zodiac signs

[Quinn]

i want to know how many people on here believe in zodiac signs and things like that. i read horoscopes n stuff occasionally just for fun but i dont ~really~ believe in it. i used to look at zodiac memes and art too, a few years ago which was sometimes cool. my star sign is pisces.   

[starlitPrimrose]

i wouldn't say i *believe* in a lot of stuff that comes with zodiac signs and horoscopes and all that, but i do like looking at that stuff from time to time and laughing at how accurate--or inaccurate--they can be. sometimes i'll see zodiac sign memes or posts describing things, and i'll think of my friends who fall under those zodiac signs, and i'll laugh to myself "yeah! that fits [so and so] so well!" Other times i'll look at it like. yeah no that doesnt fit at all haha . given that--im a scorpio! theres a whole bunch of stuff online about what scorpios are like, and of what ive seen, only a small part of that actually applies to me, and i do mean a SMALL part. overall, i dont think its stuff that should be treated too seriously, just as something fun to look at and play with sometimes 

[Memory]

I do not believe in zodiac signs or anything adjacent, especially given that I'm a Leo and am the exact opposite of what they say a Leo is. but I see aesthetically pleasing imagery and stuff related to zodiac signs that I don't have a problem with. my mom used to be really into horoscopes when I was a kid.

[Gans]

Every zodiac represents a different character archetype.
Fortuneatly people are complex and a mix of those. Wouldn't it be boring, if we were just a fixed set of traits all the time?

I believe, there can be learned a lot through looking at zodiacs, but all the easy solutions like horoscopes dumb down our world too much. Like just looking up your birth month and be like: Yeah, I was born as a Fire type. Let's destroy something! Or I'm an Earth type, let's build a house and stay there forever.

Personally, the idea of the zodiacs helped me to understand and accept the differences between people. What works for you, might not won't work for the other one. Solutions look different.

Then the idea of balance... every zodiac sign has a counterpart. Some say, you deliberately should team up with people who have different traits than yourself. Then it will become quite a powerful team. Is it possible to overcome the differences? Accepting each other's faults? Who knows...

Then the idea of the ruling sign. Imagine the people of those archetypes form a comitee and build the world with their set of rules, adapted to their traits of course.
In reality, only one or two signs have won the battle of control. And they make the rules now.
If you worked with groups of children, you'll notice their vastly different characters right from the start. School has a difficult time to take all character traits into account and instead tell the individuals how to behave. I wish to all of you a certain freedom and that your spirit can find its niche. Nothing is put in stone and nothing has to stay, how it is.

I think the zodiac archetypes would make a good RPG character cast. Just mix the 12 vastly different personalities together in a group and see what happens. A thousand pages full of drama and conflict, support and love.

[Memory]

I think star signs are interesting, and I enjoy researching them a lot. Do I believe them as fact? Certainly not. Have I found comfort in them? Certainly yes. They're a lot like the therapy work I currently do (CRM) in that not many people in my circle believe it to be helpful because it isn't based in "science", and my stance on both CRM and zodiac signs is the same: Something doesn't have to be "factual" in order for it to be helpful.

Not to go too off tangent, but most of my therapy work is meditation based. "The Comprehensive Resource Model or CRM for short is an innovative and holistic therapeutic approach to help clients re-process and release the effects of traumatic events which they have experienced." [source]

It's the only kind of therapy that has ever helped me in any respect, which is part of why I don't like it when others make fun of or otherwise upset people who are really into horoscope stuff! If it's beneficial to them, then I think that's enough to be kind. I see a lot of hate for the community online, and I think that's silly.

As for my own star sign, I'm a Pisces! For anyone into horoscopes more than at a surface level, I'm a Pisces sun, Libra moon, and Libra rising. 

[tenkai_no_perusona]

While I don't believe in them, I do enjoy talking and learning about them. They're great for socializing!

(I'm a Pisces too).

[Melooon]

Mine is Aries, and I think that very much fits my personality 

I find horoscopes and daily predictions unconvincing, but I think the zodiac signs themselves have generally been pretty good descriptions of the personalities of people Iv known in my life  Maybe I should pay more attention to them!

[PainterFight]

I’m secretly a bit of a sucker for horoscopes, and most of the time anything relating to my starsign tends to be a little too relatable - like that one time when I saw an Instagram post that tells me airsigns are obsessed with fictional characters…

Can’t help being a Libra lmao

[Gans]

@Melon: Who could have guessed... only someone with a strong Aries could write with that many exclamation marks.

----

A little data research I did.
Formula One drivers, who participated in at least one race between 1989 and 2017 by zodiac:
Aquarius: 15
Pisces: 16
Aries: 20
Taurus: 16
Gemini: 12
Cancer: 15
Leo: 15
Virgo: 23
Libra: 18
Scorpio: 9
Sagittarius: 5
Capricorn: 24

Other racing drivers, who participated in the highest second tier racing class (Formula Two, GP2 and F3000) between 2000 and 2017, however without having made a start in Formula One, by zodiac:
Aquarius: 20
Pisces: 16
Aries: 23
Taurus: 15
Gemini: 18
Cancer: 14
Leo: 18
Virgo: 16
Libra: 24
Scorpio: 18
Sagittarius: 19
Capricorn: 16

Young politicans (younger than 40 years), who made it in the Bundestag between 2002 and 2017 by zodiac:
Aquarius: 14
Pisces: 6
Aries: 18
Taurus: 18
Gemini: 14
Cancer: 10
Leo: 11
Virgo: 13
Libra: 12
Scorpio: 8
Sagittarius: 7
Capricorn: 9

Because certain traits should be advantageous to reach high positions in extreme areas, be it in the highest class of motorsport or in politics for example. And in theory, those traits should occur more often in certain zodiac signs. The numbers above are too small to really show that. Also, the picked areas could be more extreme (current Motorsport is too far of death for example).

[Alexandriarch]

Stars are fun!  Planets are my friends! <3
Every culture throughout history has some way of interpreting the relationship between celestial bodies & events here below the Moon.  Many systems of astrology exist, & strangely many of them are simultaneously functional despite having potentially exclusive concepts.  Only within the last few generations has the Hellenic Zodiac been used to interpret one's personality or daily fortune, so a lot of that specific mythos' infrastructure is inapt at this.  Just because they were developed over hundreds of years in humanity's primordial past for entirely different mystical purposes doesn't mean you can't use these systems to do some fun introspection, though!  Although measuring luck & psychological profile was not the purpose, sometimes the astrological conditions of one's birth were considered for things like medical treatment & numinous ceremony.  Typically the rising sign was used as the primary signification of one's "self". Although the Sun & Moon can also be as disproportionately important as they are in our skies, if you asked an ancient Mediterranean person what their sign was, it wouldn't have to do with the location of the Sun.

The Zodiac is very useful as a thesaurus for universal archetypes.  Astrology is a phantastic index by which almost all Terran mysticism may be organized. It's just untested at telling you who you are 

[Bart of the Clown Lands]

I used to have phase when i was OBSESSED with zodiacs and natal charts and speaking honestly i still do a bit, just not on such extreme degree and not outloud... Most of the time all these descriptions dont match reality anyway. But...categorizing happenings and people in such way brings me some sort of comfort and certanity(and yeah, as tenkai_no_perusona said it can be great for socializing).
:(
Also im a Capricorn

[Commodorn]

I don't really believe in it as something very solid, but it is interesting how much the traits of zodiac signs CAN match up. There's a shop I go to sometimes that sells incense, zodiac-related things and whatnot.. there was one cashier that guessed my sign was Virgo because I "had the aura" xO) .. That and looking at zodiac candles with colors and scents that matched up perfectly with both my tastes and my mother's tastes was.. something. Virgo was brown patchouli and Gemini was purple lavender.

When it comes to horoscopes, uh.. ehh. Once, I read something that said "Soon, you will reach the peak of your career" and all I could say was "God, I hope not!".

[xandra]

i don't really think there's much to it myself, but i think some great points have been raised here! i don't think people's personalities are actually derived from when they were born, but i do think the similarities of people with the astrological sign's traits is interesting! sometimes i'll read horoscopes and just take or leave what i find, but i think i got the most use out of astrology when i needed some type of empowerment to push me in a direction. (if my horoscope was pointing to one direction, but i knew i wanted it a different way, that would be enough to give me an answer!)

all that being said, i'm a capricorn sun, capricorn moon, cancer rising.

out of curiosity, has anyone had anybody stop talking to them or stop being their friend due to their zodiac sign? you only hear about those things through disparaging remarks, really, but i haven't seen it in practice.

[Gans]

out of curiosity, has anyone had anybody stop talking to them or stop being their friend due to their zodiac sign? you only hear about those things through disparaging remarks, really, but i haven't seen it in practice.

Sounds like the dictatorship of zodiacs. Only marry with the opposite zodiac, say the great books of the zodiacs.
I've only encountered people characterising others far too shallow based on zodiac signs. As being said, one carries all the archetypes to a certain degree in oneself. There is no easy solution like putting everyone in 12 seperate boxes...

[Memory]

They're sometimes entertaining to look at or know fun facts about, but I am concerned for anyone who actually puts any kind of value into them.

Humans are naturally empathetic and our lil brains attempt to relate anything we read to our own experiences, even if it does not entirely fit reality. This is why whenever you take any kind of course or education in psychology, the first session is usually spent telling you: "You will read about a lot of psychological symptoms and conditions during this course, and you will find many of them relatable and assume you have them yourself. Don't. Your brain tricks you."

I have experienced the dangers of self-diagnosing myself in that regard, talking myself into plenty of conditions I thought I had simply because I read extensively about them or I wanted them to be true for attention so bad that I actually talked myself into them (specifically, my "plural" phase).

One common case of this phenomenon is aphantasia, the extremely rare condition where someone lacks an "inner eye", the ability to visualize thoughts and the capacity to imagine up objects or scenes in their head. Because talking about these very unique personal experiences within our consciousness is so hard, most people will relate to that vague description of symptoms, and start describing themselves as aphantastic, even though they have a perfectly normal ability to visualize! They'll read it and assume that since they do not literally hallucinate a HD 4K 60fps red apple in front of their eyes when thinking about an apple they must be aphantastic.

Zodiacs are the same thing. People will read something like "Pisces will thrive under pressure, but too much stress and they break down very hard" or "The cancer sign means you are usually patient and empathetic but you can become vicious when someone oversteps your boundaries." In other words: descriptions that either everyone can relate to, or virtues that you want to relate to because they are positive. Sometimes, these descriptions are also simply aimed at the typical audience of the place they are posted in so they get a lot of engagement, like Tumblr posts about zodiacs often being about "you are really into fictional characters" - well yeah, because Tumblr people tend to be largely early to mid 20s female nerds who are into fandoms.