A Personal Data Portrait: My Music

Our digital footprints are big - VERY big. I'm talking men's size 37 kind of big; Sasquatch big; Thanos big. The amount of our personal data that's compiled every day is staggering. In fact, at the beginning of 2020, the number of bytes in the digital sphere was 40 times bigger than the number of stars in the observable universe. And all of it's out there for anyone - be they employer, telemarketer, or crazy ex - to see, if they know where to look.

For today's post, I've decided to share a bit of my personal data - my music tastes. While a simple search of my Spotify account could tell you much more than what I've detailed here, I'll be a bit more specific about my tastes than any streaming program could typically be. That being said, now that you're seeing it, this information is out there for anyone else to see as well. So, hello world. Let me tell you how some of my favorite songs make me feel.

A bit of a mixed bag, I know. It took me a while to choose just six, but this is what I came up with. As I scrolled through my music and compiled a playlist of my favorites, I noticed a pattern. My favorite songs tend to be those that convey very strong emotions (excluding those third and fourth songs, mind you). Goosebumps are a big thing for me. If any point in the song gives me goosebumps, it means that the song makes me feel very deeply. I have to admit, in the rushed and oversimplified world we live in, I enjoy the experience of taking time to bathe in my emotions when I can.

For example, let's take fifth song on my list - "Follow You" by Bring Me the Horizon. At least to me, this song perfectly captures the experience of being so in love with someone that you'd give them anything - your life, your breath, your entire being. By university age, it's likely that quite a few of us have experienced this feeling at least once. And...I bet it hurt, didn't it? I bet it tore you apart from the inside out when you lost it. It did for me, too. But you see, the difference between true loss and emotionally intense music is that the latter won't hurt us. We can revisit that feeling of selfless adoration that once drove us. Or, for those who haven't experienced such a crushing heartbreak, we can imagine what it would be like. We can sink into these feelings without them hurting us in the same way that they would otherwise.

And this applies to more than just love songs. We can imagine we're anything and anywhere, feeling anything through music. But unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on the context) data can't capture this.

Quite often in the public eye, the entirety of our thoughts, feelings, and experiences are just boiled down to what we post online. Even this blog and this website that are entirely dedicated to my works and experiences won't even begin to scratch the surface of who I really am - nor will yours. Yet, we'll still try.