Spotify’s year-end Wrapped feature was developed in three months by an intern

Spotify Wrapped, the end-of-year window into the soul of your listening habits which folks can’t help but share with everyone else, is the work of a young gun who was in-between gigs.

That’s the word according to independent artist Jewel Ham, who took to Twitter to inform her 7,000-plus followers of the little-known fact.

“I really invented the spotify wrapped story concept as an intern project in 2019 and they havent looked back since LMAO,” the aptly-named Jewel wrote.

The tweet has since blown up with more than 189,000 likes, 24,000 retweets and thousands of comments.

“To clarify,” Jewel writes in a followup, “for those of yall unfamiliar with #SpotifyWrapped – it used to be an email and a playlist. since 2019, it has become an interactive user experience and that right there – was my idea!”

i cant make this up! https://t.co/OMM1n6sK7u pic.twitter.com/TMHmNvlztk

— jewel (@whateverjewel) December 2, 2020

If Jewel is right, and she’s the brainiac behind the clean new version, she has every right to brag about her place in the history of streaming music.

Spotify first branded and pushed out their review of your annual faves at the end of 2016, but it didn’t take the shape of a bite-size, buzzy and shareable format until 2019.

That’s precisely when it took off.

Spotify now boasts 320 million users, including more than 140 million Premium subscribers, all of whom got their hands on their Wrapped playlists in early December.

In the fourth quarter of 2019, Spotify counted 271 monthly active users and 124 million “paid” subscribers.

Matter explored the story and Jewel’s handiwork. The early incarnation of Wrapped, presented on a microsite and emailed to Spotify’s database, was rebuilt into the clicky, interactive feature we know today in just three months, according to the report.

Soon after, Spotify shot to No. 9 on the U.S. app store.

That’s some calling card. It’s safe to say, Jewel’s internship is well and truly over.

For the record, the most-streamed song on Spotify globally in 2020 was The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights,’ followed by Tones And I’s ‘Dance Monkey,’ while Puerto Rico’s Bad Bunny was the most-streamed artist.

In Australia, Juice WRLD was the most streamed artist, ahead of Drake and Taylor Swift, respectively.

This article originally appeared on The Industry Observer, which is now part of The Music Network.