Graphic courtesy of pixabay.com
Tae Hong
Opinions Columnist
‘Tis the season of Spotify Wrapped, where Spotify sends its users a summary of what they listened to in the past year.
At the end of the year, Spotify collects all the statistics of the artists, songs, genres, and podcasts each user listened to in the past year (data from January 1 – October 31). These details include minutes spent listening, top five artists and songs, and top genre. In addition, the information reports your audio “aura” (whatever that means) and auto-generates a personalized playlist. Spotify displays all of this information through a short slideshow in a story format in the app. The display has some interactive features too, like two truths and a lie, which is always fun.
Here is my Spotify Wrapped as an example:
“Spotify Wrapped is not accurate at all. There is no way I am [in the] top 0.5% of listeners of Keshi,” said Athena Cheung, bringing up the fact that sometimes the reports seem inaccurate.
The trend of posting Spotify results on stories, particularly Instagram stories, is an incredibly popular one. However, many people have voiced their opinion, stating that it’s annoying that so many people post something that other people might not care about.
While this is so, some have shown their support for sharing Spotify Wrapped, saying it’s interesting to see what people listen to. And honestly, the type of music someone listens to says a lot about them!
Spotify Wrapped is just another reason why Spotify is superior to Apple Music and other music platforms. It’s become a social media cultural phenomenon to share and spread different music tastes that you might not have picked up on before.
Junior Isabel Dantas said, “I like that Spotify wrapped is like a little window into someone. The type of music someone listens to can tell you a lot about a person. It’s fun seeing what everyone likes, and sometimes people can surprise you.”
Junior Daniel Chan is pretty neutral: “I think it is cool to see what people listen to — I mean that’s what social media is for, right?” he said.
Junior Susanna Swidey disagrees, saying, “I think people posting their Spotify Wrapped is really annoying, and usually I lose respect for people when I see their music taste. Also, I feel it is weird to post it. I don’t understand the need to.”
“I think it’s fun to see people’s Spotify’s, but sometimes it is embarrassing for some people,” said Maya Mohanti, adding to Swidey’s comment that sometimes people’s music taste might not be appealing to everyone.
Even so, the way we discover music has evolved drastically; our parents had to discover new music by going to the record store or by word of mouth, and we are really blessed to have millions of works of art at our fingertips as well as the ability to share it with hundreds of people. So I say go share your Spotify Wrapped results! I know that I will appreciate all the new music to find.
