Every year during late November and early December, our Instagram stories are plagued with Spotify Wrapped posts of people you haven’t heard from since middle school or individuals who randomly log back in online to declare to the world that they are the top 0.01% of an artist no one has ever heard of. Spotify Wrapped used to be a social holiday, an annual ritual of showing off who has the more niche top five or who amongst your friend group is the true Swiftie. This holiday was where taste functioned as a digital currency, allowing those to market and brand themselves based off of their yearly listening habits. Now, it feels more of a passive-aggressive reminder about the songs you hyperfixated on during your March mental breakdown. As the algorithm becomes more transparent, and the idea of our digital identities continue to be more performative, Wrapped has seemed to have lost its cultural capital.
Spotify Wrapped first launched in 2016 as an end of the year summary that offered users information on their listening habits of the past year. From then on, they expanded every year to include artists, more detailed metrics and behavior of listeners, and then a cultural leap occurred in 2019. Artist Jewel Ham, then an intern for Spotify, created a concept of Spotify Wrapped through stories, which turned it from a data-driven report to an interactive social event of the year. For just a week in December, users are able to flaunt their niche taste and participate in the collective ritual of sharing online. It became more than just personal insight, but a tool for personal branding. But as the novelty of Spotify Wrapped has faded, what once was unique about the platform is predictable, performative, and feels diluted by the influence of algorithms and social exhaustion.
In the height of the pandemic, Spotify Wrapped functioned as an identity mirror, a reflection in a time of social isolation where people were allowed to be perceived in the way they wanted or at least what they curated for people to see. Whether it was songs tied to personal memories, devotion to top artists, or a niche genre on replay, these habits all signaled personality traits, social belonging, and cultural literacy. The pandemic exploded this function of social connection. As in-person interaction was limited, digital spaces became the main stage for self-expression. Suddenly, playlists became less personal and more of an exhibition of social alignment, mood, and taste when face-to-face interaction were absent. Wrapped allowed people at a time of social restriction to assert their own individuality as they became faced with it in isolation, but this mirror effect has cracked over time.
Wrapped no longer signals individuality, but signals an exhausting participation in a mindless digital ritual. What once was a playful insight into the headphones and speakers of others has become another task of curating specific identities for the sake of social media novelty and public consumption. I personally found shame in the fact that I didn’t have any cooler esoteric artists in my top five and felt pressure to change or lie about who was on there for the sake of social satisfaction. There is something about the contrast of this current era of the digital landscape where we crave originality but still feel this pressure to conform to what is culturally recognizable and aesthetically pleasing. Wrapped offers a glimpse into our private tastes, and we broadcast them to a digital forum where it is up for judgement and comparison. The exhaustion of this comes from the impossible balancing act of trying to conform to the relentless demand of performance all while trying to appear authentic. Music taste used to be a marker of cultural capital, but now that is no longer enough. In a world where social visibility is incredibly accessible, carving out a distinct and true identity that is not prized nor performative can prove to be difficult. As a result, Wrapped starts to feel hollow. It is stranded between the weight of its past significance and the ever shifting demands of digital identity. Music still matters, and always will, but Wrapped no longer carries weight in the online identity economy.
Regardless, the body is still warm, and Spotify Wrapped won’t go anywhere. What once felt intimate and empowering in the midst of social isolation and cultivation of digital identity when the world felt silent has become predictable. But there is irony in the fact that Wrapped tells us a lot more about ourselves than just music. It reveals we no longer believe in our taste as the foundation of our identity because we no longer curate our tastes at all.