Audio pinocchios: why some listeners are hacking Spotify Wrapped
As we brace ourselves for Spotify Wrapped 2024, many users are posting on social media that they’re rigging their year-end list by putting a certain song on repeat to avoid shame and embarrassment.
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As we brace ourselves for Spotify Wrapped 2024, many users are posting on social media that they’re rigging their year-end list by putting a certain song on repeat to avoid shame and embarrassment.
A user may intend to shy away from listening to Coldplay for example and wish to be perceived as a K-pop fan and therefore fall asleep with songs on repeat.
As we become ever more addicted to self-data, be it in apps recording how many hours of sleep we get or how many steps we walked, one milestone of the advent season is when we see which artists or songs dominate our listening habits on Spotify.
Our obsession with tracking self-data, like sleep hours or step counts, simply reflects how much we rely on numbers to define our lives.
imagine hating me, a girl who is simply in her room trying to change the trajectory of her spotify wrapped before it’s too late
undefined jen merritt!!! (@jennifermerr) November 25, 2024
This is no different when it comes to Spotify, where our digital selves fracture into curated personas. We put these versions of ourselves out there for better or worse, and as better or worse.
just realized spotify wrapped is coming soon... i have an amazing taste in music so i don't need last minute changes pic.twitter.com/ExuIFoiXto
undefined kati 🤍 #1 woodz stan (@ju0nyah) November 26, 2024
There’s the LinkedIn professional carefully crafting their brand, the TikTok star with a perfectly tailored aesthetic, the Instagram humble bragger posting subtle flexes, the self-improvement guru offering endless advice, and the anonymously empowered Redditor sharing unfiltered opinions.
So as FOMO (fear of missing out) and digital pressure is on the loose, some users could understandably not want to be seen as fans of Nickelback or Imagine Dragons, and therefore manipulate the data to appreciate something more dynamic like Kendrick Lamar.
Taken from another angle, perhaps this is a response to 'privacy anxiety,' with users trying to pull the strings on their own behaviour because they don’t actually want a year-end list or an advent calendar-style popup.
It seems to be one hell of a new sense of vanity, being afraid of revealing what you really listen to, that has gone way beyond visual airbrushed and photoshopped pictures and online avatars. A heightened sense of digital anxiety is taking over.
It's now highly ironic that some users aim to shunt Spotify's recommendations and become an 'audio Pinocchio,' crafting a musical identity that better fits their ideal self. This speaks to a deeper anxiety about how others perceive us in a data-driven world.
For some, it's about privacy. Maybe they've hammered Andrea Bocelli’s 'Time to Say Goodbye' on repeat during a tough time and would prefer this emotional moment to remain private. Next time, they might decide to play it on YouTube instead.
In addition, the peer pressures of FOMO and anxiety experienced by an entire generation may deserve some compassion, after all when we edit Wikipedia pages and use fake online names and airbrush our profile pictures, it’s an embellished prism of the truth anyway.