Clearly, it’s meant to evoke feelings enmeshed in the internet. While Spotify’s playlist doesn’t explicitly claim that “webcore” is a genre, the only context the playlist offers about its existence is the description: “Would you like to save before closing?” The cover art shows a digitized cityscape of skyscrapers soaked in bluish-green light. Perhaps the one true webcore song is “ENA Remix,” a tribute track and … Continue reading Although there are numerous “webcore” mixes made by listeners that predate Spotify’s editorial edition, these are aesthetic-oriented, in the same way someone aspiring to live in a cypress-wood hut in the forest with a pet gopher named Otto might sculpt a “cottagecore” soundtrack. The aesthetic is also associated with the blue-and-yellow animated character Ena, who stars in Joel G’s YouTube videos. This gif of a yassified Lin Manuel-Miranda biting his lip in pixelated perpetuity. Until now, the term Webcore has mostly applied to a visual aesthetic, often used synonymously with gauche tags like “Old Web” and “internetcore.” Think low-res computer screens, the infamous Windows XP green hill, Pictochat. It’s also an example of the amount of influence the biggest streaming platform in the world has to inflict genre names that stick.

The playlist follows others like phonk and hyperpop as the latest example of how Spotify is trying to conceptualize and market niche music scenes without fully recognizing the depth of the communities behind them. Despite the fact that “webcore” isn’t a music scene and the artists in the playlist work in an array of genres and styles, Spotify’s initiative has been relatively successful, racking up tens of thousands of likes and generating chatter online. While mapping seems useful on the surface, here it’s partly a misguided tour.

Why did Spotify make this playlist? To map out the culture, so it can feed its version of the culture back to listeners.

Aesthetic spotify playlist covers sad