Senior Carly Bogdajewicz has created more than 200 public playlists on Spotify. She has more than 67,000 followers and is verified on the app. 

Bogdajewicz’s playlists range from the gentle and nostalgic “mocha & lavender” to the pounding, expletive-heavy protest titled “f the male gaze.” She has also created a series of playlists dedicated to each type in the Enneagram, a personality quiz which has become increasingly popular in the last three decades.

Bogdajewicz grew up in Westfield, Indiana and is studying chemical engineering and environmental science. In addition to music, she enjoys visual art. She didn’t view music as a form of art until high school. Once she came to see it as on equal footing to other forms, however, her passion for it grew. “It’s something that I just really cannot create myself,” Bogdajewicz said, “and so I think it’s so cool to hear all the stuff that people can create.”

Bogdajewicz told Chimes she enjoys analyzing lyrics, as well as the mood-shaping capacity of music. “You can find music for any mood you’re in,” Bogdajewicz said.

Although she started building playlists in high school, the popularity of her work didn’t take off until sophomore year of college, when she began posting playlists on social media. “My playlists were something that people enjoyed looking at … It was a lot of fun to share them with people that were just as excited about them as I was.” 

Fellow student Claire Winiarski, who knew Carly before her Spotify fame, told Chimes: “Carly has always been someone who was discovering the newest song or finding the latest upcoming artist … She is so creative and never fails to think out of the box to create something super unique that appeals and is relatable to so many people.”

Now, she meets people everywhere from local concerts to Peet’s who are familiar with her Spotify profile, from which her fans tune in to carefully-tended vibes like “cherry / wine” and “polaroids & people.”

“It results from me finding a song that I really love, the mood that it creates, the message of it, and I want to find more songs like it, that can prolong that mood that it gives me,” Bogdajewicz said. Her usual process involves listening to lots of music that might fit, often while studying.

Bogdajewicz said she’s found particular joy in playlist-making in college. As an engineering student and athlete, she hasn’t had time for many other “creative escapes”. Bogdajewicz spends time running cross country and track and doing water research in Ecuador when not cultivating her online presence.

Bogdajewicz’s music taste tends to lean indie, alternative and folk. “I haven’t quite gotten into rap yet,” Bogdajewicz said, “but I’m working on it.”