Co–Star: The Astrology App Everyone Has That No One Should Be Using
If you scrolled through the apps of almost every teenager that owns TikTok, you’d most likely find the astrology app “Co--Star” as well. The app has seemingly taken over astrology’s online presence in recent years, and at first glance, it’s clear why. The app has a beautiful and aesthetically pleasing look. It’s modern, sleek, and overall just pretty to look at. Its cover on the home screen is a beautifully simple photo of the moon; a click on the app and a clean white screen appears with soft black text. “Good evening, @username. It’s 53० and mostly clear in Los Angeles.” Those are the first words I see when opening Co--Star. It then proceeds to show me my “Day at a Glance,” which is a sentence supposedly about how my day is going to go. This particular time, mine reads, “If you feel like someone is taking advantage of you, they probably are.” A pretty bold and almost alarming claim, and to someone who doesn’t know too much about astrology, why wouldn’t they listen to the pretty, visually pleasing, alarming message? The app then tells me where I’m having trouble, power, strength, etc. Scrolling on, there is more pretty black text, including “Dos and Don’ts,” and “Learn from” and “Avoid” sections. The dos and don’ts section gives three dos and three don’ts, often one word, and from my experience, doesn’t always make a lot of sense. The learn from and avoid sections works when you have friends on the app. Mine today tells me to learn from people with Earth Mercuries and avoid Air Venuses.
Now, on a surface level, this is all in good fun. However, I personally find a discomforting issue with this first opening page of the app. The very first claim in big, bold words, the one mentioned previously, “If you feel like someone is taking advantage of you, they probably are,” is, as I said, alarming. If I know little to nothing about astrology, I also won’t pick up on the fact that there is no backing for this claim. The app just plainly told me, “someone is taking advantage of you,” but it provides no astrological reason why someone is taking advantage of me. There is no “This placement of yours is squared with this placement right now, which means you should keep an eye out for someone taking advantage of you.” It’s instilling unnecessary fear and anxiety, and it doesn’t need to be there. Moving on through the app, I also find an issue with how the birth chart is presented. There is a reason the website CafeAstrology or the app Charts shows you that circular natal chart, and while it looks daunting and complicated, it gives you a real full idea of your chart. Co--Star, on the other hand, provides a meek table that once again has an aesthetically pleasing look but lacks essential components to the chart. To show this disparity in Co--Stars birth charts, the image below is the exact same birth chart, the one on the left is from Co--Star, and the one on the right is from the app Charts. Co--Star gives the bare minimum of the birth chart, while Charts goes into precise detail regarding transits in your chart, planets, houses, and degrees. Co--Star lacking things like degrees or all of the house placements is a fatal flaw in the app because house placements, degrees, and transits are just as crucial as different planet placements. In this situation, less is not more.
It’s abundantly clear that the Charts app gives infinitely more detail into the birth chart, and no in-app purchases are required. Even for someone that might not understand how to read a natal chart, the Charts app allows you to click on each individual planet and house placement, and it provides a long and lengthy explanation about what each placement means. Co—Star, on the other hand, only provides the house placements that planets are in and only gives a brief sentence or two to explain what having your Sun in Aries means. Here, another side by side this time of Co--Star’s description for Sun in Aries, versus Charts explanation. Charts are once again providing far more detail than Co—Star and still explaining in a way that is simple and easy to understand.
The daily notifications sent out by Co--Star are also a huge issue. Similar to the alarming messages that appear when you first open the app, the “Day at a Glance” notifications sent out daily by Co--Star is fear-mongering statements that are yet again not backed up with astrological reasons, which for an astrology app doesn’t seem right. Personally, I’ve gotten notifications that said, “Your day at a glance: Ask for help,” “Falling in love is a powerful defense mechanism,” and “Manipulative people exist.” Some others my friends have sent me have said things like “Behave as though you have the will to live” and “d.” Not only are these notifications completely ridiculous and out-of-pocket, but there is also no astrological backing, and they don’t even have anything to do with astrology. It’s genuinely baffling that these deliberately distressing notifications are allowed to be sent out just to get users to open the app.
Beyond the flaws of the app’s design and content, Co—Star as a company has had some questionable and potentially problematic posts on social media. In response to the Black Lives Matter protests that happened all over the country, the Co—Star social media accounts decided to post an “At the demo” (meaning at the demonstration/protest) meme. Not only was this an incredibly insensitive reaction to the protests against innocent black lives being taken, but it also trivialized a serious topic. After receiving backlash on the post, they changed the caption to say “demo tips,” causing more backlash because the change of caption made no sense in correlation with the post. Another caption change was made to say something along the lines of “These are all things everyone should be doing if you attend a protest, regardless of sign.” until finally, the post was taken down, and an apology was released. Had Co—Star wanted to support the Black Lives Matter movement, a statement of support should have been the course of action from the start. That summer of those BLM protests was a very raw time emotionally, especially for BIPOC, and for Co—Star to make such a tone-deaf post goes to show how careless they are as a company. Making a conscientious effort, especially during such an intense point in time, should not have been that difficult during such an intense social movement.
This, however, was not an isolated incident. A post was made by Co—Star in July of 2016 on Twitter. It was another “meme” type image, complete with a title and corresponding “answer” for each astrological sign; this particular meme was titled “Is it depression or is it...” Already from the title, it’s clear Co—Star is taking yet another serious and important issue and making it into a meme. The “answers” given for each sign were honestly upsetting to read and felt incredibly invalidating. For example, the “answer” for Cancer was “a mood,” making the complete sentence “Is it depression or is it a mood,” the “answer” for Taurus was “too much bad TV,” making the entire sentence “Is it depression or is it too much bad TV,” and so on.
No matter the intention behind the post, no matter if it was purposeful or not, Co—Star is distastefully using a serious topic, like mental illness, for a meme on Twitter. Beyond that, this post is just incredibly invalidating for people who struggle with something as serious as depression. Many of the responses were not positive, with one person sarcastically responding, “ohhh s*** and to think my psychiatrist had me on antidepressants, I’m gonna have to call her and let her know it’s actually just my mood since I’m a cancer,” and another user saying “Y'all should probably stay away from mixing mental health in with astrology.” If the confusing and fear-mongering astrology that exists in the actual app wasn’t enough for you to delete this app, the thoughtlessness that goes into their social media posts should be more than enough.
Overall, Co—Star is one of the worst astrology apps I’ve personally encountered. It’s lazy and misinformed astrology hidden behind pretty fonts and imagery. Essentially all Co—Star has going for it is the aesthetically pleasing look and the fact that you can add friends and see their charts, and quite frankly, the only reason it’s still on my phone is to see my friends big 3. Even if Co—Star wasn’t the worst option, there are better apps that provide more free information. For example, my favorite astrology app I’ve ever come in contact with is the app Charts. There are four different sections from which you can observe your birth chart. There’s a section that goes into the depths of the transits in your chart, a section for the planets, for the houses, and more info such as your dominant planet/sign/element and so on. Charts provide astrology for the world, such as where the planets are currently, what transits or retrogrades are happening, etc. While you can’t make friends on the Charts app, you can add your friends’ charts on your own, so the friend aspect that makes Co—Star different isn’t entirely gone. Charts are an infinitely better app for exploring your chart and others. Cafe Astrology, which is a website, not an app, is another wonderful suggestion for reading your chart in-depth. I haven’t fully explored some other suggestions but have heard about apps like The Pattern (not super astrology based but uses astrology) and Time Passages. Ultimately, the app will go on being used, but I find it’s important to know all of a company’s facts before continuing to consume the media they put out, and why keep Co—Star when you’ve got better options!