On Nov. 30, the long-awaited 2022 “Spotify Wrapped” was sent out to users of the popular music streaming platform. The popular campaign tells users their top songs and artists, genres they explored that year and what moods their listening habits suited. Every year as it rolls out, large groups of social media users save their trend reports and post them to social media.
The anticipation for Spotify Wrapped to release increases each year, as people take to social media to discuss their opinions.
I’m sure you’ve seen the tweets and the memes. During the time of the release date each year, videos making fun of Spotify Wrapped posts pop up on our social media feeds. For many, it’s easy to make scornful comments in the direction of music fans, or those who are proud of their musical taste.
Though this mocking may seem harmless, I disagree with the trend. As the Spotify Wrapped season progresses, I want you to know that somebody cares about your music taste.
Sure, it’s a lighthearted trend towards the end of the year. But the reason why we post our Wrapped data means a lot more than just the pretty visual designs that come with the stories, or confirming the song we listened to 1,000 times this year is our most played.
Music is an integral piece of both our society and our identity. Even before streaming services and social media existed, it’s been a way to unite communities, cultures and individuals through the universal language of sound.
Music says a lot about someone’s interests and who they are as a person. When you share something like Spotify Wrapped with your social media followers you’re telling people your identity.
Something I love about Spotify Wrapped is that it creates a playlist of my top 100 songs each year. It acts as a time capsule to associate what I listen to with what I felt and experienced in that year of my life. This year, my data told me what genres of music fit my morning, afternoon and night, telling me a great deal about my moods during the day.
Sharing music on the internet, whether during Wrapped season or otherwise, lets the internet bond over their love for certain songs, artists and genres.
Sometimes sharing our Spotify Wrapped stories is a flex, especially if you’re in Taylor Swift’s top .05% of listeners, or your music taste is underground, so nobody knows the top five songs you played this year.
More than anything, sharing music gives us a sense of belonging, and of shared interests. Even when we try to deny it, people like to categorize themselves. It’s comforting. So sharing something like the fact that you played 20,000 minutes of Harry Styles this year doesn’t just get you a myriad of Instagram likes but lets your mutual followers know that you have something in common, which may have not been expected.
Discovering and sharing one’s music taste and listening habits offers people to not only learn more about themselves, but also about the others around them, and Spotify Wrapped serves as the perfect vessel to do so.
Whatever your reason to actively partake in the Spotify Wrapped season is, it will serve a beneficial role in your enjoyment of both listening to music, as well as scrolling on social media, something which is often not a positive experience.
So, ignore the haters and post your stories because there’s always a chance that you can create a new connection with someone, or discover something about yourself.
