TikTok Tarot: Written in the stars? Just the algorithm.

Personal Essay: Written by Jen Cartwright

Is it written in the stars or just the algorithm?: An investigation into TikTok tarot

I’ve always been intrigued by tarot cards. I find the idea that your fortune may be revealed through pictures on cards fear-inducing yet fascinating. When I’ve felt low and uncertain, I’ve even thought about seeing what a tarot card reader has to say, even if it is just for comfort rather than clarity. But lacking the faith, the courage, and the space in my budget to pay for a reading, I’ve never had one. 

But this hasn’t stopped TikTok tarot from finding me. On my TikTok For You Page every few months there will be a new faze of tarot reader after tarot reader embedded in my feed. They claim their videos were “meant” to find me.

I, alongside the tens of thousands of other users, in the likes and comment section.

But I’m not sure they know what they are talking about. 

It will start with just one video. As the tarot reader shuffles the cards, they promise this video has found me “for a reason” and then as the cards fall on the table they’ll tell me how overwhelmingly positive my life will become. True love? Check. The dream job? Check. An abundance of money? Check. It seems the ultimate future fantasy is always just around the corner.

After watching one video, I’ll see another video and another and another. This may be a different reader but they have a similar message. My life is destined to be fantastic. 

This is the TikTok trap. Hearing good news is addictive, especially when it's about yourself. This makes a TikTok tarot reading hard to scroll past and so you watch. And then you see more videos, with different readers but seemingly following the exact same script. Each new reading may further convince you that the first wasn’t a fluke because after all, what are the chances of hearing the same prediction dozens and dozens of times?

It turns out the answer is actually quite high. The TikTok algorithm is scarily smart. By tracking what content you watch and how long you watch it for, it can figure out if you like a video without you even needing to press the like button. To keep you on the app for longer, it will therefore feed you these videos in excess. I don’t think a random tarot reader from across the world knows me very well. But I think TikTok certainly does. 

The TikTok algorithm has the same strategy for all genres of content. Whether it be dance videos, street interviews, or meme compilations, it caters its menu for each individual user. This crafts the perfect recipe for a doomscrolling session that numbs your brain for a while.

With TikTok tarot this addictiveness can be dangerous. To see the same message repeatedly can make it difficult to ignore, regardless of how little it is based in reality. Because of this, TikTok tarot can nurture desirable but unchecked fantasies. This takes another level when TikTok tarot readers go live. Here, they allow users to comment questions about deeply personal situations - their love life, their fertility, their finances, and the TikTok tarot reader will provide a definite answer despite knowing nothing about these strangers’ personal circumstance. Often, the answer is exactly what the person wants to hear and in the moment provides them with relief. But it also feels like TikTok tarot readers capitalise on user’s desperation for the sake of likes, views, and eternal gratitude.

Interestingly, TikTok tarot always promises that my life is going to change but it never provides me with an incentive to actively change it. The videos treat me like I’m a passive participant in my own life where everything is simply going to “find” me” when the time is right. In fact, the greatest call to action is simply to comment “claim”, which is conveniently an action that spread this message wider to other people exactly like me. 

I first started seeing TikTok tarot videos a few years ago. Since then, not much of what they’ve said has come true and if anything has, I haven’t kept track. But I think TikTok tarot doesn’t care about the truth, it cares about engagement and this is why it transforms likes, comments and follows into sacred rituals to cement the reading. TikTok tarot even has very little to do with tarot cards, the deck is simply an accessory to hyperbolically positive language which is guaranteed to stop someone in their tracks simply because of how nice it is. 

I don’t know how much I believe in destiny and that we all have a future set in stone. But I do know that no one is destined to watch a specific TikTok. I like to think God, or the universe, or whatever higher entity that may be, is a little bit more creative than that.

If something is meant for you, it will find you. You don’t need a TikTok tarot reader to tell you that.

The work above is a personal essay, an article dedicated to expression of the author. Views dictated may not be representative of Milkie Magazine.