There’s now an app that lets you pick stocks based on your astrological sign
0Reported today in The Verge.
There’s now an app that lets you pick stocks based on your astrological sign
Astrology is real, and it’s strong and it’s our friend. As in Morrowind, the stars you were born under govern every aspect of your life. And now you can apply those celestial insights to that most dignified form of Russian roulette: stock picking!
Bull and Moon is an app from the professional pranksters behind MSCHF — yes, it’s stylized like a mid-aughts synth band, and yes, it does say “mischief,” and yes, it really is a creative agency — and it’s their latest effort to Zardulu the good, unsuspecting people of the world.
The app takes design cues from Co—Star and The Pattern; it’s blue and gold, with the cool minimalist lines that denote au courant taste. It’s very simple to use: after you download Bull and Moon, all you do is input your first name, your date of birth, and your investing experience, and the app will give you personalized stocks.
That simplicity feels like it’s hiding a lot of data. It doesn’t show your chart, or when the companies were founded; it also doesn’t seem to take into account the time of your birth, which devotees view as an important part of an accurate astrological chart. What is visible, though, is a historical breakdown of a company’s stock price.
Bull and Moon isn’t the first foray MSCHF has had into making, hm, mischief online. Previous “drops” (their term) have included Jesus Shoes (Nike Air Maxes with holy water from the River Jordan in the soles); The Word of the Day Is (a Slack game where you could win real money that was eventually banned by Slack); Netflix Hangouts (which allow you to watch Netflix at work by making it look like you’re on a call); and Times Newer Roman (a font that looks like Times New Roman but is 5-10 percent bigger).
Each project feels like a playful take on modernity’s increasingly alienating trends; there’s nothing like seeing the astrology boom, for example, taken to its logical endpoint, which is to say being captured entirely by capitalism. Jesus Shoes are hypebeast culture incarnate — there’s nothing more #rare than walking on water. Making Netflix look like work is just the newest evolution of “boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, that’s why I shit on company time.”
These pranks are clever bits of culture-jamming, poking fun at the weird trends that seem to arise every other week. The best part about MSCHF, though, is their regularity: each drop is scheduled in advance, and they’ve been planned out every 2nd and 4th Tuesday through September 28, 2021. So get ready for the next one.