It is less popular, but astrology has never completely disappeared. In times of uncertainty, it reappears in the form of a compass or as a reference to popular culture that only needed the combination of humor and social networks to be reborn with popularity. “Yes, we centennials and millennials like me like astrology,” admits Charas Vega just before giving a workshop at La Casa Encendida in Madrid, within the Puwerty festival dedicated to adolescent culture. “It has little new, astrology goes back to Babylon. These kinds of pagan pseudo-religions became fashionable to escape religious faith in the 1970s, and now too. If we don’t like the Church, we look elsewhere for faith,” he explains.
2021, a year in memes
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“The Church has not known how to do good tiktoks, but astrology yes. It responds to certain shortcomings in our society, there is a brutal lack of spirituality among the youngest, we live in an uncertain time for us especially, with a rather dark job future and the threat of the climate crisis”, explains Vega.
Charcastrology, the name he uses in networks, does not make predictions or talk about the future. His posts collect trends and replicate them in the form of memes that question whoever reads them: “What Bizarrap session are you, what comic, what song by Rosalía or what serialkiller”, according to the horoscope sign. “Many people come to see my memes as a way to pass the time in an ironic and sarcastic way, you can enjoy them without believing in astrology, that’s the fun,” says the author. “I am talking about the self, which is what is distilled the most in social networks, we want to talk about ourselves and what can work better than something that speaks directly to you”, she adds.
girl thing
In the 70s, astrology appeared linked to the counterculture and also in songs, such as The Age of Aquarius, the anthem of Hair, either The Year of the Cat, by Al Stewart. She was also featured in so-called women’s magazines, publications that exerted an ideological influence on women through, among other things, horoscopes, reinforcing gender roles and advising how they should relate to men in order to get attention. “In the 90s and 2000s it was also through the girls’ magazines, Super Pop or Bravo,” recalls Vega. “And there’s a stigma with this, because actually in many serious newspapers there was also a horoscope mini-section,” she adds.
“Just as the entire universe of women’s magazines was thrown to the ground, astrology was reviled because they were frivolous things, and now there is a return to revaluing fashion, pop music or astrology,” says the creator, recalling that the Beatles they were reviled at first because they were considered a group for teenagers. “The revaluation of everything feminine has had to do with feminism, which has meant that everything that interests women is no longer reviled,” she adds.
The historical tradition of horoscopes can explain Charcastrology’s audience segmentation: 80% are girls. In addition to that explanation, for Charas Vega there is also that “in the world of women it is allowed to introspect and talk about feelings” but “within the hegemonic masculinity it is worse seen.” Of the 20% of men who follow their accounts, “the vast majority have the LGTBIQ flag. In other words, the ones who don’t follow me are heterosexual men”, he ventures.
Make humor a career
Charas Vega has a double degree in audiovisuals and journalism, two master’s degrees in cinema and audiovisuals, but she was working as a part-time clerk in a store in Barcelona when she created Charcastrology, in the long days of confinement. She “she started on March 5, 2020, with no intention of her going any further, while she worked and studied. The pandemic came, it was a moment of hiatus, and it went very well for me. I did not expect the reception at all, the internet is completely unpredictable, ”she admits.
Now she has left her job as a shop assistant and collaborates with Filmin and Radio Primavera Sound, in addition to other spaces. She says that she is living the millennial dream: getting paid to make memes. “My work has come to me more because of the Instagram account than because of everything else I have done. I put a lot on my part to study, I came from a very complicated situation in which it was very difficult for me to study, I put a lot of effort into doing it and the fact that I got work through the networks makes me think that maybe I was deceived” Charas says.
thrash aesthetic
Charcastrology is presented as “the zodiac in Power Point”. The posts have an aesthetic between the seedy and the punk, with saturated colors and the air of the first computers, with which Charas Vega wanted to bring his account to the memory of the Windows interfaces of his childhood. “I was doing a master’s degree in film theory and my final project was about an online aesthetic that I really like, it’s called steam wave. It is an ugly aesthetic, with completely artificial colors. It seemed pertinent to use it, it was something natural and now it has become my stamp”.
The Serie euphoria, the characters of David Lynch, the Eurovision countries, the songs of Bad Bunny or the phrases of Tania Acroyoga are topics around which Charas asks questions, creates images, dictates sentences according to the sign of the zodiac and, above all, laughs of the world. “I think the most special thing about this account is that I talk about things that interest me. I try to mix things very mainstreambecause I like them, like Bizarrap, which is now what is most listened to in the world, with very independent things, albums that hardly anyone listens to, I put in much smaller things, because I listen to them”, explains Vega.
horoscope and therapy
Charas Vega does not see astrology as incompatible with science and argues that astrology is not something merely superficial, but rather a tradition with thousands of years of history that goes back to ancient Mesopotamia. He believes that he can make friends talk about the sign that each one is, invite them to talk about feelings, about how the relationship with other people is or help to bond with others. And, above all, have fun.
“I think in science, but I also think that, and I know it’s controversial, it’s healthy that there is room for other things. Now there is a kind of mad scientism, and it seems that science cannot coexist with anything. It is forgotten that the vast majority of researchers or scientists in history were believers. I am super pro-science and within this world of astrology I have problems with people who tell me that using astrology you don’t have to go to therapy, I tell them no, no, you have to go to therapy, go to the doctor, buy medicine modern, this is not going to solve your life”, he explains. But it is also attacked from the world of astrology because it takes “everything to laugh.” “The public that takes this seriously is not my public, I do not take this, or many things, seriously. If you read my memes and it bothers you, I would tell you that I am making humor, ”she concludes.