Wrapped Reactions

Wrapped Reactions

Last week was wrapped week. I say “wrapped” more generally because it wasn’t just Spotify—I’ve had my podcast app, audiobook app, and Google Photos all deliver year-in-review summaries recently. Yet, none of these presentations come close to the cultural relevance or cut-through of Spotify Wrapped.

Spotify’s Wrapped is undeniably the company’s most important advertising moment of the year. It’s hard to think of another app or service where people willingly share a summary of their in-app activity on social media. The only comparable example might be runners or cyclists sharing their times and maps year-round, but Wrapped’s once-a-year drop makes it feel like a collective cultural event.

Eight years into the Spotify Wrapped phenomenon, though, something feels different. This year, I noticed a shift in how people are talking about it. The response has been muted, even critical. A recent TechCrunch article captures this shift in tone: Wrapped 2024 didn’t live up to the hype.

The graphics and art design used for Wrapped this year also saw mixed reviews, as some described them as “mid,” “really simple,” and much worse,

Wrapped reminds me of another distinctly British end-of-year phenomenon: the Christmas advert. These big-budget productions from major retailers aim to define the spirit of the season, not by selling products directly, but by evoking a specific cultural feeling.

Here’s the 2010 John Lewis Advert as an example:

It’s a saccharine vignette of a boy delivering a stocking to his dog in the snow, with Elle Golding singing how deep is your love. But this piece of media caused an absolute uproar. Because the dog was shown sitting outside in the snow, it sparking accusations of glamorising animal neglect. The controversy escalated so much that it was covered by the BBC, and the Dog’s Trust issued a statement. Madness.

These adverts aren’t really “advertising” in the traditional sense though. They’re spirit bottles of sentimentality—designed to resonate in the cultural psyche, not push specific products. In contrast, Spotify Wrapped is a container of a different kind: one for your own life and consumer choices, presented through metrics and data. It’s a glimpse behind the curtain at the culture of ordinals and algorithms shaping our daily interactions with technology.

Wrapped captures something unique-a feedback loop-a quantified snapshot of your life, viewed through Spotify’s lens. This is why expectations are so high: Wrapped is one of the rare moments when “the algorithm” feels tangible, something we can hold up and examine.

This year Wrapped also became a tool for critique. Some musicians and collectives used it to highlight Spotify’s inequitable treatment of artists. 2024 was the year Spotify demonetised 80% of artists on the platform. Any track with fewer than 1,000 streams is now ineligible for royalty payments—a move that was widely met with outrage. Wrapped became a vehicle for artists to say, “Here’s what Spotify knows about you, and here’s what you should know about Spotify.”

As the novelty of cultural containers like Wrapped fades, they face growing scrutiny. Wrapped’s magic was that it transformed data into something personal—but that’s fragile. The more we see the corporate mechanisms behind it, (and dislike them, the growing tech backlash etc) the harder it is to maintain the illusion. Like Christmas adverts, Wrapped holds something ephemeral—feelings, choices, frustrations. But when it falls short, we’re reminded the contents aren’t ours. They’re theirs.

On The Blog:

Fieldnotes from the Metaverse | Interview

I was recently interviewed by Dirk Songuer for his book: Fieldnotes from the Metaverse which “documents the history, perspectives, and narratives of the metaverse” and the interview is now online.

We had a great conversation about identity in techno-social systems and the metaverse as medium. Naturally, we also discussed in detail the core thesis of my own book: that Dungeons & Dragons is the most important Social Technology of the 20th Century.

Nov 2024 | Photo 365

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The Ministry Of My Own Labour

• Calls
• Deadlines
• Writing
• Lunches
• A conference cancelled 🙁

Terminal Access

This is the single most interesting thing i’ve read in AGES: A global cross-cultural analysis of string figures reveals evidence of deep transmission and innovation. If a super long paper from the royal society is too much for you, here’s a recent talk on the subject:

Reading

I finished Exordia by Seth Dickinson. Absolutely fantastic novel. I know I said this last week, but it was pitched to me as: “Tom Clancy/Alien first contact/Cosmic Horror” and “What if Annihilation was about the Trolly Problem Meme”. That’s exactly what it is. The ending is set up really well for a follow up too.

I burnt though the most recent Warhammer 40k novel in the Dawn Of Fire series Hand of Abaddon. My review is “A lot of pieces moved around the board for the series finale”. meh.

I also finished reading: Monastic Wisdom – Letters of St. Joseph the Hesychast. It’s taken me a few months to get though this as I was reading one letter a night before bed. As I say every time I read a book by a Greek orthodox saint, its such a different type of Christianity to anything I was exposed to growing up in the CoE. I really do wonder how different things would be it the path to christ in the west begins with metanoia—a radical change of mind—that leads to the “prayer of the heart” as the goal.

Still reading: Playing with Reality: How Games Have Shaped Our World, and Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and the Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. 

Aurora – What Happened To The Heart (Album)

I know I’m late to the party but I just got around to listening to Aurora’s newest album from the summer.

The thing that stuck me first was this is album number 5. That first album she was teenager and flung into stardom. Where we are now is listening alongside an artist that has grown into herself. Both as a writer and as a producer. This album is quite personal. there’s a lot of naturalistic writing in the lyrics and topics of hurt, pain, and love. Maybe it’s a breakup album, but i’m on the fence about that. There’s a lot of fucked up shit going on in the world.

I think my fav song on the album is Starvation. A single with a video from late in the album. I love everything about this track. It sounds fantastic in a good pair of headphones.

Remember Kids: