If it’s early December, that means it’s “Spotify Wrapped-Day,” and the internet is full of memes celebrating and poking fun at the tradition of people posting their most-listened-to genres, artists, and songs. When Spotify first launched in 2016, it greatly improved its brand and image. Spotify Wrapped is a sort of annual review of a user’s best music listening habits, and it’s a fun look back at the past year. Music is a good indicator of mood and experience, so Spotify Wrapped can show how someone’s year has been overall.
It’s become an almost annual tradition for Spotify users to post their own Wrap-Round Ups for others to see. For some, it might be a little eye-catching, their Instagram feed is constantly full of perks, for others, it’s an interesting look at the year of their friends and acquaintances to see what they’re listening to. Whether people love or hate the event, there’s no denying that the memes surrounding it are hilarious.
Apple Music Vs. Spotify Music
Spotify Music isn’t the only streaming app available for music lovers. Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music and more hold significant chunks of the streaming market share, but when Spotify Wrapped comes around, everyone is looking inside out.
In this meme, anyone who doesn’t have Spotify music, especially Apple Music users, should check out all the Spotify Music users who are having a great time online and in real life and review their years. So if anyone doesn’t have Spotify, this could be a painful week watching everyone happily share an event they had no part in.
Eclectic Music Taste
While most people think they mainly listen to one genre of music, Spotify Wrapped proves that people’s musical tastes are usually more diverse when considered throughout the year. The lists of the 100 most listened songs probably surprised many users with their diversity.
Anyone who checked out their top songs probably wondered what kinds of music they were listening to. People’s moods fluctuate so that sometimes they listen to dark grungy rock, some days it’s pink, bubbly pop, and sometimes it’s complete garbage, which is a guilty pleasure.
Happy Spotify Wrap Day
The Spotify Wrapped release day is slowly building as people fire up their apps to realize it’s the day, and it’s almost a celebration as social media and the internet are flooded with colorful music posts. Like the December release date, it falls between two favorites, Christmas and Thanksgiving.
So for some people, Christmas Day isn’t a favorite winter holiday, it’s Spotify Wrapped-Day at its best. While Christmas is great for many reasons, for some it can’t compete with learning listening habits and musical moods.
Mental state
Music can be a very personal thing for people. Many people listen to music at home through headphones or by themselves, and this is one of the few things that can only be for one person. Happy music, sad music and inspirational music can indicate the mental state of a person at any given time.
So when people showcase their best music on social media, it can often give a very personal insight into that person’s well-being over the past year. If their music reflects their mood, a Spotify Wrapped playlist can reveal a lot of inner feelings that someone is going through.
December Release Date
For whatever reason, Spotify is releasing Wrapped in early December rather than early January, which would make sense for a campaign billed as “a year in review.” But every year at the beginning of December, it causes everyone’s confusion and delight.
And because the app only includes data from January, according to HITC, and a tweet from the official Spotify account. One reason for the exclusion of December may be to exclude the inevitably increasing variable of “Christmas music”. While people love Christmas music and the videos that come from it, they may not be a great indicator of personal taste.
You Can Buy
For those who use a different music app, Spotify Wrapped can be a frustrating day when they can’t participate in funny memes and tweets. But it’s even worse for those who don’t use streaming software at all, maybe they stick to mp3s, CDs, records or YouTube. It is a very confusing day for them.
For those who don’t particularly care about social media or Spotify, “wrapped” can only mean one thing, so hearing the words “Spotify Wrapped” might conjure up images like the one in this meme. It can be difficult to participate when you have no idea about the context of an event.
Music Subreddits Merged
When Spotify Wrapped drops, everyone is suddenly connecting about the bands and songs they’re listening to, and they’re probably starting to realize there are specific genres they enjoy. Wrapped even shows what someone’s favorite genres are.
There are hundreds of wonderful subreddits and communities, and many of them are dedicated to almost every genre of music, no matter how obscure. And each will probably get an influx of members now that people have discovered that they actually have a particular affinity for a genre, according to Wrapped.
YouTube Music
Spotify’s success with its Wrapped campaign is sure to be noticed by other music streaming companies as well. It’s a simple idea that’s almost universally embraced by the user base, and since the data is already collected, it’s not too difficult to implement.
It’s a safe bet that Apple, YouTube, and Tidal will all add similar year-end totals over the next few years. But the YouTube music community has a lot of patience for their favorite streaming app. Of course, they don’t have a top playlist yet, but users are happy to wait until they’re ready because of the other awesome features YouTube music has to offer.
Some Don’t Want to Share
While many enjoy Spotify Wrapped and the communal aspect it creates with people sharing their favorite songs and artists, others may not care. It’s annoying to see the posts, either because they’re not interested in their own Wrapped or because they don’t care to share.
It’s not always a case of people being angry. Spotify Wrapped posts and memes tend to take over every feed during the week of the event, so those looking for other things on the web will have to sift through the posts to find something they really want to see.
Spotify Genres
Music genres can sometimes be difficult to describe, there are so many sub-genres that songs and artists can be categorized under different names. Fortunately, Spotify Wrapped contains the best genres for every user.
This meme is very similar when looking at a list of friends’ favorite genres. People don’t even know what their music genre is. If there’s one thing Spotify Wrapped has shown, it’s that people listen to more weird and unique music throughout the year than they care to admit.