Spotify Wrapped: Identity, Data, and the Illusion of Control
Learn how Spotify Wrapped influences identity, reinforces data tracking, and reshapes self-perception at a click of a button.
Many video and music streaming platforms rely on fun and engaging annual features, encouraging their users to engage with a personalized summary of their listening habits and interests. On the surface, it’s fun and cute. People can share their thoughts and emotions with each other, like having a rare Pokémon card in their deck while playing with friends in class.
But beneath the bright graphics and cleverly curated playlists lies a deeper critique of modern digital culture. Let’s use Spotify and YouTube as examples. These platforms are the largest music streaming services people use to access their musical and visual content. While their seasonal and annual wrap-ups appear as a lighthearted look back, some view them as techniques that normalize surveillance and unconsciously shape our behaviors, thoughts, and sense of identity.
Ripping Apart the Layers of Analyzed Information and Self-Consciousness
At its core, Spotify Wrapped creates self-consciousness around people’s choices. The more large (and sometimes smaller) companies know their consumers’ actions, the better equipped they are to present analyzed suggestions and recommendations to their audience. This can unconsciously lead consumers to adjust their behavior in anticipation of that moment.
For example, someone who uses LoFi or meditation tracks to focus at work or school might question whether music is an expressive medium or a dictated performance and marketing tactic. Wrapped, then, potentially turns music enthusiasts' listening habits into a public display, altering their relationship with music as a whole.
Surveillance Capitalism and Personal Data Monetization
Most companies track and monetize consumers’ personal data. On the surface, this sounds obvious. However, they can track people in ways the majority doesn’t fully understand.
The “Fun” Approach
YouTube and Spotify use an interactive and fun approach, encouraging their monthly or annual listeners to accept and celebrate the idea that every click, stream, and scroll is recorded and repackaged. Features like Netflix’s “Top Picks for You” or Instagram’s algorithmic suggestions also demonstrate how the digital world feeds subscribers back their own actions. This creates the illusion that they are in control.
Rediscovering Interpellation and Capitalism Through Streaming Services
Communication, in society, is a process through which humans create and recreate social relations, bridging the connection between structure and agency, the dialectic of social engagement, and the understanding of the world and other people. There is, however, an ongoing circulation of a critical theory of communication that can help explain how communication both shapes and is shaped by other power structures.
The concept of interpellation refers to assigning an identity to an individual or category through cultural values and internalization. This identity is an idea presented to individuals for their acceptance. For instance, Spotify Wrapped does not request permission to send listeners a summary based on the data Spotify collects, with or without their knowledge. Yet, many users accept this unquestioningly, particularly if they are already paying to use Spotify’s platform and services.
Is Being Playful Too Cynical?
Some may argue that Spotify Wrapped is harmless, as platforms like Spotify and YouTube have found a playful way to engage both paying and free subscribers while celebrating their unique tastes in music and podcasts. After all, a certain level of data collection seems unavoidable in today’s digital age.
Culture and communication are deeply interconnected, with cultural consciousness—whether class-based or historical—woven into social practices and history. Viewing Wrapped as a tool for sparking conversations about shared interests, rather than a definitive reflection of identity, can prevent these unseen systems from redefining how individuals perceive and shape themselves and their environment.
Sources
Fuchs, Christian. “Revisiting the Althusser/E. P. Thompson-Controversy: Towards a Marxist Theory of Communication.” Communication and the Public, vol. 4, no. 1, Mar. 2019, pp. 3–20. https://doi.org/10.1177/2057047319829586.
Author’s Note: Topic Inspiration
Hello there, nice to meet you! If you’re new, welcome. If you’re visiting, then I hope you stay for a long time.
While reading through the technology tab on Substack, I saw a unique note post about Spotify and its content delivery. At first, I wasn’t interest in it. However, after reading through their points, I thought I should elaborate more on this concept while adding in my own.
This note I found inspired me to write this post. I’m not strong with philosophy, but I did agree with some of their thoughts, but through a different avenue. I believe people are groomed to accept the type of truth they know they cannot control, even if they’re wanting to go against it.
The psychological fear of rebellion and judgment is too much these days, not like how it was during the 40’s through 70’s where other racial and lower-to-middle-class groups had little to no say in politics, the economy, and their environment.
Anyway, I encourage everyone to visit the original inspiration behind this post and to give this author/poster and Talk PTSB a healthy follow! Stay safe, warm, and happy holidays and New Year!