Performative Male’s Spotify Wrapped Reveals DARK Truths
The campus community was left unsettled Tuesday after junior Benjamin Hargrove (commonly known as “Benji”) posted his Spotify Wrapped onto his Instagram story, revealing a listening history so unnerving that many friends began sending group-chat messages asking, “Hey, is he okay?”
Benji is widely known as a performative male and was thought to be someone who drank matcha and wore a tote bag with local art on it not to appeal to the female gaze but rather that he enjoys expressing himself this way. He has long appeared to be a soft, approachable, and emotionally literate man.
But Benji’s Spotify Wrapped painted a portrait closer to “someone who plays with antique medical tools” rather than “guy who listens to Mitski.”
Unfortunately, when the Wrapped slides appeared, it became clear Benji’s inner world was less “indie boy softness” and more “I sleep in a basement on purpose.”
Benji’s Top 5 Songs
“God Told me to Kill John Lennon” - I Hate The Beatles
“John Doe Lives” - BLOXECTOMY
“Beware The Friendly Stranger” - Boards of Canada
“Lament” - Novalley
“Everything Is On the Point of Decline” - The Caretaker
Witnesses described this as “a playlist that would be featured as a court exhibit.”
The wrapped slideshow reportedly triggered a brief but noticeable drop in campus atmospheric pressure.
“I just like music that’s you know… deep,” Benji told us while stirring a vanilla matcha with a solemn intensity. During our interview, we noticed a single notebook inside his tote bag labeled “Thoughts.” Reportedly, no one has ever seen him open it.
His Instagram story reveals to us his top 5 genres.
Top 5 Genres
Dark Ambient
Dungeon Synth
Experimental Electronic
Deathgrind
Hauntology
Students in his creative nonfiction class said this revelation “put a lot of things into perspective,” such as his habit of describing lighting in the EPB as “liminal,” or his constant use of the phrase “in the decay of it all.”
The shift in perception hasn’t been limited to classmates. His roommate, Michel Haring, said the Wrapped confirmed his long-standing suspicions.
“I mean, I always had wondered,” Haring said. “He would make a big deal about listening to ‘Amoeba’ by Clairo in the morning, but then I’d hear something through the wall at night that sounded like the crackling of a worn VHS tape.”
What particularly disturbed students was the raw numerical commitment behind the chaos: Benji logged over 23,000 minutes in dark ambient alone, a genre commonly associated with abandoned warehouses and existential spiral montages.
When confronted with the discrepancy between his branding and his listening habits that resembled the soundtrack of a found-footage horror film, Benji insisted the results were “taken out of context.”
“I do listen to Mitski,” he added defensively. Investigation later confirmed Spotify autoplayed “First Love/Late Spring” once while he was asleep
When Benji posted his Wrapped to Instagram with the caption “lol don’t judge me 🤭💖,” prompting four separate acquaintances to text each other:
“So… should we be worried or what?”