Spotify packaged and unpackaged-Vox

When Spotify Wrapped came out in 2017, it hit my group chat like breaking news. A friend madly sent me a screenshot showing that they were ranked in the top 1% of Frank Ocean listeners, with a message “Can you believe it?” followed by a large number of text messages from other friends, highlighting their interest in streaming. Praise. Soon after, people on the Internet were sharing their listening results. Instagram stories are flooded with streaming statistics, which are either teasing low taste or showing artistic inclinations. (I admit, I also shared my own.)

Spotify initially released their first Wrapped iteration 2015 As the “Music Year”, users can look back at the features of the past 365 days through the songs and artists they listen to most often. The tool includes statistics such as the most played songs by listeners and how many hours of music they have listened to in total. Although very popular, the Year of Music did not become as popular as a virus until it was upgraded to a customizable, jazz graphic version two years later.

Now, Spotify Wrapped has become an annual tradition, and it marks the change of seasons, just as well-loved cultural staples such as the Starbucks Holiday Cup or Mariah Carey mark the holiday. But as Spotify’s features become more and more popular, there are more and more discussions about algorithms. The use of algorithms has become a standard procedure on social media, and Wrapped relies on algorithms.

An algorithm takes a set of inputs and generates an output, just like a recipe turns ingredients into a cake. Spotify’s reliance on algorithms means that it uses data from consumers to generate music discoveries provided through playlists.Open the Spotify homepage, you Any number of featured playlists can be found The source user data collected from the app, from “US Top Songs”, aggregated collective data, To “Discover Weekly”, it comes from personalized dataTo create these playlists, Spotify tracks the music you listen to, organizes it into specific categories, measures the tracks against other listeners, and uses this information to select the music to show you.

What was Spotify’s algorithmic delivery originally Separate it From other music streaming platforms, Often cited Although it relies on tracking data, it serves as an important factor in the success of the application. A user of the app, 22-year-old Kiana McBride, told me, “My Discovery Weekly is always popular. Spotify has such excellent data analysis capabilities, it can judge what music I might like.”

At first glance, tracking music data may not seem too vague, but it turns out that the use of artificial intelligence is discriminatory.The report shows how Artificial intelligence can be coded with bias with Perpetuate racism. When combined with video technology or security software, the algorithm is supporting Surveillance capitalism. There are even reports showing how the platform functions Inaccurate with Malicious marketingDespite this, Spotify Wrapped is still viral. Our collective fascination with this review reveals to what extent the algorithm is integrated into our perception of ourselves in the digital consumer culture: as a brand to be improved.

According to P. David Marshall, a professor of new media and communication at Deakin University and a leading scholar in the field of online identity, the concept of “dual strategic roles” profoundly illustrates how people handle the content they share on social media. “Dual strategic role [uses] There are two ways of this word,” he told me. “Double is like two, duel, which means you actually start to play in a space that understands algorithm transformation. ”

Consumers are increasingly aware that the way they use apps will affect the type of content they see, thus forming a digital double awareness, that is, “we realize that we are a digital structure”, but we also realize that “digital Structure has to do with who we are – who we think we are,” Marshall said.Essentially, our online self is still an extension of ourselves; it’s not no A version of personality. At the same time, it is a natural production and performance version.

Just like the nature of performance, people on stage are required to perform non-stop. We use clips to strategically construct a certain view of ourselves, and with the help of Spotify Wrapped and other algorithms, these clips become more and more refined. For example, sharing Wrapped roundups on social media can position a person in a specific niche market: independent; punk; rock. If the music genre is more obscure, then this person can transfer himself to a very specific field: folk songs; cloud rap; Japanese urban pop music.

A user of the app, 22-year-old Alfonso Velasquez (Alfonso Velasquez) told me that he likes to check what other people find on Spotify because, by contrast, “it makes him feel more independent .” He is talking about an instinct to plan the brand from himself-this instinct comes from the main influencer culture.

“Influencers are in this dual-role structure, working between the corporate version of themselves and the highly personalized self,” Marshall said. Because of this, they “are changing our broader transnational culture to make it normal.”

Another user, 21-year-old Isabel Edreva, told me that they checked other people’s Spotify findings to “record.”

“If someone I really respect has a hit song that I have never heard of,” she explained, “I think,’Well, I should listen to it.'”

Many people did not record Spotify Wrapped recommendations as affected. But this is the key to influencer culture.

“We started to morph what influential people did,” Marshall said. “They become the way we try to understand online life, and it is also the way we, as ordinary people, begin to rebuild the concept of differentiated roles.” When a singer and other Internet celebrities Madison Beer, Musical.ly star and singer Roland Gray, Or TikTok Viral Musician Lauphy Publish their streaming results, this approach will become popular faster. Spotify Wrapped is just an example of how influencers’ habits, from what they post to how they post, can be a specific guide for everyone on the Internet, no matter who you follow on social media.

Spotify makes it easier to participate in this culture. With just one tap, you can share content that has been made in various coordinated colors. The eye-catching graphics are pre-generated. Users can reveal some information about themselves with low risk and minimal participation, and without thinking, imitate how influential people tap their preferences and interests to become a brand.

Screenshot of @loren on Instagram

Perhaps it is this seamless participation with instant brand building rewards that makes the suspicious nature of tracking your data on the platform pale in comparison. “It’s just a song,” the user of the app, 21-year-old Sophronia Barone, told me. “I don’t think it’s a big deal.”

Is it just a song?Supported by a team of five researchers when analyzing the back end of the application Study in 2019 “Spotify disassembly: Inside the black box of streaming music” clearly pointed out that the algorithm does not exist in a vacuum. They wrote: “Scholars have demonstrated how algorithmic content delivery has an impact on gender, race, and other classifications. Users are invited — or forced — to convert their listening habits into “taste profiles.” This is Measured using a set of parameters.”

Spotify did not disclose what these categories are, but scholars have determined that gender must be one of them.They pointed out that the music intelligence and data platform Echo Nest (owned by Spotify on Year 2014), which provides data based on gender listening habits in 2014 Blog postResearchers have found that self-reporting your gender is a mandatory part of the platform’s registration process and is listed as one of the types of information that Spotify collects and shares under it. Privacy Policy, “Indicating[ing] Gender is considered essential to the operation of Spotify, at least for marketing purposes. “

They also found that the company knows your IP address, which means location, nationality, and social class through the proxy.Another study by Bank of England Found that Spotify data can even reveal user emotions.Therefore, assuming that Spotify can infer a large part of your socioeconomic population, narrow the range of race, age and even gender, if you listen to a specific podcast, such as the popularity of Spotify Queerology. (Then go by The priest’s sexual orientation has recently been exposed Through the location data of his mobile phone, Catholic publications clearly had an impact on real life. ) Then Spotify capitalizes this information Sell ​​to company, Its demographics are similar to gold.

Of course, Spotify is not the only company that has succeeded in marketing algorithms to give back to consumers: DigiScents promises everything Give your home perfume According to your web browsing history, TikTok, the most popular social media application at the moment, is entirely based on algorithmic viewing and Encourage us to buy Absurd amount. Understanding the culture of artificial intelligence, this is a new era of digital capitalism, consumers are endlessly trapped in their own feedback loop. If you open an application, you will essentially provide the company with free labor in the form of web traffic, AdSense and taste profiles, just to allow these applications to sell your personal data and user identity-essentially you- Give it to other people, and finally return to yourself. These companies push us towards algorithm-based viewing. Not only do we collect the information about us revealed by their data, but we also eagerly share it with others.

We do this under the name of our own brand. Because in the end, we got a more quantifiable part to add to our ultra-specific online roles. In fleeting moments, we can all become influential people. “I like Spotify to share their statistics with you,” McBride said. It’s like “You are an MLB star listening to music”.