THE RISING POPULARITY OF TAROT CARDS IN THE DIGITIZED WORLD: TRUST AND COMMERCIALIZATION

Abstract

This project is focused on investigating the rising popularity of Tarot cards that transformed from simple playing cards to the ones used for divination. The research implies studying Tarot in three main aspects: digitalization of spirituality, its commercialization and trustworthiness to find out how digitization of spirituality and its commercialization affect the popularity of Tarot cards and trustworthiness. Methodology includes qualitative interviews with Tarot readers and clients, including former Tarot readers, Tarot content creators, Tarot content consumers. Findings of the research reveals possible reasons of Tarot's rising popularity, particularly spread of content in TikTok, supply-demand scheme and Tarot being interesting in its nature. Commercialization and digitalization are found to be important factors that led to Tarot spreading online and gaining its popularity.