Never, Never Gonna Give You Up

Last night, I obtained an enormous set of Barry White mp3s through (uhm) confidential means and loaded them onto my iTunes library. Don't ask me why but I've been going though a bit of a 70s Soul music phase lately. Under my current iTunes settings, my entire iTunes library is shared among my local network. Since I am a college student living in a college dormitory, this instantly shares all of my newly acquired Barry White files with the entire building.

All this tinkering with iTunes made me wonder, what do other people think of me?

I'm sure every college student has had this exact same moment some time or another while browsing through shared libraries on his or her network. This phenomenon easily extends beyond the reach of iTunes to include anybody who has every browsed another person's file library over a p2p file sharing program. While glancing through somebody's music selection, have you ever wondered who is that person behind the p2p firewall?

I don't mean "Who is that person?" as in his or her name and address, but rather who he or she is in a much more abstract and metaphorical sense. I mean, "Who is napstar_roxors2121?" as in what is his or her personality? Where did he or she grow up and how did he or she come to discover and covet The White Stripes? And did they really personally rate Aqua with five stars?

One's music selection says a lot about one's personality, but usually when you meet somebody new, you meet him or her along with his or her music selection at the same time. In the past you needed to know somebody' name and address before they gave you a tour of their record collection. Nowadays however, with the distance that modernity has placed between us, you might even get to know somebody through their facebook profile, myspace page, and iTunes shared library before you ever meet. All of these resources contain many elements of the owner's personality so its not entirely impossible to imagine the individual behind the embarrassingly large Powerman 5000 collection. You might even become accustomed to somebody's "personality" and even rely on ssj4gotenks777 to supply your hankering for some JPOP. I can imagine several instances where I have relied on somebody else's shared library for a few certain albums that I always returned to now and then.

I'm sure everyone who has ever gone through an anonymous music library has done the same, but have you ever constructed an individual based on his or her music preferences? Have you ever imagined what kind of personality this library must have such whether he or she is somber, bubbly, intellectual, or angry? Ever wondered how he or she might dress or wear their hair? When you see a long series of hip-hop songs, surely some image comes to mind. The same applies to a long series of emo bands or obscure bands you've never heard of.

All of the above is directly related to the fact that I just added a gigantic set of Barry White albums to my iTunes library. I am no way kidding when I say that this set is huge. The number of Barry White songs is absolutely astronomical (around 400) and while scrolling through my iTunes library, rows with the words "Barry White" occupy a reasonably large section of real estate. Who is this skyxie guy that loves Barry White so much? What is the purpose of having so many Barry White songs, some of which are even duplicates from different albums? What is this guy planning on doing with so much Barry White? Exactly what kind of person has hundreds of Barry White songs?

To be honest, I think this guy is pretty baller.