Music fans joke that they try to curate their style at the last minute so they look cool when their Spotify Wrapped list comes out.

Every year, the audio streaming giant releases insights into subscribers’ own music tastes based on the most listened to songs, artists and genres. Spotify Wrapped also evaluates your data to compare it to broader listening trends.

It’s released every year in late November or December, and in advance of it, people have joked that they change their listening style at the last minute to appear cooler when Wrapped comes out.

Many Spotify subscribers shared in posts on X, formerly Twitter, how they tried to hack the system by listening to certain songs over and over again.

“Imagine hating me, a girl just in her room trying to change the trajectory of her Spotify stream before it’s too late,” @jennifermerr wrote.

“This time of year I put certain songs on repeat to hack my Spotify,” wrote @marywana_.

“Spotify Wrapped is out in a week and all I’m worried about is which of the random songs I fixated on for two days then completely gave up on will make it into my top 10,” @Chiefkis wrote.

Others joked that they didn’t have to worry about being hacked because they were confident in their taste in music.

“I have no reason to be embarrassed about my Spotify inclusion. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve heard this year so I just have to accept my fate…” posted by @lyricsyoumigh.

And @ju0nyah added: “I just realized Spotify Wrapped is coming soon… I have amazing taste in music so I don’t need any last minute changes.”

Bad news for the “hackers”

For people hoping to make a last-minute change to their listening habits, the bad news is that Spotify only collects your listening data from January 1st to October 31st, meaning it doesn’t take people’s listening habits into account for almost two months .

Spotify explained its reasons for doing so in a 2021 interview.

“The reason we have this hard cut-off is purely in the interest of campaign logistics,” said Brendan Codey, deputy director of Creator Growth and Programs at Spotify.

“We need to QA (quality assurance) the site and finalize the assets for Wrapped, all of which takes a while. If you factor in Thanksgiving, we have even less time.”

When will Spotify Wrapped 2024 take place?

Spotify hasn’t revealed the release date of Spotify’s latest edition, only telling subscribers: “Your listening highlights and more.” Keep playing what you love and we’ll contact you when it’s ready.”

“2023 Wrapped” was released on November 29th and 2022 was released on November 30th. More than two years earlier, Spotify released “Wrapped” in December, on December 5th and 6th.