“Hey bestie, your twinflame, your soulmate, is coming back to you. Like, comment, follow and share to claim,” you may hear a calming voice say on your TikTok ForYou page.

These tarot videos often have the same premise: a person claiming to be reading for everyone who uses the app shows tarot cards and gives advice to the general public.

I do see a benefit in personal tarot readings, but I do not see the benefit of the ones on TikTok.

Tarot cards are fortune-telling instruments that can be used to give advice or predict the outcome of a situation, according to the Webster’s New World College Dictionary.

They work by asking a question about a specific situation in a person’s life, which leads to the problem with TikTok tarot readers.

The practice of tarot hinges itself on the ability to ask a personal question. TikTok is not personalized.

Giving readings to the general public will only bring about anxiety.

A quick search of the #tiktoktarot shows an accumulation of 58 million views on videos with that hashtag, according to the TikTok app. 

Looking at the general #tarot, there is an accumulation of 6.3 billion views, according to the TikTok app.

Since writing this article, I’ve taken a tally of the amount of tarot TikToks I’ve seen. I am at 170 videos.

It is clear these videos are popular, but it is unclear whether they are helpful.

Most tarot readers on TikTok are new, which is not a problem in itself but sometimes they misinterpret cards and that is a problem.

Some are professional and using the app to gain more customers, but most are just teenage girls playing around for fame and fun.

I would not trust a beginner to tarot to predict my love life and future.

Personally, my TikTok goes through phases where I will not see a tarot reading for a while but then at seemingly random times every other video is a reading.

I do not interact with these either; maybe I keep seeing them because I do not immediately scroll but something about the calming nature of the videos keeps me around.

Yet, I know that watching so many of them is unhealthy for me.

Often the videos tell me that an ex is coming back in my life, or that I will be going through a rough time soon and I can make it out.

This makes me super anxious. Instead of getting some comedy relief from the app, the predictions just make me worry about my day.

Sometimes the readings are eerily accurate too. Like, oh my god, my ex did just like my instagram post— they must be coming back like the reading says!

It gets a little hard when your brain is clouded by love nonsense to think rationally. 

If anything, my ForYou page telling me repeatedly that an ex is coming back just gives me false hope.

It’s confirmation bias in action; I am confirming my own beliefs by agreeing with these videos.

I am sure this is common for all people who get these readings; the false hope that maybe you should not move on so quickly.

If I’ve learned anything in the past few months, it’s that sometimes relationships end for a reason, and clinging onto messages like TikTok tarot hurts you in the long run.

A tarot reader on TikTok doing general love messages does not mean your relationship is coming back.

It actually does not mean anything. It’s the TikTok algorithm thinking this is what you want to see and hear.

So, remember the next time that a reading comes on your for you page.

Unless this tarot reading was made specifically for you, it probably was not meant for you.

To get accurate readings, go to local fortune tellers and support their small business. 

An in-person, professional reading would get you more accurate results than a video online.