In Defense Of The Digital Eavesdropper
For chronic eavesdropper Mia Freund, Spotify Friend Activity is a dizzying world full of strangers' secrets and hidden tales.
By Mia Barzilay Freund
Illustration by Liam Hamill
Published
In real life, I’m an inveterate eavesdropper. Even worse, I use my Notes app like a Gen-Z Harriet the Spy, writing snippets of overheard conversations.
A few recent entries –– a woman eating a grain bowl describes how her mother intentionally gave her the wrong address to a funeral: “Virgos can be so ugly.” Points to her chest. “In here.” A guy on the F train wearing an Oura ring shows his phone to his friend: “This is me at 20 making latkes in Spain. No identity, this guy.” Swipes to another photo. “This is my mom at 30 looking stunning.” A middle-aged couple walks on the Upper East Side at night, the husband yelling: “It’s ’cause you think I’m sleeping with her!”
It’s no surprise that my eavesdropping assumed a digital form when I became a Spotify user in 2019. Spotify is, first and foremost, a music-streaming platform, but it’s also a teeming fairground. It’s an ever-spawning organism, awash with user-generated playlists and profiles awaiting discovery. Sure, there are privacy settings –– cute fences you can erect around an account. But people tend not to shield themselves from roving eyes and ears. This is where the fun begins.