What’s up with all the year‑in‑review “wraps” from every app under the sun?

In the first installment of the new What Is This? series — a tongue‑in‑cheek take on the weird, wonderful, and downright baffling things happening in the world — Michael breaks down the explosion of year‑in‑review summaries from Spotify to LinkedIn to ChatGPT. Whether you love them, ignore them, or scratch your head at them, this episode invites you to laugh at the absurdity, think critically about digital culture, and remember what truly matters beyond an algorithm.

1. Explore why every app seems to think your year needs a wrap and what that reflects about our attention economy
2. Laugh a little (or a lot) at the quirks of modern tech marketing
3. Remember that no app summary can capture your real life - the hard moments, the joy, the resilience, the ripples you put into the world

Press play to enjoy a blend of humor, reflection, and a grounded reminder: the only person who gets to define your year is you — not an algorithm.

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 What is this? Well, this happens to be whole again, and I'm Michael, and this is your place to help you navigate today's uncertainty with a bit more grace. And if you listen to last Friday's episode, you heard me share that throughout this year I'll be doing a series called What is this, which will be episodes that will be as close as al ever get to ranting.

But they're meant to be tongue in cheek observations to make sense of the world, give us something to laugh about, reflect on as we continue to pedal forward together. But before we dive in, I think I should give you some background. So I was out visiting my oldest daughter. She lives out in Colorado. We went to this great taco place, awesome tacos.

Great service. You name it, great place. Love it. Five stars. And when the bill came, the waitress explained their tipping protocol at the restaurant. It was very well intended. It was about trying to keep everyone in the restaurant that worked there whole, all the people in the back of the house that you never see.

It was their way to help spread all the tips to all the different staff members that were working that day. Awesome idea comes from a good place in their heart, but the way the waitress explained the whole system, I was so confused, and I like to think I'm pretty decent at math. And so when I wrote the review and put it up on Google again, gave the restaurant five stars, I did put in the whole tipping protocol at the restaurant, and one of the lines I used was, what is this?

When my oldest daughter read it, she just started busting a gut and I started laughing and we just thought it was really funny and the whole experience sparked this series that I wanna share with you this year in hopes that you'll think it's funny as well, because I think life is pretty damn funny.

It's crazy, and we do. Sometimes very well-intended stuff, but we make it super complicated and some things are just simply bizarre or just crazy, and we don't know how to make sense of it. So we like to poke at it to have some fun with it. And sometimes when we talk about mindfulness and resilience, we don't laugh.

We're so damn serious. So this is all an effort to infuse more laughter into our lives. Highlight things that just make us scratch our heads and take a moment to laugh. There are a lot of crazy things out in the world. There are a lot of disturbing things out in the world, and we can offer space to those things and take those things very seriously and we can also laugh our asses off because life is pretty freaking funny.

Well before the pandemic, they delivered their first rap. Now we can criticize Spotify for a number of things, including how little they pay their artists, but we can send them some love for coming up that first wrap. And I will say I love getting my wrap. I'm not some curmudgeon telling the kids to get off my lawn.

I will say Spotify and us, we had a good thing going until, I'm not sure if you've ever seen the movie Gremlins. One of the rules was don't feed them after midnight, because if you do, they'll multiply. Well, some Chucklehead out there decided to feed Spotify's wrap, and now it seems like every app out there has a wrap.

Am I right? I got one from LinkedIn, which I totally didn't need. No one really needs that. But the straw that broke the camel's back was when I got a year in review from chat GPT, and this is the point in the episode, I have to say, friends, what are we doing? What is this? Do we really need this? Do we need every company to copy Spotify and give us a year in review?

And by now, we do know, right, that this is just a marketing stunt to keep us on their platforms longer so advertisers can sell us more stuff that we don't need. That's why they give us a rank, because who wants to be ranked low? If we're ranked low, we'll spend more time on their platform, which is good for the company, and also drives a whole bunch of comparison, which we don't need because we already have enough comparison in the world.

Anyway, so what is this? If they're fun for you, awesome sauce, but regardless of what happens to be in your year in review or on your wrap. I'll offer you this, that every day last year you showed up through moments of grief and overwhelm and heartbreak and worry and anxiety, and you also experienced moments of love and joy and happiness, and excitement and awe through all those moments.

All the moments that are not captured in any year in review or any rap. You continued to show up and you tried your best to put a beautiful ripple into the world and in my algorithm, I think that's pretty freaking amazing and you should celebrate your badass and keep pedaling into this year. And when all your year and reviews come flooding into your inbox or on your phone in 11 months, just know this.

They don't define you. The only person that gets to do that is you. And I hope you see that. You're amazing and the world needs your energy.

And as always, thanks for being here and thank you for being part of our community. I hope you'll check out our future episodes coming up, and if this one resonated with you, let me know and I hope you'll share it with a friend. And until our next episode, remember, together we go far. And when we do, we put a beautiful ripple into the world,

and if you wish to further enhance your digital health, I'll invite you to take my smartphone wellness check and you can access it through the link in the show notes. Or you can visit my website, which is Michael O'Brien shift.com, and it's absolutely free. And it will help you scroll less and live more.

And of course, I hope you'll join us here on whole again every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and discover how to heal, grow, and become more resilient and celebrate our scars as golden symbols of strength and resilience. Until then, remember, you can always come back to your breath. You've got this. And we've got you.