Unwrapping your Spotify is a national holiday

Spotify Wrapped and the joy and horror of exposing your taste on the social internet

People have been talking about it for months—Spotify Wrapped is coming. Are you listening to your favorite artist enough? Are you listening to “cool” tracks to cover your “uncool” favorites or guilty pleasure listens? Are you afraid of what your Wrapped will reveal about your inner world? Have you been gearing up with free Receiptify (sharing your most-listened to tracks of the month) or faux-festival lineup games in the meantime? Don’t worry, everybody’s watching, but nobody really cares.

It’s November 30, 2022, and I got a text a little after I woke up on this warm Wednesday saying that Spotify Wrapped is up and I’d better get to sharing. Soon enough it’s trending on Twitter and I’m clicking through the slides that reveal what I already knew: I listened to a fair bit of music this year (less than last year, more than some years), and the songs I had on repeat at various points throughout the year are in my top 101 songs.

I love the songs and artists that are in my top five. I’d listen to them everyday, and I more or less do. Yet, I hesitate before sharing on social media. Why?

Sharing interests is how we open up with those we know and make connections with those we don’t. What we like, what we spend our time doing, what music makes the soundtrack of our lives, is a huge part of who we are and how we see the world—and how the world sees us. Spotify Wrapped feels like a statement about ourselves and who we’ve been for the past year. It reveals an inner world we disappear into with headphones. That’s the opposite of social media.

I am making a lot of generalizations here, and I know that not everyone has an issue with being vulnerable or owning their opinions. But I know a lot of people hesitate before sharing something personal or identifying. It doesn’t help that a great deal of internet humor is geared toward making fun of others or ourselves. Even more than that, Spotify Wrapped taps into people’s desires to share and to be seen. You don’t even have to do any work. The graphics are premade and ready to upload to your Instagram story or to discuss on TikTok or to self-roast on Twitter.

A fear of judgment and desire for approval is a dangerous mix that makes up much of social media content. Spotify Wrapped is the perfect avenue for influencers and average users alike to be seen and heard with familiar and loud graphics (and often commentary) that are instantly recognizable to anyone racing through their feeds. For those reading, it’s like a peek into a stranger or a sister’s inner life.

In a virtual place outside of time and space where coolness and attention are currency and judgment is the language we all speak and scream, Spotify Wrapped asks us to share. To share and get attention for ourselves (and their brand!) and start discussion. To cause excitement and disappointment and judgment and jokes. Creating absurd sub-categories and nanogenres to help divide and conquer the internet, for even a little while. What better way to ring in the holiday season than with some controversy and brand recognition?

It’s only right that I share my own Spotify Wrapped now: