Long ago (2016) on a much simpler internet, Spotify Wrapped showed up in December and everyone agreed it was kind of delightful. You learned that you listened to the same song 347 times, your personality was somehow “sad cowboy disco,” and your friends briefly revealed more about themselves than they intended. It was fun. It was shareable. It made sense.

Then the rest of the internet saw this and said:  

“We must also have a Wrapped.”

Now here we are, living in the age of the Great Wrappening.

This year alone, I have received:

  • A Spotify Wrapped
  • A LinkedIn Wrapped
  • A ChatGPT Wrapped

And most impressively, a Dairy Queen Wrapped from an app I used once in 2025 to order ice cream for my kids

I am now apparently the type of person whose “journey” with a fast food blizzard franchise requires reflection, statistics, and emotional closure.

At some point, we need to talk about this.

When Insight Becomes Noise

Marketers love these campaigns for understandable reasons. They boost engagement, they create shareable content, and they make people feel “seen.” There is an entire industry of thought leadership explaining how year in review campaigns strengthen brand loyalty and deepen customer relationships.

That is all true in theory.

In practice, however, my phone just told me that Dairy Queen was proud of the memories we made together in 2024, and I am not emotionally equipped for that level of commitment.

Not every interaction needs a retrospective.
Not every relationship is a journey.
Not every transaction is a story arc.

Some of them are just ice cream.

The Slippery Slope of Self Reflection as a Service

Once everything has a Wrapped, the concept stops being special and starts becoming background noise. Instead of “Oh cool, look at my year,” it becomes “Please stop summarizing my life, app I barely remember downloading.”

What would the next logical expansions be?

  • My thermostat sending me a “Heating Habits Wrapped.”
  • My grocery store delivering a “Bananas Consumed Wrapped.”
  • My email inbox proudly presenting “Unanswered Messages Wrapped.”

At what point do I get a Year in Review from the website that sold me socks in March?

The Emotional Inflation Problem

Spotify Wrapped worked because it felt personal and rare. It showed up once a year and captured something genuinely human about habits, taste, and identity. Now that every product, platform, and service is doing the same thing, the emotional value collapses under its own weight.

When everything is a highlight reel, nothing is.

If Dairy Queen is giving me a Wrapped, what is left for my actual life to summarize?

In Defense of Letting Some Things Be Forgettable

Not everything needs meaning.
Not everything needs analysis.
Not everything needs a digital scrapbook and a share button.

Some experiences are better when they quietly fade away, like the exact number of chicken tenders I ordered in April.

This December, I am officially asking the internet to relax.  

Spotify, you can stay.
Everyone else, maybe take a year off.
My ice cream does not need a legacy.