Dec 6
With This Year's Wrapped, Spotify Invents a New Way to Say Gay - And 'Pink Pilates Princess' Twitter is Having a Ball with It
Kilian Melloy READ TIME: 3 MIN.
2024's Spotify Wrapped has arrived, and it offers us a whole new way to say "gay," BuzzFeed reported.
"For those who don't know, Spotify Wrapped is practically Gay Christmas in the community," BuzzFeed noted, adding that the music streaming service "has a way of subtly but obviously calling out the community for their music choices" with its annual report, which is customized to the listening history of individual users.
The summaries Spotify assembles of which artists and tracks users listened to most over the last year can be read, to some, as positing that one's taste in tunes is bound up with being LGBTQ+.
Last year, BuzzFeed recalled, the music streamer hilariously assigned many queer listeners residency in three main "sound towns" out of 1,300 – gay-friendly Cambridge, MA; Burlington, VT; and Berkeley, CA.
Spotify Wrapped seemed to zero in once more on its queer audience members, announcing to many in the community that, based on their listening patterns, they had enjoyed a "Pink Pilates Princess Catwalk Pop era."
Queer Spotify users quickly took to Gay Twitter with a mix of amusement and mockery, with some decrying what they deemed a newly coined "slur."
Others were keen to make the moment into a communal joke.
Others took it in stride...
...while some were just plain delighted.
Kilian Melloy serves as EDGE Media Network's Associate Arts Editor and Staff Contributor. His professional memberships include the National Lesbian & Gay Journalists Association, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, The Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association, and the Boston Theater Critics Association's Elliot Norton Awards Committee.
