I’m Obsessed with Other People’s Spotify Playlists
T here is no better place to online-stalk someone than Spotify. Forget scouring their Instagram followers or tracking down their high school volunteer experiences on LinkedIn. Don’t waste time perusing photos their mom posted on Facebook nine years ago. If you want to get to know someone—and I mean really know them—there is no profile more intimate than one created on the music-streaming platform.
Spotify doesn’t function as a true social media app. You can’t share standalone pictures or posts, and you can’t message other users. But you can view other users’ public playlists, a live feed of what they’re listening to, as well as who they follow and who follows them. It’s this curious charade of privacy that’s so compelling. The upright citizen knows not to go rummaging around someone’s room, even if the door is open. But a journalist and Gemini such as myself? I can’t resist.
You can obtain your subject’s username voluntarily (by asking nicely), innocently (by talking about your Spotify account until they offer up their own), or secretly (through a complex process of cross-referencing names on Instagram).
