Through collaborative playlists (CPs), streaming platform users have co-curated music together for various purposes for over a decade. As the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed how people come together through technology and engage with music, CPs have also taken on new roles and value. To understand how CP usage and perception have evolved since the onset of COVID-19, we conducted a mixed-methods investigation of CPs in the United States. Survey results from primarily CP users (N=142) revealed that interest in and usage of CPs have mostly increased since the pandemic, and that the role of music in connecting with others is positively correlated with the perceived impact of COVID-19. Follow-up interviews (N=9) provided additional insights into changing perceptions and usage patterns of CPs during COVID-19; for instance, fewer collaborators per playlist reflects users’ greater focus on strengthening social connections and relationships. Taken together, findings and design implications on digitally mediated co-curation further elucidate the necessity for social and collaborative experiences with music supported by CPs during COVID-19.

Music fans strategically support their artists. Their collective efforts can extend to social causes as well: In 2020 for example, ARMY—the fandom of the music group BTS—successfully organized the #MatchAMillion campaign to raise over one million USD to support Black Lives Matter. To better understand factors of fandoms’ collaborative success for arguably unrelated social goals, we conducted a survey focusing on ARMYs’ perceptions of their fandom and their social effort. Most ARMYs viewed the fandom as a community, loosely structured with pillar accounts. They reported trust in each other as well as high team composition, which mediated the relationship between their neutral psychological safety and high efficacy. Respondents attributed their success in #MatchAMillion to shared values, good teamwork, and established infrastructure. Our findings elucidate contextual factors that contribute to ARMY’s collaborative success and highlight themes that may be applied to studying other fandoms and their collaborative efforts.

Social interactions, such as sharing songs and listening together, are fundamental to the experience of music. Yet our understanding of these interactions and how they influence social dynamics with today's streaming platforms is lacking. To better understand successful instances of social music practice, we conducted a two-part study to investigate real-world usage of collaborative playlists (CPs). Using an exploratory survey, we queried CP users on characteristics---Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How---and practices around favorite CPs, which serve as concrete examples of successful social music curation on streaming platforms. We found these playlists to vary in group sizes, purposes, listening contexts, engagement behaviors, and content attributes. We also observed significant cross-category interactions; for one, group size led to differences in perceived roles and frequency of actions within users' favorite CPs. Subsequent interviews confirmed favorite CPs as being exemplary of success, and users further elucidated factors that engender and hinder CP success. Together, our results underscore the importance of social motivations for engaging in CPs and of building greater understanding around these experiences. To these point we derived six design implications to inform development of CP platforms and online music platforms at large.