From Spotify to supermarkets: how Wrapped became unavoidable😵‍💫

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Every early December, the same ritual plays out: our feeds turn into an endless scroll of personal stats. Spotify kicks things off with its now-iconic Wrapped, and over the past few years, everyone else has wanted a slice of the action. From music streaming platforms to supermarkets, messaging apps, and even gyms, just about every service now offers its own annual recap.

Somewhere between the nostalgic pleasure of reliving your year in numbers and full-blown digital fatigue, one question remains: where do we draw the line?

How Spotify turned raw data into a cultural phenomenon 🎵

It all started in 2016. Spotify launched Wrapped with a simple idea: show users how they listened to music over the past year. Top artists, favorite genres, total minutes streamed—nothing revolutionary on paper. And yet, the concept took off instantly and never looked back.

By 2024, Spotify was already celebrating the 10th edition of Wrapped, complete with refreshed visuals and increasingly sophisticated features.

Wrapped’s secret sauce? It’s perfectly designed for social sharing. The visuals are polished, the data is personal enough to spark conversation, and most importantly, it delivers instant gratification: this is who I am, through my music. In a world where digital identity matters as much as the physical one, Wrapped has become a powerful form of self-expression.

When everyone wants their own Wrapped: the copycat era 📊

Spotify’s success didn’t go unnoticed. Amazon Music rolled out “2024 Delivered,” complete with personalized artist messages via Alexa. Apple Music has offered “Replay” since 2019—a more detailed, year-round listening recap.

But imitation didn’t stop with music.

Tinder introduced its Year In Swipe Vision Board to summarize your dating life. TikTok, despite not offering an official Wrapped, has spawned countless unofficial tools that surface user stats. Reddit, YouTube, BeReal, and WhatsApp all had their own versions—often built by independent developers rather than the platforms themselves.

Then came one of the most unexpected entrants of all. In December 2025, discount retail giant Lidl launched Lidl Plus Wrapped inside its loyalty app. And this wasn’t just a marketing gimmick. Each Lidl Plus user received a Spotify-style recap of their year: how often they shopped, which products they bought most, their habits broken down into interactive stories.

The final touch? A personalized discount coupon waiting at the end.

Lidl cracked the formula: turn shopping data into entertainment—and reward users for paying attention.

The dark side of the trend: when it becomes too much 😵

Let’s be honest: receiving 15 different recaps within two weeks is exhausting. What started as a fun, original experience quickly turns into a chore. Every app wants its moment. Every brand wants to “engage” us through our own data.

And the issue goes beyond simple fatigue. These recaps raise legitimate questions about data collection and usage. To generate these polished summaries, platforms analyze massive amounts of information about our behavior, preferences, and habits—then wrap it all in slick visuals that make us forget one uncomfortable truth: in many ways, we are the product.

As Tristan Harris, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, puts it:

“It’s fascinating how willing we are to trade privacy for a bit of entertainment and validation.”

That quote perfectly captures the Wrapped paradox: we love these recaps—but at what cost?

The brands that get Wrapped right (and the ones that don’t) 🎯

Not all Wrapped experiences are created equal. The best ones share a few key traits: strong visuals, genuinely interesting data (not filler), and real added value—whether that’s discovery, humor, or social connection.

Spotify still sets the standard. The visuals evolve every year, the stats are often surprising (who hasn’t learned they’re in the top 1% of listeners for a niche artist?), and the story format is tailor-made for sharing. Apple Music Replay, by contrast, feels more restrained: effective, but far less viral.

Lidl Plus Wrapped is a textbook example of smart brand marketing. By turning mundane shopping data into playful, personalized content—and adding a discount at the end—Lidl transforms entertainment into a purchase incentive. It’s retail gamification at its finest. Clever, if slightly unsettling.

Fitness chain Basic-Fit follows a similar logic, offering users a yearly recap of workouts, favorite exercises, and goals achieved. Once again, personal data becomes a tool for motivation and retention.

On the flip side, the worst Wrapped experiences feel forced, add nothing new, or—worse—rub our faces in uncomfortable truths. Nobody wants to be reminded they spent 847 hours scrolling a dating app with nothing to show for it.

Between nostalgia and narcissism: why we love (and hate) recaps 🪞

Psychologically, Wrapped taps into several powerful cognitive biases. First, the recency effect: we love reflecting on a period that’s just ended. Then there’s quantified gratification—seeing our choices turned into numbers gives our year a sense of structure and meaning.

There’s also an undeniable narcissistic element. These recaps let us stage ourselves and curate a digital identity: Look how eclectic my music taste is. See how loyal I am to my favorite artists. Admire my commitment to this community. Every Wrapped is an opportunity for self-branding.

But beyond narcissism lies something deeper: nostalgia. Reliving your year through stats often brings back memories. That song you played on repeat all summer. That album that carried you through a rough patch. That podcast that shifted your perspective. Wrapped is essentially a digital madeleine—Proust, but powered by algorithms.

A future that’s even more “wrapped”? 🔮

There’s no sign of this trend slowing down. If anything, it’s accelerating. Each year brings new recaps and new brands jumping on the bandwagon, while existing platforms keep layering on features.

Spotify Wrapped 2025 is a perfect example. Released in early December, it introduced Wrapped Party, a new social feature that lets you invite up to nine friends and compare stats in real time. The algorithm even assigns roles: the obsessive, the scout, the curator. Spotify turns a personal retrospective into a competitive social game.

The question is no longer whether we’ll see more Wrapped experiences—but how far this will go. Will we soon get recaps of our public transport usage? Online shopping habits? Google searches? Lidl Plus Wrapped already proves that even grocery shopping is “wrappable.”

What’s next? Energy consumption recaps? Daily steps? Uber Eats orders?

The risk is that this obsession with metrics disconnects us from the experience itself. When everything is quantified, we risk living for the numbers rather than the moment. And yet, these same data points can help us understand ourselves better, spot patterns, and become more aware of our habits.

As always, it depends on how we choose to use them.

So—are you Team Wrapped or Team Overdose?
Do you eagerly wait for your Spotify recap, or does the concept feel like it’s running out of steam? And more importantly: would you really share your Lidl shopping stats on Instagram, or should some data stay private?

Let us know in the comments.