In an unbelievable feat of self-contempt, one woman’s inner critic beat out over 100 million songs and 11 million different artists to become the most listened-to artist on her Spotify Wrapped this year.
While most people look forward to Spotify’s annual round-up of its listener’s streaming habits, Jackie Conrad isn’t “most people.” Actually, according to her imposter syndrome, she isn’t anyone at all and probably never will be due to her chronic procrastination and terrible haircut that everyone’s talking about behind her back.
Just when Conrad thought it couldn’t get worse than last year’s Spotify Wrapped when she found out Puddle of Mudd and Hootie and the Blowfish were among her top-played artists, she was proven wrong, just like she always is.
To the dismay of Conrad and those just pretending to care about her, some of her most listened-to tracks in 2023 included her inner critic’s greatest hits, “Nobody Likes You,” “You’re Ugly” And “You Have A Weird Belly Button.”
According to Conrad, the algorithm must be wrong because she “hasn’t listened to that stuff since high school,” but the technology doesn’t lie. Spotify’s user data, machine learning algorithms, and careful analysis of music preferences prove that Conrad spent over 900 minutes listening to “Your Parents Won’t Live Long Enough to See You Succeed” and a jaw-dropping 30,000 minutes replaying weird things she said at parties.
In a Hail Mary attempt to appear relatable and blend in with the crowd, Conrad followed suit and posted her results to social media hoping people would assume the song titles were from a Bright Eyes album, or even something by Dashboard Confessional, but eagle-eyed followers were quick to call her bluff and send her spiraling even deeper into self-flagellation.
Realizing there weren’t enough positive affirmations or books on transcendentalism in the world to trick Spotify’s algorithm into thinking she was anything but a self-loathing bundle of nerves, Conrad made the last in a series of heart-breaking decisions and switched back to Pandora.