By Julie Dvorakova

It is that time of the year again. Whilst many are looking ahead to Christmas, Spotify users keep refreshing the green-black app, waiting for the annual early Christmas gift – their Spotify Wrapped.

Spotify Wrapped is an extremely popular feature that creatively summarizes all the data  Spotify, an audio streaming platform, has collected about each one of its users over the year.

That means after ‘unwrapping’ this thoughtful digital present, you can explore your most listened songs, and artists or realize the (let’s be honest, shocking) amount of time you’ve spent listening to music and podcasts.

The truth is this data is also so nicely presented that many can’t help it and share the visual analysation of their listening habits with their friends, colleagues, friends’ pets, and simply everyone who follows them on Instagram or Twitter.

Spotify has, according to the newest statistics, 456 million monthly active users worldwide, which makes it the most used streaming service. It is the go-to app for listening to music, podcasts, guided meditations, or audiobooks. Yet for many users, the reason that made them switch from other streaming services to Spotify, or even start using audio streaming service for the very first time is just the irresistible Spotify Wrapped.

It is like seeing all your friends sharing their favourite memories from a trip you did not go on. Suddenly, all you want to know is how many minutes you have spent with your headphones on, instead of interacting with people. You want to know what is your most played song of the year, or what would be the soundtrack to your movie.

All you need to do to get this life-changing information about yourself is to subscribe to Spotify and wait till the beginning of December. Sharing the visualized data and becoming a part of the global, social media-based discussion is then fairly easy. And Spotify is very well aware of this.

The concept of Spotify Wrapped began in 2013, seven years after this go-to music streaming service was developed in Sweden. If you are looking back at the pre-pandemic years and can’t think of any Spotify Wrapped, well done for confirming the statistics. Spotify’s early Christmas gift which is as aesthetically pleasing as we know it today, came out as a ground-breaking concept in 2020, with over 1,2 million mentions on Twitter.

In 2020, 62% of people in the UK said they use Spotify at least once a week. Globally, Spotify is getting more and more users every year, and it does not seem to change. In fact, it is safe to say in the upcoming hours and days we are about to see Spotify everywhere on social media, whether that’s Instagram stories, Twitter, Tik Tok or memes. Spotify Wrapped is about to become the go-to small talk topic, enjoying its once-a-year moment of fame.