Why I stopped watching tarot card readers on TikTok

Unfortunately, like many others, I too succumbed to downloading TikTok about a year ago and now, I’m totally obsessed. I was a strong Vine veteran back in the day too, and I dedicated countless hours to scrolling through the silly six-second videos on my feed from my favourite Viners just to get that little spark of serotonin in my angst-ridden teenage years. When Vine died, I was devastated. We’ll never get it back, and it died doing what it loved - making people happy.

TikTok is a revolutionary app that has completely changed the audiovisual social media game. With even one of the biggest social media apps, Instagram, trying their absolute hardest to incorporate-but-not-really-incorporate TikTok into their feeds with reels, you couldn’t help but finally download TikTok to see what all the fuss was about. It is incredibly clever. As I allowed the app to completely violate my personal data and formulate an individual feed, showing me exactly what I liked to hear and watch, I found that there were a few topics that would regularly be circulated: rap music, stupid videos, makeup tutorials, outfit looks, relationship advice and of course, tarot card readings.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love astrology. I grew up believing in it as it plays a heavy influence within Hinduism, the religion that I was raised on. Although I decided to label myself as an atheist in my pre-teens, the idea of astrology stuck with me and I became fascinated with the signs, compatibility and traits and how they all relate to the planets and the universe, circling all the way back to me. It enabled me to understand myself more and why I act the way I do.

I followed Vedic astrology too which is the South Asian version (also more accurate but makes me a Sagittarius instead of a Capricorn because the dates in their calendar are different). Astrology in the Western World, though, has boomed in the last couple of years and absolutely everybody seems to be wanting to find out their sun, moon and rising sign. Men are beginning to dread hearing the line, "What time were you born?" so that us girls can try and suss out their personality traits.

There is some controversy about whether TikTok can be classed as an "educational" app. Sure, it does teach things in many ways, but it also houses a plethora of misinformation from people who really have no idea what they’re talking about.

More and more tarot card readers were popping up on my feed and I would watch them all the way through, and I would most definitely "Come back for part 2". But after some time, I started to notice how every single video was basically telling me the same thing over and over again but from different people.

All of a sudden, my TikTok feed was full of astrologists and tarot card readers from all over the world telling me that I would be finding love or receiving money but… I’m still single and the only money I'm receiving is my paycheck at the end of the month. Someone was always "thinking about how they did me wrong" or "wants to approach me but doesn’t know how to". A "masculine energy" was always "giving me mixed signals because, in reality, they were crushing on me hard". And I, like an idiot, fell for it.

Due to my curiosity, I would always listen to these videos, but that told my algorithm that this was something I was interested in and wanted to see. But at the same time, it finally clicked in my head that every single video was obviously telling me the things I wanted to hear. Who wouldn’t want to hear that they’re going to receive a load of unexpected money, or that their ex is secretly thinking about how they did them wrong and wants to approach them to apologise or worse, get back together? Or that they're going to get a big opportunity or see amazing changes in their life?

"Like and comment to claim!" says @tarotby- whoever as they knock on their huge shiny deck of cards and ask the spirits to send messages to their collection of TikTok followers, which is, by the way, 500k+ big. I noticed that I had never seen a negative tarot card reading on my For you page either and a lot of the time, they always said and commented to other followers, "take what resonates".

Take what resonates basically translates to "hear what you want to hear".

If you’re an astrology lover like me, then you’ll see where I’m coming from and if you’re not, then each to their own. But it's pretty ridiculous. And I can see why a lot of people think that the practice itself is ridiculous too for these specific reasons. When I began to filter out tarot card reading videos from my curated feed, I started seeing videos of real astrologers telling their followers to watch out for scam artists on the app.

Many of them were seeing accounts that were targeting individuals in DM’s saying things like, "I was called to your page and would like to offer you a reading" that they had to pay for. Other accounts were also saying that if someone really was truly drawn to you, they wouldn’t ask for a payment.

Some would ask their followers to interact with their videos to "claim" what was being said or most of the time just say random things that you wanted to hear when the cards meant nothing of the sort. I have a tarot deck myself, and I’m currently in the process of learning what all the cards mean and trust me, there have been a couple of videos where I’ve seen a card pulled out, and the reader is telling me something completely different to what that card is supposed to represent. It all made sense considering that this astrology boom would be a great opportunity to make money - simply by lying to people.

Tarot isn’t a way to read people’s minds or to tell the future. It instead, offers guidance on how to approach situations and gives you clarity when you are struggling. With these fake tarot readers clogging up the app, it’s actually pushing out the genuine readers and astrologers who do want to share their gift and help people out.

Nowadays, I completely ignore tarot card readings, and it’s been completely removed from my circulation of videos. And I’m glad. I don’t need a stranger trying to predict what my life has laid out for me when they’ve never met me or even know I exist. But also, it feels unhealthy to keep waiting for things such as a potential relationship or opportunity to come around, and I end up feeling disheartened when nothing happens. Shouldn’t a true and accurate reading happen right in front of you in real life? You know what they say…If it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.

On that note, maybe I will go ahead at some point and see if a real-life tarot reading can finally give me some clarity. Like, share and follow for part two!