At Least with Music, Oversharing on the Internet Can Be a Good Thing
One of Annaliese Baker’s ‘unhinged’ Spotify playlists: “if i was famous these are the songs to badass edits of me”
In my mind, no significant consequences would come from sharing my Spotify account with my friends. I never thought they would be working on an essay, catch a glimpse of their Spotify sidebar, see I was listening to “Barcelona” by Ed Sheeran and hold it over my head for the rest of my existence. (It was also a sign that whenever I was listening to Ed Sheeran, it should probably be a private session.)
Although people have come to discover the eternally embarrassing fact that I do occasionally listen to Ed Sheeran, they have also come to find my in-depth and ultra-specific playlist names. At first, I thought this would serve as information to blackmail me with - similar to the “Barcelona” incident - but my friends only told me how relatable they were and how much they liked to listen to them.
It was a little peculiar to know that my friends were enjoying my “if i was famous these are the songs to badass edits of me” playlist that did nothing to help my maladaptive daydreams, or my “i loved you, i think” playlist about falling in love for the first time with a very specific person. However, the more people expressed some sort of emotional connection to these “unhinged” playlists - ones that relied on incredibly personal experiences - I found myself genuinely pleased. It had nothing to do with the fact that people appreciated my music taste (although that was definitely an ego boost); rather it meant a lot to me that people were also having thoughts about being in really intense video edits made by fourteen-year-olds and falling in and out of love for the very first time.
Not only did my friends make playlists with titles akin to mine, such as “girlboss, gaslight, gatekeep” or “grrrr,” but so did my parents. My father’s sad girl playlist, so to speak, was titled “melan” (short for “melancholy”) and is simply a collection of songs from Harry Styles and Stranger in the Alps. The biggest takeaway from these types of playlists was the attention that they received, regardless of who curated them. Playlists on Spotify rose to prominence through the “like” feature, where users can “like” a playlist the same way users can “like” posts on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. (I often joked that Spotify was my favorite social media, but it was one of those jokes that wasn’t really a joke.)
When the owner of a post receives a like on social media, their brain releases dopamine and oxytocin, two natural chemicals that evoke a feeling of happiness in the brain (Seiter, 2016). Unlike more traditional social media platforms, however, “liking” a Spotify playlist focuses on appreciating the same music as others, rather than admiring the physicality one posts on other social platforms.
While it is nice to know that others-- both friends and strangers-- think you have good music taste, it can also be viewed as a means of connection. Spotify, similar to many online social platforms, “is an important venue for interaction and conversation” (Lenhart, 2015). The number of likes on these ultra-specific, unhinged playlists which people “post” on their Spotify accounts allows users to see how many people listen to and appreciate the same music when coming to terms with particular emotions and experiences, most of which were brought out in isolation.
During the pandemic people were forced into isolation, and, to cope with this, turned to music-- especially during the initial lockdowns in the Spring of 2020. Many people increased their listening habits, and it was concluded that “music helped them on an emotional level” (Ellwood, 2021). Not only was it an enjoyable way to pass time, but it was also a way to make people feel better when everything going on in the world around them was so grim.
Playlists with sincerely relatable yet “unhinged” names were ones I saw frequently created amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly coming to prominence during the first set of lockdowns. When I viewed both my friends’ and family’s Spotify playlists, as well as my own, I noted that a majority of the playlists with these kinds of names were not created until Spring 2020 (i.e. “melan”). In a time of forced isolation, people were able to find a means of connection through music.
When people are together they produce oxytocin (Carter, 2013), the same natural stimulant for happiness that is released when people “like” a post on social media. The surprisingly blunt emotional playlists that gained considerable popularity during the pandemic connected individuals at a time where people were experiencing the same social isolation as everyone else in the world. Our collective use of music as a means of communication and connection “lies at the very essence of our humanity because it enables a level of social bonding that distinguishes us from other species” (Greenberg & Gordon, 2020). Music is a form of language, and we use languages to communicate with one another.
Ultimately, music-- especially when referenced in extreme situations-- is a mechanism for connecting with others, and has persevered in a time of total and extreme isolation. Public playlists that vividly detail an individual’s personal experiences and emotions serve as an empathetic apparatus within the human condition. Through all of the trials and tribulations over the course of the past two years, music has persisted to help us stay connected with one another.