Spotify (Un)wrapped: how ordinary users critically reflect on Spotify’s datafication of the self within creative workshops

Abstract

Each year, Spotify nudges users to share aesthetically pleasing data stories ‘wrapped’ and repackaged from their listening behavior. This article approaches Spotify Wrapped as an annual algorithmic event, defined as a moment in time in which there is a collective orientation towards a particular algorithmic system and its associated data. It offers a methodological contribution to research on datafication of music taste and identities through the development of a workshop format aimed at ordinary Spotify users. The workshop delivers insights into practices of datafication and the normative assumptions baked into Spotify data stories. Drawing on a data feminist framework, we outline three interconnected but distinct creative exercises, which take participants on an analytical journey. We combine feminist arts-based research methodologies with critical reflection and the walkthrough method to centre people’s experiences and equip them to analyze different layers of Wrapped. Our theoretical and methodological approach seeks to destabilize the logics of data extraction that further Spotify’s commercial aims and its associated claims of ‘knowing us’ through the aggregation of user data. As such, our workshop transforms the marketing campaign into a site for critical reflection on Wrapped as an algorithmic event.