Thursday, May 10, 2018

Down With Scorpio Spam

Recently the Reddit astrology forum posed an important question - are Scorpios responsible for more than their share of Internet trolling? At least a handful of people on the forum think so. While it may seem ridiculous at first, it is true that birth season does affect brain development in certain ways. There has been little research on how this might increase online trolling, but there also are no studies to rule it out. Anyway, I'm a Taurus, the opposite Sun sign - I'm already predisposed to find Scorpios kind of a pain in the butt, right?

Twitter user @colleentie recently drew attention to a screenshot of a Reddit post arguing, essentially, that Scorpios, aka those with birthdays from Oct. 23 through Nov. 21, are out of control online. In a post titled, “MODS: Please start banning Scorpio spam,” the poster complains that members of the sign are responsible for a disproportionate amount of garbage posts on the subreddit, and must be stopped. The thread goes on, “I’ve used this subreddit for 3-4 years now, and in all of that time, one of the constants here, has been a continual flood of attention seeking threads, written by Scorpio natives. No other sign’s natives do it to anywhere near the same extent, and I and several other people here are getting utterly sick of it.” Not everyone agrees with the assertion that Scorpios have hijacked the board—apparently there’s some indication that the spam may be part of a larger rash of obnoxious sun-sign threads.

While the thread only got a moderate amount of attention and responses, the idea that a Reddit community about astrology could more or less ban one of the 12 astrological signs from participation on account of insufferable behavior is too delicious not to contemplate further. Yes, there exists a species of online troll whose venue of choice is an astrology board, and today we learned that troll is a Scorpio. Maybe it was written in the stars all along—if one sign was going to get banned from the zodiac, it would be Scorpios, wouldn’t it? According to the cosmic authority that is Astrostyle.com, Scorpios are “a little bit TOO intense at times” and “can be protective and magnetic but also secretive, possessive and vengeful,” which happen to be the exact characteristics of people bound to create drama online. So sorry, Scorpio trolls of Reddit: Apparently, you’re in retrograde.

To be clear, I do have a few Scorpio friends and I don't find any of them a pain in the butt. If I did, they would no longer be friends and that would resolve the issue right there. There is some kind of tongue-in-cheek banter among astrologers in general, though, that Scorpios are more likely to be over-dramatic than natives of other signs. In my experience, Scorpios tend to get really excited about projects at the beginning and do a bunch of work but then lose interest and disappear. Or maybe that's a function of the particular people and more of a coincidence than a trend. It's hard to say.

At any rate, this might be a new avenue for research regarding astrology and its reliability. If we could show that Scorpios are more likely to be trolls, that's a positive correlation that would have to be explained. And maybe that would lead us to a better understanding of whether or not astrological forces shape our lives and how those forces work. Either that, or it would just feed the trolls some more.

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3 comments:

C-Style Magazine said...

Well! As a Scorpio, I am just flabbergasted! Lol! I can't speak for others of the sign, but I, for one, can say that we can be relentless almost to the point of obsession, when we want something. That being said, I would never spam or troll anybody in such a hardcore manner. As Scorpio can be secretive or devious more than others, I take the approach of pursuing until you catch me. Lol!

Funny you are a Taurus, Scott. I have many in family and find them to be the most loyal and supportive out of all the other signs.

So, no trolling here, just a fierce determination to get what I want.

Samat said...

Does archangel of Scorpio, Barakhiel, also embody all those negative as well as positive traits about the sign or is she safe to work with?

Scorpio also can be seen as the most protective of signs since it is highly manipulative, determined and as a water sign, the most 'deep' of the signs hence it is highly appropriate for an all year round protection spell.

Scott Stenwick said...

Yes, just like with the planetary angels, the zodiacal angels rule by sphere of influence. So they rule over both the positive and negative aspects of the sign, and can also increase or decrease any of those properties in the context of a spell.

Scorpio would be a reasonable option for a protection spell, for the exact reasons you mention.