‘Bragging without the selfie’ – the rise of Spotify Wrapped and copycats tophyper

Throughout December, Instagram feeds are filled with photos of Christmas trees, snapshots of festive work parties — and screenshots of the year’s most-streamed songs.

This is because at the end of every year, since 2016, Spotify releases the Wrapped app. The campaign collects what users have listened to most and typically includes the top songs, artists and genres.

This idea is “now spread across every possible social media platform known to man,” says Dr Gillian Brooks, lecturer in strategic marketing at King’s College London.

She says her Wraparound feature works so well because the music is personal and people enjoy the nostalgia of seeing the songs that have defined their lives over the past year.

Since Wrapped has gone viral every year, other companies have joined in, from language learning app Duolingo to bank Monzo, all of which have created their own personal “Year in Review” summaries – along with other music streaming apps like Apple Music and Amazon Music.

Professor Jonathan Wilson, professor of brand strategy and culture at Regent’s University London, believes there’s an ulterior motive for people sharing these end-of-year reviews – especially on apps people use to track their virtuous activities, such as fitness and education. .

“It’s like showing off but without the selfie,” he explains. “A lot of people don’t want to take selfies for different reasons, but one of them is that people get a little frustrated, and it’s a little narcissistic.”

He says people share information on social media if it “reinforces the image we want to portray publicly of who we are and what we want to conform to.”

Apps like Strava will calculate how far you’ve run or biked this year, while Duolingo will tell you how many hours you’ve spent learning another language.

Goodreads gives you images you can share on social media showing the books you’ve read this year, with details about average page length and your favorite genres.

Professor Wilson adds: “Statements are a really good way to show off, rather than taking selfies in your best clothes surrounded by your best people and possessions.”

Professor Caroline Wirtz, professor of marketing at City University London, agrees: “It’s less like bragging and more evidence-based.”

“This is something that is now on the calendar,” says Professor Wirtz. “We’re waiting for the John Lewis Christmas advert, and we’re also waiting to get our Spotify cover.”

Other brands jumping on the bandwagon include Tesco and Sainsbury’s for your favorite grocery stores, Trainline and Uber for your more frequent trips, Monzo and Lloyds for your spending habits, and Xbox and Nintendo for your games.

Professor Wilson told the BBC that this copycat behavior was inevitable, as the prospect of people promoting a company or product seemed too good an opportunity to pass up.

As Dr. Brooks says: “It’s free advertising for them.”

Some years, these experts say, the features reviewed are more sarcastic, which brands hope will make them more relatable and shareable with their customers.

People usually don’t post information about their financial situation on social media. But Monzo has found a way to make its year in review shareable, by telling people whether they were among Greggs’ biggest spenders.

Reddit tells users how far they’ve traveled, which is measured in bananas.

Although Professor Wilson says people typically don’t want to post mundane things on social media, such as “the type of bread rolls they bought”, Sainsbury’s does show shoppers whether they are big buyers of certain products in their local area.

It led to people Bragging online About being the biggest consumer of bell peppers, toilet bowl cleaner, or pickled cucumbers.

Annual review features can raise questions about how much data companies collect. It is widely understood that the vast majority of apps and websites someone might use collect massive amounts of data, which they use for marketing purposes.

Dr. Brooks suggests that “people blindly accept online privacy preferences” because they want to continue with whatever they have visited the site to do.

She says data privacy is “no longer as big an issue as it used to be.” “If we get more targeted advertising as a result, most people I talked to would agree with that.”

Although people want to keep some information about themselves private, they seem to have few concerns about sharing their hobbies and leisure activities online.

“The irony is that when you share a selfie, you share much less information about yourself than you do with data that shows what you do,” says Professor Wilson. “People seem to be more comfortable doing that than sharing a photo of themselves.”