald Decker, author of A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot, this repurposing constitutes “the most successful propaganda campaign ever launched… An entire false history and false interpretation of the tarot pack was concocted by the occultists and it is all but universally believed.”
In that light, perhaps reinterpreting tarot once more, for the permanently-online generation, isn’t that much of a stretch. But… why? Well, many of these divi-scrollers are in their twenties and thirties, not yet tied down with a family or their own home. Life is more uncertain for more people for longer. Having largely ditched religion, it’s not all that surprising they seek solace elsewhere.
I’m fascinated by the way these readings appear to subvert the core of tarot’s supposed power: the personal connection between divinator and divinee. Isn’t a random tarot reading by its very nature redundant? The consensus among those who partake seems to be that the algorithm is in on the act, that the videos which find their way onto your feed are the ones you were supposed to see (a cynic might suggest that those who produce the videos tailor them as such; the algorithm then works its magic to ensure they land with the right people).
“Obviously if you’re someone who believes that nothing is a coincidence and it’s all down to something predestined then you’re not necessarily going to see this as an algorithm recommending you content,” digital journalist Sophia Smith Galer tells me. “[Instead] you’re going to start thinking it was always meant to land on your page – and the themes and ideas that are presented to you get reinforced by each other.”
Gabriela Serpa, cultural strategist at Canvas8, agrees: “We’re going through a cultural shift, moving towards a place where people are trusting the algorithm to know them better than they know themselves, so why not trust it to know your future better than you do? AI has mystified technology more than ever; not even the creators know everything about how it works, so people are now unconsciously more open to seeing technology as this big all-knowing entity.
What advice will the algorithm have for me? “Seek opportunity to leave and doors will open up for you”
“Gen Z’s move towards astrology more generally speaks to a desire for control in a world that feels like it’s spinning off its axis. It’s not about blind devotion to tech as much as it’s about a need to believe in any signals of a brighter future.”
Personally, I don’t use Instagram much. I am not particularly interested in my star sign and I have never had an urge to see a fortune teller. Still, I decided to give it a go. What advice will the algorithm have for me? “Seek opportunity to leave and doors will open up for you,” the Eastern European sounding Red Fairy’s Instagram video says (her bio tells me she is a Tarot Reader and Pagan Witch). “You have a new path that involves travelling that will make you feel like you are on top of the world. You are meant to achieve big things in life and you have a beautiful destiny. You may be or have been in an environment that hindered your growth and success.”
Well, reader. I do in fact plan to go travelling and par hasard, I would like to believe that I am meant to achieve Big Things in life. Perhaps I’ve got these cards all wrong.