FNLU, ETVU? Move over MBTI, we rediscover our colleagues' personalities through their Spotify Wrapped

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

Nope, not Christmas. We're referring to Spotify Wrapped. 

On Wednesday (Nov 30), we got to find out more about our music listening habits when the audio streaming service released its "deep dive into the music and podcasts that defined your 2022".

But this year is a little different. We got to discover our music listening personality. Are we an FNLU, ETVU or a host of other acronyms?

Move over MBTI, there's a new personality test in town.

Spotify mentioned that music listening personalities is a new feature telling you about the music you listen to and your music taste.

It's rather extensive with these four metrics:

• Familiarity (F) vs Exploration (E)
• Timelessness (T) vs Newness (N)
• Loyalty (L) vs Variety (V)
• Commonality (C) vs Uniqueness (U)

FNLU and ETVU make a lot more sense now, don't they?

The different configurations of these metrics make up 16 personalities, with quirky names such as The Devotee, The Adventurer and The Fan Clubber.

Presenting it in a fun and playful manner means that you'll undoubtedly want to share it with your friends and compare personalities.

So that's exactly what we did at AsiaOne. 

But in all honesty, we just wanted a peek at our colleagues' Spotify Wrapped and music listening personalities to judge their music taste and roast them.

The basic ones

While not one of the listening personalities on Spotify Wrapped, the Basic Ones is an apt description of our colleagues who share the same music listening personality.

In our office sit three Time Travellers (ETVU) — Melissa, Kimberly and Min Lee.

According to Spotify, the Time Traveller can be seen as a "sonic historian", always on the lookout for new music, regardless of whether it's new to the rest of the world.

Interestingly, all three are on our editorial team.

Their innate tendency to seek variety and uniqueness should bode well for AsiaOne's daily churn of off-centre on-trend content.

To be fair to our three colleagues, despite them sharing the same personality, their music tastes could not be more different.

Melissa's favourite artists include rap god Eminem and Swedish EDM giant Galantis while Kimberly's world revolves around K-pop.

Min Lee, on the other hand, is in love with local artist Stefanie Sun as well as Japanese heavy metal band Dir En Grey.

Rare finds

Looking through a few more of our colleagues' music listening personalities, one thing stood out.

We have an eclectic bunch in AsiaOne.

Quite a fair few colleagues do not share a music listening personality with anyone else.

Fun fact, there's even one or two among us who don't use Spotify at all! But I shall refrain from naming them, they've gotten enough stick in office.

Nabila and Monique, from our social media team, have rather intriguing music listening personalities.

Monique is a Devotee (FNLU), and probably an artist's dream! She's always on the ball when it comes to new releases of her favourite artists.

And once she loves a song, it'll be on repeat for quite some time.

Her top artists for 2022 include Lana Del Rey, Cigarettes After Sex and Tyler, The Creator.

Now that's a proper vibe.

Rather oddly, Spotify listed her top genre as pop. Is she secretly listening to Taylor Swift and Charlie Puth?

With a Specialist (FNVU) personality, Nabila is actually not too different from her social media buddy.

Where they vary is that Nabila prefers having some variety and tends to try out different songs before repeating them.

Our social media manager's top five artists range from the likes of Beyonce to SZA.

In fact, it's an all-women list and is likely to have you asking the question: "Who runs the world?" 

What's in store next year

By now, chances are that you've looked through your friends' music listening personalities and had a good laugh about it.

So why not try it out with your colleagues as well? It's a no-frills activity that can be eye-opening even.

That quiet and reserved colleague sitting next to you in the office might just be rocking out to the same punk-rock band as you.

Spotify Wrapped has certainly delivered in 2022, just like it did last year with audio auras.

We've yet to cross over into the new year but there's already that sense of anticipation for what Spotify Wrapped 2023 has in store for us.

For now, it's time to focus on convincing those Spotify-less colleagues to download the app to join in the fun.

ALSO READ: Harry Styles' As It Was named Spotify's most streamed song of 2022

amierul@asiaone.com

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