Meet The Star Boys

The story tends to go like this: Girl asks star sign on date, guy backs away in horror. “Ladies, weaponize astrology so he’ll get away from you,” says comedian Hannah Berner in a July episode of Call Her Daddy. “I’m so tired of you ladies blaming your poor decision-making skills on planets that don’t even know you,” Matt Rife says in his 2023 Netflix comedy special Natural Selection. “If a woman asks what time you were born, you’re in trouble,” reads a viral tweet from 2020. Astrology might be considered “for the girls,” but that’s not always the case. Meet the star boys.

These men, despite gender stereotypes, have no problem turning to the universe for guidance or answers. They encourage their social circle to dive into their birth charts. Some spread their knowledge on TikTok or Substack. Others are quiet believers, keeping tabs on Mercury retrograde and the upcoming moon cycles.

“I've never been afraid of embracing something that might be considered more feminine,” says @AstrologyBro, 33, a TikTok creator who doesn’t share his real name online. And while women are particularly associated with the practice today, that wasn’t always the case.

“Historically, it was all men [studying astrology]... [Astrologers] were essentially mathematicians and that was a pretty exclusive world,” says Fred Tally-Foos, 29, who has studied astrology for three years.

Today, as the gender binary becomes more outdated, men are embracing the belief system once again: A quarter of American men now believe in astrology, according to a 2022 YouGov survey, up 5% from a 2017 Pew Research survey. Slowly but surely, star boys are on the rise.

From Frat Bros To The Cosmos

For many women — even non-believers — a basic understanding of astrology is something you pick up by osmosis. You grew up seeing horoscopes in magazines; now, your friends tag you in memes about your sign. Men aren’t typically so immersed in it. But some star boys had a light knowledge of it before they fully dove in.

For most of his life, Joshua Pingley was vaguely familiar with astrology. He knew his big three. But after he faced a series of traumatic events at age 28 (his Saturn return, he notes — a period of growth and change in your late 20s), he turned to the belief system to seek deeper meaning. Following the loss of his mother, exploring her birth chart gave him a sense of peace, as well as more insight into her life and struggles. Pingley continued to study the practice. Now 32, he’s a full-time astrologer offering readings and making content on TikTok as @spiritualweatherman.

Others fell into their astrology journey on a whim, as Tally-Foos did. He got a stick-and-poke Aquarius tattoo simply because he saw the design on an artist’s flash sheet and liked it. The tattoo artist encouraged him to ask his mom when he was born to verify his big three. From there, he couldn’t help but learn more. “You could say [this is] a Gemini moon thing, but I just really hyperfixated and went down the rabbit hole of reading all the books and eventually taking some courses,” he says. He’s now been studying astrology for three years in addition to his day job.

As for Max Friedman, 29, his interest was sparked by a star-loving ex. “Part of my initial hesitancy [about astrology] was that as a male Leo, it was not a particularly great stereotype,” he says. (Arrogant, jealous, stubborn.) “[But] saying that I didn't care about it at all was not an option so I couldn't help but start to learn how to speak astrology.” While dating his ex, they eventually made a game for them to ask questions to people to try to guess their signs at parties.

“I felt like a lot of people see astrology coming from someone with gas station incense or purple hair...”

Six years later, his now-girlfriend says he asked for her birth chart after a month of dating to test their compatibility (Co-Star said they’d have a “once-in-a-lifetime connection”). One time early on in their relationship, he refused to spend the night because he didn’t have his toothbrush and work stuff, and “blamed his Taurus moon.”

For @AstrologyBro, learning about his birth chart opened the floodgates of self-discovery. “Reading about [my Scorpio moon] taught me more about myself, my gifts, and my challenges, in such a full way,” he says. “I'd never gotten that [validation] from anything else. Not from therapy or self-help books. It just really resonated.”

From the start of his journey into the cosmos, he knew he didn’t necessarily fit the stereotype of believers. “I felt like a lot of people see astrology coming from someone with gas station incense or purple hair. And no knock on that, I love those people. But that’s contributed to certain people typecasting it as a whole,” he says. “I've always been kind of like a polo and khaki-wearing person. In college, I was president of my fraternity.”

When he started studying the subject, he realized not many other “bros” were into it (certainly not his frat bros), so he doubled down when choosing his username, hoping his online pseudonym alone could help break the mold.

Star Boys vs. Cynics

Pingley has inadvertently converted some doubters. One woman who got a reading from him in August left a review on his website saying, “Even my husband who is more on the skeptical side has now decided he wants his own reading.”

“[Some men go into astrology thinking] ‘this can't be true because it's impossible to verify.’ Well, there are a lot of things in life that don't have an exact answer,” Pingley says. “But we feel it and we experience it, and that's enough. Think about emotions. We feel them, but we can't see them or touch them.”

“I don't think anybody's advocating that somebody use astrology and not read the news.”

@AstrologyBro believes that if more men were open to learning about the universe, they’d have an easier time dealing with machismo. “I feel strongly that astrology is the key to self-understanding,” he says. “A lot of ‘toxic masculinity’ arises from an inability to deal with your own issues or really know thyself.” In his case, he says exploring his Scorpio moon helped him be a better partner. The sign is often thought to be controlling or jealous, and he became aware of how he might’ve displayed those traits in previous relationships.

Meanwhile, Tally-Foos isn’t in the business of convincing non-believers. He’d rather focus on musing about the cosmos and writing horoscopes. But, he warns, the stars can’t provide answers for everything. “I don't think anybody's advocating that somebody use astrology and not read the news,” he says.

As Friedman jokes, straight men who poke fun at star-loving women are shooting themselves in the foot when they could be shooting their shot instead. “I'm not saying, ‘Hey, you should learn astrology because you'll get laid.’ But being able to talk to women about astrology is a huge plus.”