The most annoying person you know is so excited right now.
Every December, Christmas comes early for music nerds, as the music streaming service Spotify rolls out their yearly Spotify Wrapped, a themed slideshow that looks back on all the music their listeners enjoyed in the past year. The slideshow gives listeners their top five artists, songs, and amount of minutes they listened to music on the service.
"Spotify Wrapped is one of my favorite parts of the app. I love being able to show off my music interests that people usually don't care about," said junior Natalie Snow, who had 32,000 minutes of listening time this year.
Although it's fun for some, Spotify Wrapped has the tendency to call people out when telling them how many minutes they listened.
"I had 138,000 minutes, which is for sure more than I thought I'd get," said senior Ben Balitski.
Let's try not to judge him, because that is 95 days of nonstop listening. You go, Ben.
"It always surprises me how little you can listen to an artist and still see them in your top-five. Getting One Direction at number two in 2023 is not ideal," said junior Kallianne Reap.
This year Spotify added the "Me in 2023" section which gives you streaming habit options such as the Alchemist (someone who creates lots of playlists), Vampire (someone who listens to darker and more emotional music than most) among ten other habits.
Another creative thing Spotify did this year was "Sound Towns." This feature put listeners in a city that shared the same music taste as them. Burlington, Vermont was a very popular destination for listeners of Alex G, Mitski, and other indie artists. If you're a fan of Phoebe Bridgers and Taylor Swift, there's a likely chance you were paired with the college town of Berkley, California (or in Mrs. Sams’s room.)
As the year comes to a close, Spotify Wrapped is always something chronically online teenagers flock to to find some form of recognition and validation, or some way of saying to the world, "Hey! Check out this band I like!" without outright saying it.