now playing landing page

hey there!

if you're reading this, you're likely one of the few who clicked on the CSS Spotify embed widget in my profile. thanks for stopping by.

the long and short of my situation is that the widget you see on my profile isn't my actual minute-to-minute listening activity. the webapp which generates and updates the Now Playing interface requires users to provide their Spotify User ID in the embed URL; which, in my case, is my full name. there's no way to change your Spotify username, so ultimately, having the widget hook into my actual profile would reveal my personal information. considering how often people look through my CSS for inspiration or as a rough guide for their own styles, that's not something i want to have to worry about.

therefore, i've created a throwaway Spotify account which constantly runs on a burner device (my dad's old iPhone from 2015, lol). this account has a playlist of some of my most played songs, both historically and recently; and it's what the widget uses instead of my main account. don't interpret the Now Playing as a real-time reflection of my listening — it's better thought of as a dynamic mosaic of my (normie) music taste. the Free tier for Spotify also means that its "Smart" Shuffle also cycles in random tunes from time-to-time, though so it's not like i vouch for every single tune which pops up on my profile. but it's pretty genre-aware, so i'd liken it to be reflective of my preferences either way.

then why is it titled "Now Playing," pseudo?

to which i can only say "i don't have a better name for it." as a consolation, here's my last.fm if you want a glimpse into my actual Spotify activity. i tried looking for widgets which use last‎.fm as its base instead, but i couldn't find any.

once again, thanks for swinging by 🤝

— pseudo