Cyber fortune-telling "gets a grip on" young people.

Recent hot searches have drawn netizens' attention to the field of metaphysics.

The discussion stems from the official announcement of divorce by Tao Baibai, a constellation blogger. The relevant topics have topped the hot search lists on multiple platforms such as Sina Weibo, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Kuaishou.

After becoming a constellation blogger in 2016, Tao Baibai quickly gained popularity and has since remained at the forefront of the constellation field. As of now, Tao Baibai's official account "Tao Baibai Sensei" has 19.071 million followers on Sina Weibo and is officially certified as the "Most Influential Constellation Big V". The number of followers on Douyin, Kuaishou, and Xiaohongshu platforms is 19.932 million, 4.421 million, and 3.811 million respectively. Even more than a dozen "class representatives" accounts derived from splitting his content according to different constellations have tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of followers.

This popularity stems from users' high recognition of the accuracy of Tao Baibai's constellation and emotional analysis. He often analyzes emotional problems based on his own experiences and helps users solve emotional problems by in - depth explaining the personality traits and emotional handling patterns of different constellations. The divorce incident highlights the contrast of "a doctor cannot heal himself", which has boosted the popularity of relevant topics. Netizens then extended the discussion to questions such as whether metaphysics like constellations is worthy of trust.

The popularity and discussion themselves reflect the contemporary young people's psychological acceptance of metaphysics. Metaphysics originally referred to a philosophical ideology that emerged during the Wei and Jin Dynasties. In the Internet era, it has become a general term for non - scientific fields related to fate and divination, including the five elements, the eight trigrams, and feng shui in traditional Chinese culture, as well as constellations and Tarot in Western culture.

The popular saying "choosing to pray in the temple instead of working hard" can well describe people's mental state of believing in metaphysics. Even technological products such as large AI models cannot escape the fate of being "linked" with metaphysics. Shortly after DeepSeek became popular at the beginning of the year, hot topics such as "young people using DeepSeek for fortune - telling" emerged on various platforms.

According to the "Insight Report on China's Emotional Economy Consumption Trends from 2025 - 2029" released by iiMedia Research on August 1, 2025, the market scale of China's emotional economy is on the rise. In 2024, the market scale of China's emotional economy reached 2.307767 trillion yuan, and it is expected to exceed 4.5 trillion yuan by 2029. Metaphysics has become one of the important preferences of domestic consumers for emotional consumption. Currently, 18.29% of consumers like to consume in the fields of metaphysics and good - luck economy, even higher than the 16.86% who prefer virtual emotional companionship.

The uncertainty of life makes metaphysics always exist as a human spiritual need and continue endlessly. The development of the Internet, especially AI, is bringing new carriers, opportunities, and forms to metaphysics, attracting more people to participate.

01 Following Technological Iteration

The ripples of the AI wave are still spreading.

Liu, a post - 2000s who didn't pay attention to metaphysics before, "got into" it during a WeChat group chat. Liu has just graduated from university and usually uses large models such as DeepSeek, but has never associated large models with "fortune - telling". Not long ago, Liu saw a friend sharing the Prompt used and the fortune - telling results in the WeChat group, and then began to try using large models for fortune - telling.

The so - called Prompt is an instruction given to AI. After large - model fortune - telling became popular, many Prompt templates have been circulating on social media platforms, and the one in Liu's WeChat group also comes from there. This Prompt asks the large model to act as a professional researcher of traditional Chinese eight - character numerology who is well - versed in books such as "Qiong Tong Bao Dian", "San Ming Tong Hui", "Di Tian Sui", and "Zi Ping Zhen Quan". Then, based on information such as the user's name, gender, date and time of birth, it calculates the user's five elements, eight - character, and annual fortune. The calculation results cover multiple aspects such as work, life, and emotions.

According to the group chat records that Liu showed to Haike Finance, in a WeChat group of about 50 people, more than half of the users participated in the discussion about fortune - telling, and more than a dozen people shared screenshots of some calculation results, including content such as "With the Earthly Branch Wu and the Heavenly Stem Wu showing up in both the year and the hour, it is easy to have wealth taken away by friends. It is not advisable to invest in partnerships" and "When the Zhengcai (proper wealth) of the Heavenly Stem Zi in the Day Pillar is in conflict with the Earthly Branch Wu in the Hour Pillar, one needs to prevent impulsive consumption after the age of 35". Although people don't understand the meaning of professional numerology terms such as "Earthly Branch Wu and Heavenly Stem Wu" and "conflict with the Earthly Branch Wu", they still want to believe the prompts in the second half of the sentence.

As for the accuracy of the calculation, someone in the group said that different large models can be used for repeated calculations. For example, after DeepSeek calculates, it can be verified by Doubao.

The large model also evaluates the user's fate based on the five elements and gives suggestions. For Liu's Prompt, DeepSeek's result shows that the metal element is strong and the wood element is lacking. It suggests that Liu develop artistic hobbies and practice a green lifestyle to supplement the lacking wood element, because wood represents benevolence and can reconcile the hardness of strong metal. Regarding the so - called annual fortune, DeepSeek believes that Liu may "offend the Tai Sui" and suggests wearing a red rope with the Sanhe protection or white crystal to ward off evil spirits. After reading the conclusion, Liu quickly placed an order for a Sanhe protection red rope bracelet priced at about 60 yuan on the e - commerce platform.

The emergence of ChatGPT has already triggered a wave of AI fortune - telling. In the early stage, limited by its Chinese language ability, ChatGPT's metaphysical applications were mostly concentrated in fields such as astrology and Tarot. With the rise of DeepSeek and its strong performance in the Chinese language field, the localization of metaphysical applications such as the eight - trigrams, feng shui, and numerology of large models has become popular.

Nowadays, comprehensive AI assistants can answer questions in multiple fields for users, and cyber fortune - telling is no exception. According to data from QuestMobile, a research institution, in June 2025, comprehensive assistants ranked second in the field of AI applications in terms of monthly active user scale, with a MAU (monthly active users) of 612 million, second only to search engines with a MAU of 686 million.

Metaphysics has actually been combined with modern technology for a long time. For example, in the 1990s, there was "SMS fortune - telling", which was to send one's name to a certain number to test the fateful relationship, and there were also computer fortune - telling software. Social apps such as Soul also implant metaphysical tests such as constellations and Tarot as game content. The essence of these early tests was random matching based on preset rules, far from real intelligence.

After large models entered the public view, metaphysical applications relying on large models have gradually increased, such as Cantian AI and Wenzhen Eight - Character Chart. These applications claim to have made in - depth fine - tuning on the basis of large models and integrated traditional numerology knowledge. Most of them claim that their test results are more accurate than those of large models such as DeepSeek and ChatGPT.

However, the overall exposure of metaphysical applications is still far lower than that of general large models such as DeepSeek and Doubao. Metaphysical applications generally adopt a value - added service model of free basic functions plus paid advanced interpretations, while most domestic leading large models provide free services and can cover more comprehensive knowledge fields in addition to metaphysical analysis. The characteristics of zero - threshold and multi - function even prompt metaphysical enthusiasts to compare and verify across multiple platforms. A Xiaohongshu user specifically evaluated the metaphysical abilities of large models such as ChatGPT 4o, Gemini, Claude, and DeepSeek, and the likes of the relevant note have now exceeded 1700. Many users commented under the note that AI can already replace ordinary numerologists.

02 Extremely Tactical in Attracting Traffic

Compared with AI, manual metaphysical tests are irreplaceable in terms of emotion.

Luo, a post - 1995s girl who was briefly addicted to Tarot, is an example. Luo has no religious belief and has never been exposed to metaphysics. One late night on Bilibili, she was attracted by a Tarot video. At that time, Luo was in an ambiguous relationship with a boy she liked. She wasn't sure if the boy also had feelings for her. When she saw a video titled "What are his true feelings for you?", she subconsciously clicked in.

Tarot cards, originating from Europe, are one of the most popular divination methods in the world. Among the 78 different cards, the diviner will draw a specific number of cards after shuffling and cutting the cards to form a card layout. Then, based on the content of the card images, the upright or reversed position of the images, and the positional relationship of the card layout, the diviner interprets the symbolic metaphors and energy trends contained in them to answer the questions of the querent.

After the popularization of social media platforms where videos can be posted, Tarot card tests have changed from one - on - one between the diviner and the querent to one - to - many in videos, that is, mass tests. Diviners who become bloggers will pose a broad and eye - catching question in the title, then draw cards multiple times according to the relevant question and shoot videos. Users who enter the video page can choose which card group corresponds to them and then go to the corresponding interpretation video to listen to the test results. The test video that Luo watched belongs to this type.

Although the questions in the titles are different, the forms of these videos are highly homogeneous. The background sound of most videos is a soft female voice. The blogger either doesn't appear on camera at all or only shows their hands. The camera is focused on the Tarot cards on the table. At the beginning of the video, the blogger often guides users to silently chant the question calmly to enhance the energy connection, and then asks users to choose from 3 - 4 indicators representing different card layouts based on their first impression, and then jump to the specific card layout interpretation video according to the indicator.

Generally, a card layout contains 3 - 8 Tarot cards. The total interpretation time of the card layout plus the individual interpretation of each card is often more than 10 minutes. The cumulative duration of an overall test video containing 3 - 4 card layouts often exceeds 30 minutes. Due to the long duration, these videos are mainly concentrated on Bilibili and Xiaohongshu. On Xiaohongshu, users need to manually search and jump to the corresponding card layout analysis according to the timeline below the video. Bilibili provides a more convenient experience through the interactive video function. Users can directly click on the option to jump. Since the interactive design allows a maximum of 4 options at a time, Bilibili Tarot videos generally adopt a four - choice - one model, that is, let users choose from 4 card layouts.

After watching the first Tarot video, Bilibili started to push various Tarot test videos to Luo. In the following days, Luo watched these videos until two or three o'clock in the morning. Luo said that she didn't dare to directly ask the boy she liked. When watching these videos, she felt as if there was really a diviner comforting her, saying that the boy also had feelings for her but was just too shy to express it. This made her feel that she had found a basis in her state of being unsure.

The style of Tarot videos on short - video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou is more simple and direct. For example, in just a few dozen seconds, a certain card is shown and its meaning is explained, directly indicating whether a card is auspicious or inauspicious, and briefly describing the prediction of the card for the development of things in one or two sentences. There are also videos teaching simple card layouts, such as the "Monitoring Card Layout" that can help understand the other person's inner thoughts. The three cards drawn represent whether the other person misses you, the other person's view of you, and the other person's subconscious. The whole video is only 16 seconds long.

In order to gain more users' trust, Tarot bloggers try to make their words cover a wider range and be more targeted. According to Haike Finance's observation, some bloggers divide the corresponding groups before the specific explanation of each card layout, describing the users' constellations, regions, occupations, etc. Each card layout mentions 3 constellations, and 4 card layouts cover all 12 constellations. However, the users who are corresponding to these constellations will think that the blogger is more targeted and accurate.

03 Diverse Ways of Realizing Profits

Whether it is constellations, Tarot, the five elements, or the eight trigrams, young people don't regard them as superstition. Instead, they joke that "fortune - telling is a kind of psychological counseling more suitable for Chinese young people".

Taking Tarot divination as an example, the payment model is relatively mature. Bloggers attract traffic to the private domain and then conduct one - on - one consultations, charging by card layout or by time. For example, for a simple card layout of 3 - 5 cards, the single - time charge ranges from dozens to hundreds of yuan. However, the charging levels of diviners with different qualifications vary greatly. Many Tarot videos on Douyin and Kuaishou have diviners randomly selecting users for free calculations, and some diviners only charge a few yuan. While for leading bloggers, such as "Longnv Tarot" on Bilibili with 1.522 million followers, the single - time consultation fee is as high as 1000 yuan.