It would have made more sense for me to present this topic in video form on my YouTube channel, but I’ve been a bit under the weather with the flu, so my voice is scratchy, my nose is stuffed, and I don’t feel like putting on makeup. A blog post will have to suffice.

Tarot Tubers of Reference

I follow Mixtress Rae on YouTube, which is how I saw her video, “Do I have a shopping addiction or am I just poor? Income equality in the tarot world.” My pathway of clicks must’ve alerted The Algorithm to feed me Nightsong Tarot‘s “Money, Consumerism and Tarottube, VR to MixtressRae” and I am glad for it! I’m also subscribed to MasculineIntuitionReadings, so I caught the replay of “Witchin’ & Bitchin’ about consumerism and entitlement in [the] tarot community.” Sorsha Soaring also makes great points in “Double Standards in ‘Community’ – Tarot Tube.”

You’ll have to watch these videos first because what they have to say is what I’m referencing throughout this write-up. By the way I hope you’ll like and subscribe to them all as I have. ❤

UPDATE: I’d also like to amplify these important voices to the conversation: “An Update and Some Thoughts on Tarot Consumerism” via Elisa’s Magickal Space; “VR to Mixtress Rae & Tarot Tube: Reacting vs. Responding” via Highly Sensitive Tarot; Sylvain’s Deadly Sins responds to both Mixtress Rae and this blog post here, “Goblins & Gardens, Trolls & Tolls (a VR)“; and “Income Inequality VR to Mixtress Rae” via Faith of Cardinal Spirit Readings.

Global Gaps of Economic Inequality Widening

First, before addressing community, let’s zoom out for a more macroscopic global view. Since 2020 the wealth inequality gap across the globe has been widening at an alarming rate. Economic injustice has become both an educational and public health crisis, which then further widens that socioeconomic gap.

Inflation has at once simultaneously crippled some families to the point where they’ve had to fundamentally reevaluate how they spend on groceries while at the same time handsomely enriching other families to the point where they’re upgrading their mansions, taking more vacations to Fiji and St. Barthelemy, and lining their closets with Hermes.

Within my social circle I’ve personally witnessed both.

So this is current day reality. Geopolitical events are causing layoffs that are catastrophic to the economic power on one end of the class spectrum while deepening pockets at the other end. In 2020 and 2021, a segment of people lost their life savings at the same time that a segment of people quadrupled their life savings.

All’s I’m saying is I’d be shocked if a revolution wasn’t in our horizons, ETA 5 years. Shrug. Me, psychic? Nah. Just someone who’s read a history book or two.

The present voicing of observed socioeconomic inequality in the tarot community is a segmented view of what’s happening globally.

The Economic Inequality of Tarot Tube

Considering how for so long, tarot and fortune-telling have been associated with the lower and working classes, there certainly has been a gentrification of tarot. People are made to feel like they must work with an indie deck to be taken seriously, and the price points of indies are triple what you find in mass market. Goop.com sells “luxury brand” $95 oracle decks next to $80 “Spiritus” candles while also advertising $111 tarot readings for pregnancy and how you can have a foolproof summer with that “chic touch of tarot mystery.”

In Tarot Tube, there’s no arguing that deck hauls, unboxings, and a minimum weekly upload of fresh new deck reviews is what gains you the subscribers and the view count.

So if you don’t have the expendable income for luxury items (and yes, that’s what they are) like the latest trending tarot or oracle deck, then you’ll be hard-pressed to keep up on Tarot Tube.

Since I don’t know if the person wants to be named, even though the videos are public, I won’t name names– but recently I watched a goodbye video by someone who noted how they just sold their entire deck collection except for a handful because they need to be saving up for retirement and, because they won’t be buying or collecting decks anymore, is going to be closing down that Tarot Tube channel. Because it was their observation that unless you’re doing weekly unboxings, haul videos, and deck reviews, then your channel subscriptions and viewcount would dwindle.

“Tarot is aimed more and more toward people of a higher income and it just doesn’t feel fair,” noted one commenter.

“It’s unfortunate and messed up how things are for the little guy financially these days and we have to adapt,” remarked another.

Who else notices that the more prominent Tarot Tubers all seem to have more disposable income for tarot?

And then, insult to injury, it’s the ones who can most afford to buy their own decks that get the most free decks through PR. The tiers of inequality never end.

The Influencer vs. A Reviewer

Tarot Tube, like many other niche communities on social media, seems to have followed the same trajectory the YouTube beauty community took– in the early 2000s, makeup videos were more about tutorials based on what you’ve already got, but once society realized this industry was a cash cow, it became a community of videos about products, collections, and hauls. And the occupational influencer was born. In the same way every beauty guru, despite having no background in chemistry, has launched their own line of cosmetics, Tarot Tubers launch their own tarot and oracle decks.

One of the key topics talked about was the role of being a tarot influencer. What is an influencer, and how do we distinguish that from a reviewer?

Admittedly, I’ve had a rough time myself trying to discern between the two. The standards of disclosure we impose on an influencer– and for good reason– are different from the standards of disclosure we used to impose on reviewers.

An influencer is someone who is endorsing a product, who contracts with companies, such as deck publishers, be that traditional publishers or indie deck creators, to in effect market their decks via product placement. The influencer is purportedly someone with an expert level of knowledge in the subject area or possesses social capital to an extent whereby the target market trusts and relies upon their judgments– their endorsements. The content can often be framed as a form of testimonial advertising.

To my understanding, a reviewer– and here I’m thinking in terms of, say, those who write book reviews, or those who’d write tarot and oracle deck reviews on tarot publications back in the day– is someone who uses the product, then writes up a positive and/or negative assessment of that product based on a set of metrics.

In certain contexts, it’s a well-known established fact that the reviewer is receiving the products (books or decks) for free so that they might potentially write up a review about that product. Now, they are most certainly not paid for writing the reviews and in no way additionally compensated. But that initial review copy of the product is free, and the audience understood that.

I used to write book reviews for the established Book Review section of a literary journal. I’d get mountains of free review copies of upcoming book releases sent to me. We didn’t review every book we received, of course. As the book review editor, I’d go through those mountains of free books and pick and choose what I wanted to read/review. In my book reviews, I never made the extra mention, oh, by the way, I got this book for free, or this is a free review copy. It was a given. It was presumed the reader knew that already.

Are reviews objective? Heck no. The very process of choosing which book out of that mountain I wanted to review was undeniably prejudicial. The reason might be a title, author, or subject matter I wanted to platform and support. Or the book review might be used as a vehicle for greater social commentary and critique. Or something as mundane as the editor-in-chief telling me we need to publish a book review covering X subject, so I go through the mountain to find a book on X subject to review.

I’ve always made the presumption that a bona fide influencer on social media is someone taking financial compensation for endorsing a product. If you are not taking financial compensation for endorsing the product and you are sincerely sharing what you like, are you a bona fide influencer? I don’t know anymore. I think the lines of definition are blurry.

Personally, I don’t identify as an influencer because I don’t do contracted for endorsements. I get sent free decks (and books) but I decide yay or nay to review, when to review, and no one regulates what I say about the decks. No one tells me I must write a review and certainly not what to say. And I do it freely, without compensation other than receiving the deck for free. I pick and choose from the review decks I receive, based on what I think my readership would be most interested in. Or the decks that most interest me.

So I’m a deck reviewer. Not an influencer. I also write book reviews.

I do not and never take any financial compensation for endorsements. Reviews, when I decide to write them, are done so freely and without any oversight from publishers or the deck creators. I choose the decks I want to review from the mountain of decks and place it on my reading desk. Then I work with it over some time, test driving the deck anywhere between weeks and months, before writing up the review.

Disclosure of Prices in Deck Reviews and Walk-Throughs

An interesting issue raised for discussion is whether deck reviews or Tarot Tube videos on walk-throughs and deck first impressions need to disclose the cost of the deck.

One opinion is that the only ethical thing to do is transparent disclosure of cost, both how much the Tarot Tuber paid for the deck, be that on discount or it came free with PR, and how much it actually retails for the average buyer.

Previously, my opinion was that anyone can easily look up the cost of the deck by going to the creator’s website, Etsy page, or on Amazon. That’s the last thing I would need to redundantly regurgitate– I thought. If a deck is an outlier in terms of pricing, as in being extremely expensive or extremely cheap compared to market rates, I might try to euphemistically make mention of that, but generally no, I don’t mention cost in my reviews.

Previously I came from the position that it’s bad form to talk about money and pricing. That’s to be done discretely. But the other side’s perspective advocating price disclosure is compelling.

Capitalism and Consumerism on Tarot Tube

There is a consistent and recurring grumbling in the tarot community that Tarot Tube content is feeling more and more like infomercials. And speaking only for myself, that’s been my grumbling, too.

But here’s where the “tarot community,” accounted for as a collective, is hypocritical in what it says vs. what it does, how it behaves.

We say we want more substantive content and we don’t like the infomercial nature of first impressions, deck unboxings, and hauls.

Except which type of Tarot Tube video garners the most views? And not just by a little, but often triple the view count? That’s right– first impressions, deck unboxings, and hauls.

The YouTubers who thrive on Tarot Tube are the ones who can upload a new deck unboxing or impressive deck hauls on a regular basis.

And that takes money. And that brings us back to the issue of classism.

We say we want to see deep-dive studies into single decks so that we’re not subservient to capitalism and consumerism.

Except the Tarot Tubers making the deep-dive video series into a single deck over long lengths of time do not generate the view count that would make the effort that it takes to create those series worth the creator’s time.

We say we want educational tarot content. Because that teaches us. Except that takes an enormous amount of free labor and thought processing of the content creator and the “reward” is abysmal, disappointing view count.

We say we want opinion and perspectives content. Because that provokes us. Except the hate and trolling you will get in response is horribly damaging to your mental health. Not to mention it’ll only generate high view count if you’re controversial.

Whereas fluffy deck hauls and unboxings where we ooh and ah are the most rewarding for a content creator to upload. It doesn’t take as much effort and it’s what people want anyway.

So I think before we criticize, we need to take a hard look at ourselves first, and by “ourselves” I mean as a collective, not as you the individual. Whatever your interests might be as an individual, as a collective audience consuming Tarot Tube content, we do prefer and reward the razzle dazzle bombardment of new and shiny deck unboxings, hauls, and deck collection showcases.

As a collective consuming public, we find something so gratifying in viewing imagery of surplus. So an Instagram #deckhaul or #bookhaul photo of a load of products (see, for example, this photo of a pile of books garnering just shy of 1,000 likes vs. this photo of one book garnering just a bit over 100 likes, and both photos posted within two weeks of each other) will gain you more popularity.

Any time you offer up visuals of materialistic abundance and surplus, that content does well. People love consuming deck hauls and showcases of collections. And that’s like the pinnacle of capitalism and consumerism.

Consumerism is Driven by Envy

Everyone experiences envy. It’s one of the less attractive qualities of humanity.

You think you’re okay with your status quo when you haven’t yet seen just how good some people have it. And then you see the lifestyle of people at arm’s length of your orbit, the little ways they appear to be better than you, and that green-eyed monster festers.

You’re going to think to yourself, gee, that person doesn’t work harder than me, isn’t better than me. I don’t deserve any less than what they’ve got. Why and how is it that they can have all that and I can barely manage this?

I know it’s not super helpful to remember that everyone experiences jealousy. But it’s a fact. That person you’re jealous of is seeing somebody else and pouting about how they themselves aren’t enriched enough, playing that unhealthy comparison game. “Keeping up with the Joneses” is the very seed of capitalism and consumerism.

How this can play out in our community of tarot professionals is watching an author you think isn’t a better writer, is in no way a more spiritual practitioner than you and yet they’re getting all the clout while you can barely manage to convince people to subscribe to your free newsletter to get free content written by you. All the traditional publishers are falling over themselves clamoring to offer publication to so-and-so for their deck art, while you can beg all you want but no one will pay any attention to you. Or so-and-so’s indie deck is the darling of Tarot Tube and there are dozens upon dozens of videos being made praising that effing deck to the moon and back, and your deck quality is pretty similar if you may say so, but no one seems to care. Why did so-and-so’s channel take off, why is their name on all the PR lists, why do they get sent so much free stuff? That person was just a marketing exec who didn’t even know tarot existed until yesterday, joined Tarot Tube for shits, and now has 100K subscribers while you’ve been here since 2010 and still only have 1K. You grit your teeth. “They’re so overrated,” you tell yourself… and maybe even angrily type into your keyboard and post anonymously in tarot forums.

It’s tempting to go just a little bit overboard beyond our financial comfort zone to just try, for a moment, to experience what others seem to enjoy. You deserve it, you tell yourself. (And you do.) Maybe if you can enjoy that feeling of experiencing abundance, the satisfaction of having stuff, that ugly inner feeling of jealousy will go away.

When you yourself observe someone else doing that, try to remember that it isn’t irresponsibility or recklessness. It’s so much deeper than that. It’s the first tactic we think of when we’re trying to battle and defeat that green-eyed monster. Rationally we know that it’s not an effective tactic, but since when were humans rational?

Also, I don’t think anyone in the tarot community intentionally perpetuates consumerism. Not even the publishing houses–hear me out. If you get to know the editors who run these houses, they’re genuinely passionate about our community, about cartomancy, alternative spirituality, and sure, they care about the bottom line but only because they need to keep the lights on at the office so they can continue to champion our community, cartomancy, and alternative spirituality, these intangibles that are their raison d’etre.

I wonder if what’s perpetuating consumerism in the sphere of Tarot Tube is ourselves, our inner selves. So if we really want to tackle capitalism and consumerism, at least to the extent it affects our small pond that is the tarot community, then maybe we need to strategize how we can more effectively tackle feelings of envy.

Criticizing an Indie Deck Creator’s Pricing

I did want to offer some context to the critique of deck creators pricing their indie decks “too high.” Let’s take as an example an indie deck selling for $95 on Etsy. The referenced videos and resulting comments sections were decrying that $95 for an indie deck was unconscionable.

Tarot and oracle art are not spontaneously birthed. So let’s assume the average ballpark of 2 years for completion of the deck art. You’re not paid a penny during those 2 years you’re creating the artwork and writing the guidebook.

I’ve previously posted about the actual production costs of a deck and fully disclosed numbers here, “What Does it Cost to Self-Publish a Tarot Deck?” with a line by line item breakdown and here, “Show me the Numbers: Self-Publishing vs. Traditional Publishing of a Tarot or Oracle Deck,” a video chat on the subject.

By the way, those are figures from 2018, prior to the recent global inflation. Let’s now update those 2018 tables with 2023 values. I’d know, since I just placed my production order for the second print run of SKT: Revelation. Note the figures highlighted in yellow and their increase compared to the 2018 values.

Oops, I forgot to update some of the text in the expense description rows (they’re from 2018). So row 10, 20% contingency is out of $25,060, not $19,650, which is the outdated 2018 figure. But even that shows you the discrepancy between 2018 costs and 2023. What would have costed $19K in 2018 now costs $25K in 2023. Freight and shipping costs have also gone up significantly between 2018 and 2023. I’ll tell you that a few months ago when J and I got the freight quote I nearly fell out of my chair.

With the above itemized accounting, for every 1,000 decks sold, how much does an indie deck creator earn?

With regard to line item #24, for this hypothetical, let’s assume for ease of calculation that this deck is your only source of income, so we’re taxing just the $24,940 figure. Per US federal, for a single filer in 2022, that’s a fixed tax of $1,027.50 + 12% of the amt. earned over $10,275.

A very, very critical caveat: Most indie deck creators you know the names of, who you love and who you think are big (as in big for our niche community) are not even selling out 500 per year. They are not printing runs of 500. Some of these artists– names you’d most certainly recognize and assume were rolling in the dough– are only ordering print runs of between 100 and 300. At that order quantity, their price per deck is not $6.50… it’s closer to a range between $15 and $30 per unit. That explains the retail price range you see among indies.

Being able to order a print run of 1,000 decks and sell them all in one year to earn out that $22,000 is considered fantastic for an indie deck creator. Less than 10% of indie deck creators are in the 1,000 range. The majority are in the 500 print run range.

But wait, there’s more. Remember the previous estimated two years of working on the artwork and writing the guidebook that went totally unpaid?

So this first year earning of $22K is supposed to offset and thus cover three years of earnings, i.e., the last two years that the artist went unpaid while working on the deck art plus the current year of packing, shipping, customer service labor for selling the decks.

That means at least for those first 3 years, the average income earned for this creative labor was about $7,300 per year. For context, the 2023 US poverty line is $14,580 per year.

And you know what these figures have not included, because I didn’t go that route? Kickstarter and Etsy fees. Per my understanding, if an indie deck creator is selling their decks on Etsy, it’s an additional 6.5% of the total sales price knocked off their earnings.

Now, the videos in question, and what stirred up this controversy was a deck being sold on Etsy for $95, and that being criticized as unconscionable.

Let’s play an educated guessing game. Assuming the same overhead costs as the tables you’ve seen before, now let’s set the unit price at $95 instead of $65. For ease of calculation I’m also going to make the assumption of CA sales tax and Single Filer for estimated federal income taxation. (Oh, and Etsy also charges a listing fee. Since it’s under $1, we’ll ignore that for now.)

Once again, making the assumption that this is the only source of income, at $48K, this is a different taxable income bracket. Still assuming Single Filer for ease of calculation, we’re looking at $4,807.50 plus 22% of income earned over $41,775.

Assuming the indie deck creator can actually sell out of inventory of that $95 tarot deck in one calendar year, they’ve earned about $42,000 for their efforts. The average annual pay in America in 2023 is $58,563.

So if we’re pissed at the artist charging $95 for their work product, then I hope for consistency we’re also pissed at every office manager in this country, electricians, plumbers, truck drivers, schoolteachers, and nurses.

We talk about valuing our artists and creators, and making sure they earn a living wage…

And again, don’t forget that Year 1 of earnings needs to offset three years, approximately, assuming the average artist takes 2 years to complete the deck.

And this is a best case scenario for the indie deck artist. For most indie deck creators, selling 500 per year is the more realistic value. Managing to sell 1,000 per year is considered phenomenal.

And if you’re phenomenal, why shouldn’t you be rewarded accordingly? Why are you being asked to suffer economically? If you’ve got the kind of deck that people are head over heels in love with and will happily pay $95 for, why… please explain why that artist should charge less? We think it’s “reasonable” when the Big Law attorney charges $1,500 an hour without having given any new insights whatsoever, just regurgitating what you already knew or could have googled yourself, but here we are dragging a deck artist for trying to earn a living wage?

Assuming there are little mouths to feed, bills to pay, and college education funds to contribute to, no one is winning here. No one is getting rich creating tarot decks.

Like instead of seeing who the real perpetrator is and going after the establishment, community members who should be showing a united front are squabbling amongst themselves.

And if you think to argue “Well they shouldn’t be banking on deck sales to earn a living, they should pursue a different career track if money is their concern,” oh my, you know how close that sounds to the argument, “If minimum wage isn’t a living wage, then just go find a job that pays more”?

Let’s also talk about the physical labor that goes in to fulfilling deck orders. James and I have this joke where we call it “crabbing season,” inspired by that TV show America’s Deadliest Catch and seasonal workers. Once the shipment of decks arrives at our front door from the manufacturer, our “crabbing season” begins.

For the next fiscal quarter, the endeavor is 24/7. There are no weekends, there are no labor code compliant breaks. It takes both of us to fold every packing box, cut to size strips of bubble wrap, prepare the decks, package the decks, print mailing labels, field the email inbox, field customer service communications, wait in line at the post office, fill out the forms one by one for each and every individual international order, look up international shipping codes, stop everything we’re doing to help retrace lost packages, listen to elevator music on hold for an hour while trying to file insurance claims with the post office for lost packages, realize we didn’t buy enough bubble wrap and make a run for Office Depot last minute to buy extra bubble wrap or else our next wave of deliveries won’t go out in time… all while requiring constant precision focus on accounting so you are responsibly managing the incoming funds and payment transactions.

For the second print run of SKT: Revelation, tensions ran high between the hubby James and me over pricing.

All prices you see for the SKT are set by James, because he’s a business and numbers guy. I’m the artist who would, if I could, give away everything for free.

Here’s the thing. To package, ship out, deliver, and oversee customer communications for the print run of a self-published deck, it’s a heavy lift. It takes a substantial and a severe physical and mental toll on you.

James said that, given the calculation of earnings, if we didn’t sell our decks at $65 plus shipping, then simply put, he couldn’t do it. It made no cost-benefit sense to him to put in the amount of labor, wear the number of hats, and suffer the toll it would take to do something like self-publish an indie deck unless he was compensated for it — at the minimum — at the values we had finally agreed upon. That was his minimum.

So either (A) we set our prices at those prices, or (B) there is no SKT deck for sale. Full stop.

Now, that’s a very individual position. That was James’s position, and he was the guy and only guy I can rely on to help me package and ship my decks, and oversee admin. That was the pricing James-the-Labor-Union negotiated against Benebell Corp. =)

Other deck creators and artists might stand at a different position. They have different lifestyles, different life priorities, financial needs, different everything. You can’t take the circumstances of one creator or proprietor and assume it upon every creator and proprietor in our community.

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned the irony of preferring deck art painted by hand in traditional media, which will almost never take “2 years” and more like 10 years, so now we’re expecting the artist to work for free for 10 years, or divide that first year income from sales over the course of 10 years, which really does translate into peanuts.

Before we so publicly air our grievances against certain deck creators and the pricing of their decks, can we consider every side, every perspective, and try to sympathize with what it’s like to be an indie deck creator?

As for soliciting an indie deck creator for a discount, I’m sure the perspectives will vary from creator to creator. And it’s clear that some deck creators are magnanimous and will extend a 50% discount if and when you ask, etc. Here’s another perspective: If I struggled to keep my retail price as low as tenably possible already, and you still say to me, “Yeah, but can I have it for $20?”, rightly or wrongly, what I hear is, “Your artwork and labor is only worth $20.” Rightly or wrongly, I feel hurt. You’ve wounded my pride. And it’s going to take me a beat to process your perspective and talk myself out of feeling insulted.

Why are Deck Reviews So Fluffy Now?

Underscoring the sentiment that Tarot Tube is like infomercials now, there’s a majority consensus that deck reviews more than ever are feeling too positive, too fluffy, like there isn’t a single negative thing to say about any deck.

I can’t speak for every deck reviewer. I’ll only share my own perspective as a reviewer who has been doing this since 2012.

Let’s say some top model in a glossy mag is wearing some dress. You can say something as harsh as, “Damn she looks really ugly in that dress.” Now let’s say your closest bestest friend ever, who has a gentle sensitive soul, puts on the same exact dress and asks you, “How do I look?” If we’re being objective, using normalized beauty standards, obviously the top model wearing the dress looks way better and you already called her ugly. What the hell are you going to say about your friend.

You’re going to say, “You look fantastic!” And I’m not even sure you’re lying. Because you’re not judging your friend by the same metrics you’re judging a top model you have no personal relations with. If you are truly a good friend, your honesty will come in the form of merciful constructive criticism. “Maybe atomic orange isn’t your color, and let’s see about finding you a more flattering cut…”

Now what if your closest bestest friend ever, with that gentle sensitive soul, made and designed that atomic orange dress and gifted it to you and then asked, “So… whaddya think? Try it on!”

Or, back to that top model. Let’s say you get to meet her in person and now both of you are sitting face to face, one on one, at a table over coffee. She smiles at you. She turns out to be a super nice person. Can you say to her face what you said behind her back? Can you say, making eye contact, “Damn you look really ugly in that dress”?

Or you published a review that called her ugly and now you’re meeting her in person, shaking her hand, and gosh darn it she’s the sweetest person ever. How rotten, honestly speaking, do you feel inside for having called her ugly? After you two become good friends, how are you going to feel inside knowing she read your public comment calling her ugly?

The tarot community, at least the one I’m familiar with, is small. It’s very small. We all know each other, or know of each other, or that creator is very close friends with one of our tarot close friends.

I do always include a disclosure in my review when I’m friends with the creator. But even if I’m not, at some point I am going to meet the people whose decks I’m reviewing or at least that probability is high. So yeah, I’m going to be diplomatic. Does that make me a liar? The judgment is up to you. I’ve learned, the hard way, that you had better err on the side of kindness. You don’t know the whole story and you’re passing negative, harsh judgment before knowing the whole story.

I have read in a few comments sections a gripe about my reviews, and how once upon a time I “wasn’t afraid to be honest” and would negatively criticize decks, but now all my deck reviews are fluffy and nice.

First thing to get out of the way– why do we automatically assume that positive praise is lying while negative, harsh criticism is “just being honest”? Playing armchair psychologist here, there’s some level of schadenfreude going on there. I’m not sure how I feel about the whole notion of if I say negative things then I’m truthful, but if I say only positive things then I’m being fake.

Second, I can and will always be able to immediately cite specific deck reviews from my early days that I regret. You might even say I’m haunted by them. They were “objective” if you can even call it that, where I didn’t know the creator at the time of writing, didn’t have any relations with the publisher, and I purchased the deck with my own hard-earned money. And I made unfair negative comments in certain reviews.

Later I would meet the creator whose deck I dragged through the mud, or I’d learn behind-the-scenes insights that would have totally changed my perspective. Those experiences made me feel awful. And I learned my lesson.

I now try to be very thoughtful about what I write. To me, there is great spiritual wisdom attained when you are able to see the beauty, the good, and the value in everything.

Even funnier yet is that when I have eviscerated a deck in the course of my review, on some martyr guise that I’m being objective and honest, in retrospect I realize just how unfairly biased I was. When you hate something, dislike this, didn’t resonate with that, that’s your very, very narrowly-tailored individualized subjective point of view. You’re imposing your values on everyone. If the deck art is not to your aesthetic, then it’s “bad”? And only if it’s aligned with your aesthetic is it “good”? I mean gosh. Art is so subjective. Interpretation of tarot symbolism is subjective. I don’t even know how one can go about being “objective” in a tarot deck review.

Some of my earliest deck reviews were unfairly negative, written with that signature flippant tone that always ends up getting me in trouble, back before I had any behind-the-scenes insights into the world of tarot. And in retrospect, I regret a lot of them. What I thought was “honesty” was in fact “limited perspective.”

To say that deck reviewers are staying positive only because they want to continue receiving free decks or to remain in a publisher’s good graces isn’t the whole story.

Maybe it’s genuine empathy for what indie artists have to go through, and their song of praise is for the purpose of platforming that indie artist and thus promoting the prosperity of art.

Consumerism Sustains the Arts (and Indie Artists)

Renaissance Europe was sustained by trade and manufacturing, and the result was the prosperity of arts and culture. It was the wealthiest city-states who benefited from the greatest concentration of artistic geniuses. The Song Dynasty of Imperial China was a Golden Age along with the Tang, when artistic achievements thrived. It was also when the economy was most capitalistic, as we understand market systems.

Socialism presents an ideal, utopian societal state, but make no mistake, the first casualty is the arts, and the first aspect of civilization to get shackled is the previously unfettered creativity of the artist.

There is a dark side to consumerism, for sure, but consumerism is what feeds artists. (Unless you’re okay with implementing state-sponsored art. Historically, that doesn’t usually fare well for artists.)

Traditionally published decks involve a gatekeeper, one who is typically risk-averse, whereas with indie decks, artists can choose to take creative risks, and see whether the market will reward or ignore them for it. It’s pure-form democracy.

And so with that context, we see that Tarot Tube unboxings, first impressions, deck hauls, and deck reviews are what sustain artists and occultists so that they can continue to advance the bounds of their skills. Do away with these essential contributions to the tarot community and you do away with the most important access to the public that indie artists have. A deck creator’s ability to earn back the costs they sank into creating their decks is reliant on those deck unboxings, first impressions, hauls, and reviews.

Do away with consumerism in tarot and you will stifle creativity.

What are your thoughts?

Griping about the over-commercialization of tarot isn’t new. I mean heck, that’s what got Etteilla in hot water with “serious occultists” like Levi and Waite.

What might be new is the scale at which this is now happening. Digital art tools enabling a tarot or oracle deck to be produced at a faster rate catapulted this increasing scale. And now with AI art, it’s going to magnify.

At least when tarot was evil no one outside pagan circles touched it. Now it’s “merch” and every movie franchise, TV series, and YA novel has a tarot or oracle deck you can buy.

Can and should we be policing what is– like it or not– a free market? Do we just let everybody be, do what you wanna do and see if the marketplace will support that? Or do we have a social responsibility to rectify economic and class inequality in our community?

Your opinion and perspective matters. I do hope you will share it.

More Reading:

• Tarot Deck Collecting and Consumerism: My Thoughts (2022 Sep. 2), some of my rambling thoughts on deck collecting, how I became a deck collector, and commodification of spiritual practice
• The Actual Cost of Self-Publishing a Tarot Deck (2018 Nov. 26), a follow-up to “What Does it Cost to Self-Publish a Tarot Deck,” which was written before completion of SKT I, now updated with actual accounting of all costs for SKT I
• The Intangible Cost of Self-Publishing a Tarot Deck (2018 Dec. 5), companion blog piece to “What Does it Cost to Self-Publish a Tarot Deck” addressing the intangibles from risk-bearing, dealing with hate, customer service nightmares, opportunity cost, and burn-out
• Behind the Scenes of the ‘Glamorous’ Deck Creator (2018 Nov. 4), photo essay and commentary on the journey of self-publishing your own tarot deck
• Reflecting on My SKT Tarot Art [and Deck Production] Journey (2021 Dec. 19), a very long reflection piece, with lots of photos, chronicling both my art and first-time indie deck creator journey to producing the SKT
• My Self-Taught Art Journey (2021 Mar. 5), chronicling my art study progress to evolve from the hand-drawn line work of SKT First to the full-color hybrid analog-digital compositions in SKT Revelation
  • Hopefully this conveys what it takes to develop tarot deck art
  • We justify paying the exorbitant hourly rates to doctors, lawyers, and financial analysts by pointing out the education involved, but what about the education involved to become an artist?
• Download My Art Study Journal – Free pdf download of scans from my art study notebook. This begins to show the scope of design theory considerations that go into creating tarot deck art