Roast your own Spotify listening with this devious AI

The annual Spotify Wrapped is a pretty upbeat affair, which doesn’t quite suit everyone’s mood this year. For the sullen among us, there is another option: a bot from The Pudding that will judge us for our crimes of listening to terrible music.

If you want to be judged, you open a page titled “How serious is your Spotify” and sign in with your Spotify account. (It might take a few refreshes on the “Loading Your Music Library” page.) This absolute AI jerk then pulls you down mercilessly while he checks out your playlists and your best tracks. He asks you questions before showing results, in wording that gives the plain text the same aura as the girls who bullied me in college. Have you really listened to Sarah Jaffe’s Clémentine? (Yes) As ironically? (No…)

The final judgment comes in the form of a multi-hyphenated sentence followed by a page of loose stats (I’m apparently 24% basic). This stupid little computer program ruled that my Spotify was badly listening to the mason-candle-target-craft-beer-snob-wet-ass jar. And you know what? It’s just. I have listened to a downright ungodly amount of Hozier this year. Spotify Wrapped wanted me to be proud of this, but I spent the year hating the fact that I was too disappointed and busy to look for new, exciting artists.

The bot is not really personalized. He’ll ask everyone the same standard questions in a sarcastic tone. But it still gave me the validation I didn’t know I wanted. My taste for music sucks, but who isn’t Who among us doesn’t love listening to the same old tried and true songs that hit the nail on the head, even if they earn the contempt of our more pretentious friends? Please join me on this journey of shameless shame and find joy in a well-deserved roast.