love letter to my scammer
and happy Libra szn to all ♎️⭐️
When I first started The Asian Astrologer on Instagram, I asked my boyfriend to make five duplicate accounts, each with slight variations on the username.
“Why?” he asked, confused.
“Because of the impersonators,” I asked, with a d’oh in my voice, as if it was obvious.
I’d been an IG astro girlie stan long enough to know about the open secret of the industry: it was awash with scammers. Impostors and impersonators, each with terrible grammar and a singular goal: to extort loyal followers of their hard-earned money through the trust an astrologer had built with her community.
Today, it finally happened for me. It felt like a f*cked up rite of passage of sorts; with concerned followers messaging me and seasoned astrologer friends jokingly quipping, “You made it!”:
The truth is, even though I’d prepared for it and did everything in my power to prevent it, it still absolutely broke me. 💔 I’m standing here now, a maelstrom of emotion swirling inside me — grief, sadness, anger, so much anger, and a tinge of relief — because I didn’t need to wait for the shoe to drop anymore. It’s happened.
Someone is impersonating my account.
This incident is coming on the heels of a massive internal shift for me, courtesy of the equinox portal. ♎️ For the uninitiated, Libra season marks the start of the Fall equinox (if you’re in the Northern hemisphere) and the Spring equinox (if you’re in the South). Equinox is a held breath, right before the seasons change, when light and dark are perfectly balanced in the sky. Astrologer Aliza Kelly describes it as a portal, transporting us from one state to another. I agree.
We have entered the portal now, my friends. ⭐️ And with eclipse season coming up in October, we are in for one heck of a ride.
But first, back to my scammer. Little do they know, I’ve been contemplating my relationship to Instagram and social media for a while now. This is the beauty of tracking your transits, star-friends: I was staring at my chart today, trying to work out why all of this — big epiphanies, existential crises, and now, this impersonation debacle — was happening RIGHT NOW, and I couldn’t help but spot one thing: