Brandwatch Bulletin #147: The Strength of Superstitions

Feeling unlucky today?

13 January 2023

Three centuries ago, an urban legend started circulating. It was thought that it was unlucky to have 13 people sitting around a table at once. Centuries later, the Victorians developed this theory further. They decided that – as Fridays have historically been regarded as a day of penance – Friday the 13th was the unluckiest day of them all.

Now, decades later, we’re still wary. But do we have any reason to be? We dove into the world of superstitions to see if there really is something to be scared about.

Let’s get to it.

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Is Friday the 13th actually unlucky?

Friday the 13ths are unavoidable – they happen at least once a year. And on these days, Twitter users are more likely to report bad luck.

Analyzing mentions of bad luck on Twitter between 2021 and 2022, we can see a considerable uptick in self-reported unluckiness when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday.

Apart from that one anomaly where Twitter users were discussing a string of bad luck for Nigeria’s national football team in January 2022, tweeters are at their peak of unluckiness on Friday the 13th. However, this self-reporting is probably the result of the placebo effect in action.

In fact, Friday the 13th might actually be safer than any other day. According to the Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics, fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of a month falls on a Friday. And, statistically speaking, driving is also slightly safer on Friday the 13th – at least in the Netherlands. Dutch insurers reported that when the 13th fell on a Friday, traffic accidents fell from an average of 7,800 to a marginally lower 7,500.

Ironically, it seems that Friday the 13th is ‘luckier’ than any other regular Friday. This is likely because we’re preventatively, and perhaps unconsciously, more careful.

So, why are Twitter users reporting more bad luck? Perhaps if something unlucky happens to you on a Friday the 13th, you’re more likely to share that on social.

Let’s see how social media users feel about other common superstitions.

The scariest superstitions

We used Brandwatch Consumer Research to find people talking about different superstitions online. Using the sentiment analysis tool, we can discover which superstitions create more negative feelings than others.

Walking under a ladder has the highest percentage of posts which have a negative context, suggesting this is the one we see as the ‘worst’. It’s said that this fear of walking under ladders originated in Egypt. The belief that triangles were sacred meant that to pass through a triangle was a bad idea. 5000 years later, we’re still taking the long way around when faced with an upright ladder.

Despite these superstitions all bringing bad luck, there’s still a high percentage of posts with a positive sentiment. What’s causing this? Well, it seems we humans like making light of bad situations. There are many posts about people hoping they’ll be fine – despite breaking a mirror or stepping on a crack. We wish well to those folks.

Just walked under a ladder? Or seen a black cat? Don’t worry. There are plenty of things you can do to bring good luck. Here are the superstitions which people discuss with the most positivity.

The classic “fingers crossed” is a go-to and is discussed most positively of the superstitions we analyzed. In fact, it accounted for 80% of total mentions among the above categories. This and “knock on wood” have become common turns of phrase as a quick pick-me-up for good luck. They’re embedded in our language, so much that many might even forget the superstitious origins of these phrases.

Crossing your fingers dates back to Pagan times in Western Europe. It was thought that crossing your index finger with someone else’s would “concentrate the forces of good spirits.”

As we seldom see horseshoes nailed above the door these days (at least in our experience), that might explain why crossing your fingers developed into a reliable good luck charm for the masses.

Use today to your advantage

It turns out that our own superstitions and unconscious actions impact our luck more than we realize – especially today. Whether you commute by foot rather than drive to reduce the risk of an accident, or cross your fingers when taking a chance, you might be making yourself slightly luckier without realizing it.

Regardless of how you approach Friday 13th, we’d still advise taking the long way around a ladder – for safety reasons.

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See you next time,

The Brandwatch Bulletin team

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