One of my favorite films is 2008’s Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. The first time I watched this movie I was inspired to move to New York City, fall in love with a stranger at a concert, and explore the city all night. Now that I live here for school, I am determined to live the film’s exact plot. The two main characters, Nick and Norah, bond over their shared love of a band called Where’s Fluffy. One special line in the film that really struck me is when Norah scrolls through the songs on Nick’s iPod and says “this is amazing… you are literally like my musical soulmate.” While I am yet to experience the adventure part of the film, I did in fact find a “musical soulmate” …who unfortunately lives nowhere near New York City.
About two months ago, I followed an old schoolmate on Spotify. He moved to another country a few years ago and I had never spoken to him before, but I knew we had similar taste in movies because we briefly talked about the film The King of Staten Island and its bomb soundtrack, as well as my favorite film 10 Things I Hate About You. I had never before met someone who liked the same actors, movies, shows, or artists as me; usually my friends think my taste in all things pop culture is “weird” or have never even heard of the things I talk about. I know I am overreacting because most of these artists are pretty common, but there are certain things that are just too specific, I thought no one else liked but me. What are the odds?
I had a total Norah moment when one night I decided to scroll through this guy’s multiple playlists. He had songs from The King of Staten Island, which I had downloaded after I watched the film months before we talked about it, a Shawn Mendes song, and a few throwback songs from an old Disney Channel Original movie. I even discovered new artists, like The Weeknd and Kid Cudi, who I only knew from the songs they had on soundtracks to Pete Davidson’s work. This was the craziest thing ever to me because I do not know this person very well, but we are so alike when it comes to our pop culture interests. It reminds me of the elevator scene in the film (500) Days of Summer, where Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel’s characters meet for the first time and bond over their love of The Smiths. I even saw a Tiktok where a girl said she told a boy about a song she wanted to play at her wedding – and it was already on his playlist. This does happen in real life! It’s a crazy coincidence, but it is the coolest thing ever.
I liked so many songs from this guy’s playlists, even new ones I decided to listen to just out of curiosity, that I decided to make a separate playlist of all of them. I made two. The first one included more songs that are not on his playlists, like ones by Machine Gun Kelly or Gavin DeGraw, with songs from this boy’s playlist sprinkled in there so it wasn’t obvious. I then created an entirely separate playlist where I scrolled through each of his playlists and added the songs I liked to my own. The entire playlist is about four hours long. I don’t know what possessed me to do this, but I titled it “Songs I Stole from One of My Followers’ Playlists,” (OOMF for short). I think I was way too inspired by Alexandra Cooper who hosts the Call Her Daddy podcast. All her tricks for how to get into a guy’s brain or make him notice you have rubbed off on me. And it worked!
I never thought it was possible for someone to have such immaculate taste in literally everything. I was honestly shocked that someone even enjoyed talking about movies as much as I do. Usually, I am told to stop or “calm down,” so it is nice to talk once in a while about our favorite Jason Bateman movies or The Weeknd’s new single. It was extremely embarrassing when I got caught and he found out the songs were from his account, but at the same time, I wanted that to happen and the title could not have made it more obvious anyway, so I’m not mad. But, I had no intention of him finding the playlist. If he ever came across this article, I would probably die of embarrassment. I just think this is a funny story. I don’t want to sound delusional because I am aware this is merely just a coincidence, but I truly believe everything happens for a reason. Anyway, I do enjoy traveling…